Note: I was technically supposed to post this earlier this week, but noticed that no one was signed up for today (plus I was super busy earlier), so I'm posting a bit late, under a throwaway account! Fair warning: I'm VERY verbose, so this will be long!
Section One: Assets and Debt
As I mentioned above, I make $56k per year as an administrator in higher education. My husband (K) just got a raise to making $155k per year. He works as a lawyer, has been in the workforce for about 12 years. I won't get into too many details but he works for a small boutique firm, not Biglaw. He also sometimes gets a yearly bonus of around $10k-20k but it's not guaranteed or anything like that. K and I have totally combined finances, so the below numbers are for both of us. I have a humanities PhD but I decided to leave academia and find an alt-ac job. My current position has good work-life balance (I never work past 5 pm), but pays terribly and my university is very badly run. I'm hoping to leave higher education all together in the future and am currently enrolled in a certificate program to try to make a career transition to instructional design.
The big elephant in the room is that my husband, K, makes a lot more money than me. When we first met, he was paying off massive amounts of student loans and making much less, and I was debt free with a lot of savings, so we both spent about the same amount. Now he makes 3x what I make and we are both debt-free, so the difference is much more noticeable. We do argue about money sometimes (more in the past), but the reality is that I have a humanities PhD and will likely never out earn him, and he knew that when I married him, lol. Because of all the labor I do around the house and in our lives to support him as he works a much more intense job, I was very clear that I believed we should split our finances equally as soon as we got married. We don't have separate accounts and we generally check in with one another whenever we are planning to spend more than $100. This system works for us for now.
I also want to address the question about parental or family support. Although I technically paid all of my own bills since I got my Bachelor's degree, my parents supported me a lot by paying for my flights home to visit at Christmas or in the summer as Xmas presents/birthday presents. My parents also paid for my undergraduate degree (and K's parents paid for his undergraduate degree as well). They also gave us about $15k to pay for our wedding.
Finally, my parents recently gave me $20k as an "early inheritance." They told me they plan to do this every year (depending on the stock market). We put this money into a brokerage. I don't consider my parents rich, as they both worked hourly jobs in health care my entire life (as a nurse and respiratory therapist - both with only associate's degrees). We never owned a new car, when we went on vacation we stayed in hostels , and shopped almost exclusively at Goodwill. But they scrimped and saved and now they have over $1 million in a retirement account. So I want to acknowledge my financial privilege in that I came from this kind of background. K's parents are similar.
Retirement Balance: $186k (combination of 401k, 403b, 457, 2 Roth IRAs, and taxable brokerage account).
Equity: None, we rent.
Savings account balance: Approximately $45k.
Checking account balance: Right now, around 8k.
Credit card debt: Right now, around $3k. But we pay it off each month with our checking account balance.
Student loan debt: $0. We finally paid off my husband’s law school loans (around $130k), last year. I didn’t have any student loans from undergrad (parents paid) and my MA & PhD were fully funded.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I’ve been working in my current field for 3 years. I started off making about $53k and got tiny 2% “merit increases” twice. Then in July my payroll title was changed, which triggered a required raise of about $2k. (I am dramatically underpaid).
Before my current position, I was in academia. I worked as a visiting assistant professor for one year at my alma mater (made $50k for 9 months of work) and before that I was a graduate student for 7 years. I was paid $18k-21k in stipends each year and my tuition & benefits were covered. Luckily, I lived in a very low cost of living area and this was enough for me to live on without going into debt. I got my PhD in 2017. Before I was a graduate student, I taught English in Japan for three years and made around $36k per year. In high school and college, I had random jobs that provided grocery/spending money, but I was lucky enough to have parents that paid my tuition and my rent in college.
I’m currently trying to make a career change (as you will see in my diary) and enrolled in a certificate program which runs from Autumn 2020 to Spring 2021 in order to help with that.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $7,634. This probably seems low relative to our joint income, but we max out our 401k (K) and 403b (me). I work for the state government, which means I’m also eligible for something called a Deferred Compensation Plan (457b). This is basically the same as a 401k but you can withdraw contributions and gains from the account at any age without penalty (of course, you still have to pay taxes). I also max this out, and the limit is the same as a 401k/403b - $19.5k. Also this number is before K’s raise is accounted for. It won’t increase until his end of February paycheck.
Other deductions - I have health insurance taken out (about $80 a month for me, K’s firm covers his premiums) and taxes. WA has no state taxes, so it’s only federal taxes. I used to have to pay $50 / month for a bus pass (K's was free), but I don’t pay any longer because I’m working from home during COVID.
Final note - the sum I mentioned in the headline includes a variable bonus my husband gets. My base pay is $56k and his is $155k (as of February 1). This year he also got a bonus of $20k, which is set up a bit strangely. About $4k of this was structured as a 3% matching contribution to his 401k and the rest was taxable income. In small law firms, it’s unusual to get any 401k match so this was nice.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: None.
Any Other Monthly Income Here: We get some interest from our savings account… like $25 a month.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent: Rent comes to approximately $2,050 total for a one-bedroom apartment. Rent itself is $1886, then we have pet rent ($25 per month), bicycle parking ($15 a month) and water / sewage / gas, which is usually $120-150 (variable cost).
Renters insurance: $157.76, paid annually. $13 a month.
Retirement contribution: In addition to the 401k, 403b, and 457, which all come out before taxes, we max out our Roth IRAs. That means $500 each per month per person (for a yearly total of $6k each). As I noted up top, we match out our 401k and 403b (19,500 each) and our 457. My employee also offers a 7.5% match. K's employee offers a 3% match but it is included in his yearly bonus so it's not guaranteed (confusing).
Savings contribution: We put $500 per month into our emergency fund. We also put about $860 a month into our “sinking fund,” which covers large and small annual or sporadic purchases such as vacations, gifts, Amazon Prime renewal, car insurance and renters insurance, etc.
Investment contribution: $875 per month into a taxable brokerage at Vanguard.
In total, we save about 47% of our gross income. We can do this because we keep our housing cost low relative to our high income, we don’t have any debt remaining, we don’t have any kids or parents who need financial support, and we’re very privileged in a lot of ways. We are hoping to FIRE within 10 years.
Debt payments: None.
Donations: We budget $100 per month for donations, which includes one-time donations as well as some reoccurring donations. My husband does pro bono work as well. I would like to increase this by quite a bit, but I still have a hard time budgeting for donations because I spent 7 years living on approximately $20k a year. To go from that to making more than 10x that amount within 3-4 years is obviously something that I am very privileged for, but it is still hard for me emotionally to comprehend at times.
Electric: ~$50-100 (billed every other month)
Wifi/Cable/Landline: An extortionate $87.12 for slow internet that only works for Zoom calls about half the time. Do I really live in one of the tech cities of the future?
Cellphone: $170 (This includes both service and paying off two new iPhones. We could have paid them off up front, but it was actually cheaper by like $50 to go on a payment plan.)
Subscriptions: BritBox ($7.70), Spotify ($16.50), HBOMax ($16.50), We Hate Movies Patreon (my favorite podcast - $8.81). My parents pay for Netflix and my sister pays for Hulu, and we all share.
Gym membership: None. K and I both run and do yoga with YouTube videos. Before the pandemic, we went to yoga classes pretty frequently in person. I’d like to do some online synchronous yoga classes but find it hard to make time.
Pet expenses: Varies, but I budget $50 per month and also include an emergency fund for my cat’s vet bills in our sinking fund. She’s 11 years old and probably asthmatic, so I know her vet bills are going to increase over time.
Car payment / insurance: We own our car outright. Insurance billed yearly is $2,097, about $174 per month.
Regular therapy: $0
Paid hobbies: Nothing regular, sporadic language classes and art supplies.
Other expenses: Right now I’m doing a certificate to hopefully help with a career change. The total cost for tuition is about $5k and we already saved it up (included in our 'sinking fund') basically through spending less during the pandemic. I’ve paid two quarters so far, and the last quarter (due in March) will be a bit more - about $2.3k.
__________
Day 1
Morning: I wake up at 5:30 am. Ever since the pandemic, my sleep schedule has been shot. At first, I was so happy not to have to leave the house at 7:15 for my 45 minute bus commute and I slept in a lot. But the stress (and maybe getting old?) has made me an early riser, no matter how much I try to sleep in. I do value my early mornings with just me, my cat, and my coffee, though.
I start work at 8 am and begin by triaging my emails. I have a bunch of deadlines this week, so it’s busier than usual. My job tends to be very seasonal, and sometimes I have a ton of work and sometimes I have none and can work on other longer-term projects. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and place a Whole Foods delivery order for the following day at 10:30 am. We made a meal plan and put everything in the cart the day before ($117.36, including tip).
Afternoon: I have my lunch break from noon to 1 pm. It doesn’t really matter when I take my lunch break, since I’m salaried, but the others in my office are hourly so in the before times we used to always close our office during the same time. I have a piece of leftover delivery pizza and some spinach risotto that I made a few days earlier. I also have half a brownie – the last one from a batch I made a few days ago (K gets the other half). He also has leftovers for lunch.
I should say at this point that both K and I are lucky enough to have been working almost entirely from home since early March. An area near Seattle was one of the first places to get hit by COVID-19, and my state and both of our employers have been taking it very seriously ever since. Working from home hasn’t always been easy since we live in a 600-square foot apartment. Also, there is a three-story townhouse being built directly next door to us and I can hear the pounding in my dreams at this point.
Around 2 pm, I go for a 2-mile run. I feel like some money diarists tend to toss off things like “oh, I went for an easy 7 mile run,” at the drop of a hat, so I want to be clear – running for 2 miles isn’t easy for me; it’s exhausting, annoying, sweaty, and generally gross. Also I am very slow. But it has kept me sane during quarantine.
Meanwhile, my husband goes to our local pet store to get an enzymatic cleaner (our cat peed in one of our suitcases… I think it’s probably a lost cause, but it was basically brand new, so worth a try) and special weight-loss cat food. Our cat is an 11-year-old rescue from the Humane Society and she is a chonky girl. We had to sign a waiver when we adopted her, saying that we understood that she was very overweight, lol. Our vet recommended a special diet food, rather than just restricting her intake as we have been doing, so we will give it a try ($78). My husband also stops buy our local wine store and picks up two bottles. We’ve been doing a dry January, so this will be our first drink for a while ($27.53).
I have a phone interview scheduled for 4 pm – just a preliminary interview with an internal recruiter. It’s the first ‘corporate’ job interview I’ve ever had, since I’ve been in academia my entire life. I’m trying to make a pivot into instructional design / training and development. I’m just excited to get an interview. It seems to go pretty well, but who knows. They tell me they will probably get back to me by the end of this week.
Evening: My husband whips up a random meal of fridge remnants – pesto pasta with sausage and a fridge salad with feta and bell peppers. It’s pretty tasty with a little Sauvignon Blanc. During dinner, we play a card game we call gin rummy, although it bears no resemblance to the actual game. After dinner, I make a chocolate cake with orange buttercream frosting and we watch Cobra Kai.
Daily total: $222.89
Day 2
Morning: Up early again, a piece of toast for breakfast (very exciting). We’re out of eggs until our Whole Foods order arrives. I’m working on creating some tedious but necessary spreadsheets this morning.
Noon: Our Whole Foods order arrives around noon. Excitement! They’ve given us a half-rotten bag of romaine lettuce and substituted pecans for hazelnuts. I should probably just double mask and go to Trader Joe’s myself (our regular spot, only a 5-minute walk from my apartment). I’m just getting anxious about these new variants.
I have leftover meatloaf and spinach risotto again for lunch. Lots of meetings and more organizing spreadsheets in the afternoon. Around 3 pm, I go for my daily ritual - a 20-minute walk around my neighborhood. It’s still raining slightly but I need to get out. Halfway through the walk, I get an email from my apartment manager telling me the apartment will no longer accept debit card payments, direct deposit, or credit card payments for paying rent. In other words, only checks or money orders (?!). Ugh. Our lease is up in 4 months and we will not be renewing our lease. Our last apartment manager was a gambling addict who may have been stealing people’s identities, but by God, he kept things working. Ever since they fired him, this place has been going downhill.
Evening: I check my bank statements to update my budget spreadsheet and realize that I have been billed the wrong amount of rent. They actually charged me less than they should have. I don’t trust my apartment manager not to start charging me a late fee or something for this, so I call them up. They are baffled by how to fix this, which you would think would be the one thing you would want to get right, if you’re renting out apartments.
K cooks dinner – steak with a Roquefort sauce and glazed brussels sprouts. It’s from a French cookbook we recently bought and it is delicious. I work on classwork for my certificate program while he cooks. After dinner, I do the dishes and buy the 13th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I watch the first episode – lots of shocking twists and turns! I’m planning to watch the rest of the episodes together with my younger sister, M ($22.01).
Daily total: $22.01
Day 3
Morning: K has an 8 am dentist appointment, so he takes off early. He already paid for the work last month, so there’s no charge. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and get to work checking my emails. It’s 8:20 am and the construction crew building a townhouse next door is blasting mariachi music. I’m glad someone is having fun. At least the sun is coming out.
Someone at work has made a critical error, but it wasn’t me, thank God. I was the one who found out about it, but it’s still going to cause a big old headache for me. I’m ready to be done with this job. K and I go for a run so that I can exhaust myself enough to no longer be furious about said careless error.
Noon: I have leftover spinach risotto and meatloaf again – exciting. I’m busy at work but frankly, not a lot going on other than that. Still no word about fixing my rent payments. I’m not really willing to pursue this any further at this point.
Evening: I start making chili (Turkey Chili from the NY Times) and cornbread (from my new cookbook, Jubilee). K is doing some work on our investments when he announces that, somehow, a transfer was scheduled from our checking account to our savings account of $55k (?!) We obviously don’t have $55k in our checking account, so we start frantically trying to figure out what’s going on. Numerous phone calls later, we still don’t know if that was a hack, if my husband somehow mistakenly scheduled the transfer himself, or if the bank messed it up. Either way, it doesn’t seem like any harm was done since the bank with our checking account just declined the transaction. But it seems really strange and worrisome. We get to work changing the passwords on all of our accounts, just in case it was some kind of hack.
After dinner (and chocolate cake), I have a Zoom happy hour with a local friend. We occasionally see each other outside but it’s nice to have a longer chat from the comfort of our living rooms. We both love murder mysteries, so we signed up for a service where a company sends us letters with clues and we try to solve the mystery together. It’s a fun way to stay connected and look forward to something during the pandemic. The service costs about $15 per month, but I paid for it in lump sum for 3 months, so it’s not included in my budget above. I drink some wine and we vent about work (we work at the same place) before getting started on the puzzle.
Daily total: $0
Day 4
Morning: I sleep in a bit, which is nice. Get up around 7 am. My parents are both getting their 2nd vaccine today – they’re both in their 70s and I am so relieved. I send my mom a “congratulations on being vaccinated!” text and we chat for a bit. I have leftover cornbread with honey and butter for breakfast – soooo good.
Work is not particularly exciting today, but someone sends me a last-minute request for something that does not need to be so urgent. I feel annoyed. Still no word from the interviewers on Monday, and I’m beginning to suspect I wasn’t selected to move forward. Too bad. K pays for a Wordpress website for the year (it’s a work-related website, but sadly his work doesn’t reimburse him). It costs $92.48.
Noon: The mariachi music is particularly loud today. I stand out on my balcony in the sun for a while and watch the workers. It’s been interesting seeing a house go up next door in real time, especially since I’m at home all the time. The workers are balancing on the top of the third story wall without, as far as I can see, anything like a safety line. It seems unsafe, but I presume they know what they’re doing.
We booked a cabin for the upcoming weekend in the Hood Canal region of Washington to do some hiking and birdwatching. I want to be as safe as possible and not go to any grocery stores or risk spreading COVID in any way while I’m there, so I place another grocery order with Whole Foods just for some special treats for the weekend. The cabin has a small kitchen and a grill, so we’re planning to make a fancy steak salad on Saturday. I order chips and hummus, some fancy cheese and meats, Tate’s cookies (I’ve heard a lot of good things about these), a baguette, and the ingredients for the steak salad. I also order a few staples I forgot in our last order, like sweet potatoes, more coffee, and half and half. It comes to $87.41, including tip, but that does include like $30 worth of steak. For some reason, I can’t order a small amount of steak online, so I’m planning to freeze half of it for later. (I include this purchase in our vacation fund budget, rather than under our regular grocery budget).
Around 2 pm, K makes a quick trip to our local wine store to buy an Oregon pinot noir and some port to enjoy at the cabin ($59.45). This store has an outdoor walk-up counter where you can tell the owner what you’re looking for, and he brings you some options (the store is way too small to allow customers to enter during Covid). It’s fun to chat with another human being, even briefly.
Evening: After work, we spend a little time rebalancing our investing and retirement accounts. We decide to put more money into bonds and a little bit into REIT’s as a hedge against a potential crash or recession in the future. Then I start making dinner – Broken Eggs (Huevas Rotas) from the NY Times cooking site. You basically cook the potatoes in a skillet in water, spices, and olive oil, and then sauté them to crisp them up once the water evaporates. Then you add onion, lots of garlic, and finally some eggs. It is delicious. I eat it with leftover cornbread while watching RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13 with my sister – we watch the first two episodes. It’s full of twists and turns. A note about this – we have an elaborate procedure for watching shows together developed during quarantine whereby we start the show at the same with an earbud in one ear, while FaceTiming. I also have chocolate cake, of course.
Later, I get an email that I’ve signed up for HBO on Amazon Prime. I definitely have not. I text my mom, who shares my account, and she tells me she signed up by mistake. I cancel right away and luckily they won’t charge us for it.
Meanwhile, K is doing an online Japanese language class over Zoom. He’s been interested in learning ever since we went to Japan last January. I lived in Japan for 3 years so I was able to take us around to a lot of more obscure places and he really enjoyed the trip – it was a blast.
K starts a YouTube yoga class (from Do Yoga With Me – my favorite channel) and I join him for part of it before bed around 10 pm.
Daily total: $239.34
Day 5
Morning: I get up around 7 am and we go for a run first thing. I prefer running early in the morning because there are fewer people to avoid during COVID. We do a different route today – it’s longer (3 miles) but has fewer hills. It’s a slog, as always, but I feel good when I get back right around 8 am. I jump straight onto my computer to start checking work emails and my husband makes us avocado and egg toast for breakfast - it is absolutely delicious.
We talk about how our bathroom smells distinctly mildewy (yay for being a grown-up because I guess this is what we talk about now) and we buy two big buckets of DampRid on Amazon ($26.60). I’ve found this to be a necessity in Seattle. Mid-morning, I take a break from work and start packing for our trip to the cabin.
Noon: I have leftover potatoes and cornbread for lunch, and my husband has the leftover chili. We finish getting ready to leave and head out right after lunch, taking a half day. The only problem is that I have attend a meeting at 3:30 pm, so we head out hoping to get there in time. Our cabin is near Quilcene in the Hood Canal region of Washington, about a 2 hour drive or a 2 hour ferry ride + drive. We are initially planning to take the ferry both ways, but realize that we mistimed the ferry departure, so we drive the whole way instead. Luckily, there’s little traffic mid-day, and we arrive at our Airbnb around 3:00 pm.
The Airbnb is beautiful! It’s a small cabin handmade by the owner, whose house is next door. It’s very rural, with a beautiful view. It’s tiny, but has a little kitchen and a waterfall-style shower with river rocks on the floor. It’s a great place to get away for a short time. Luckily, it also has good reception and I’m able to sit in on my meeting with no problems. My husband also does a little work, and then at 5 pm we’re free!
In our planning, we decided to get takeout on Friday night, since the little kitchen isn’t designed for any serious cooking. We call ahead to a local restaurant to order burgers (one of only 2 restaurants in the whole town). It’s around 5:30 pm and the place is deserted. It’s a microbrewery, but they tell us they haven’t been making beer since COVID-19 hit. None of the workers are wearing masks when I walk in, but they put them on when they see I’m wearing one. I pick up our order - a few bottled beers and burgers and fries ($49.52 including tip).
Back at our Airbnb, we watch Big Trouble in Little China and enjoy our very messy, but delicious, burgers (it costs $4.39 to rent). The movie is very campy but fun. I love silly action movies, as you will see with my other viewing choices. We wrap up the night in a very exciting fashion, eating chocolate cake and watching old episodes of the original Star Trek.
Daily total: $80.51
Day 6
Morning & noon: When we wake up around 8 am, the weather is looking thankfully clear and even sunny! We were expecting rain, so we’re really glad. We decide to go hiking today, and we head out before even having breakfast, with snacks and lunches packed. Our first destination is a hike called Mt. Zion, but unfortunately, we run into enough snow 2 miles before the trailhead that we decide to turn back. We don’t have any traction for our Subaru and don’t want to risk getting stuck on a very narrow mountain road. Instead, we drive another hour or so to the Lena Lake trailhead, a very popular and less strenuous trail. It’s about 7.5 miles roundtrip with 1200 feet of elevation gain.
By this time, it’s around 11:30, but luckily there is still parking. It’s a great hike up, and we run into relatively few people. We always mask up whenever we pass anyone, as does about 50% of the people we meet. The others… not so much. Around a mile from the lake, we start to run into snow. It’s turned into a beautiful sunny day, and I’m loving seeing all this snow! It’s a bit slippery, but not too bad. We make it to the lake mid-day, and it’s super jammed – there’s only a small viewpoint accessible, so everyone is crowded in there. I feel a bit uneasy with all the unmasked people, but we manage to find a spot away from the crowd and sit down to eat our lunch of apples, chips, and energy bars. There are a ton of robber jays there (Canada Jays) which try to eat our chips. It is fun watching them, but I’m annoyed to see some kids feeding them – it’ll just make them that much more aggressive. Bad trail manners.
On our way back down, we get stuck behind a group of 5 unmasked adults, who refuse to cede the narrow trail to faster hikers. I’m a slow hiker myself, so, to be clear, I’m not angry at slower walkers being on the trail but have some self-awareness and let people pass! especially if you’re going to go hiking in a big group during a pandemic! We finally get back down and head back to our Airbnb.
Evening: Back home, we explore some of the trails our Airbnb host has set up around his extensive property, and then relax on the deck. The sun is breaking through the clouds and it feels wonderful to sit out in nature and feel the sun on my back. We open up a bottle of wine and have a few pre-dinner snacks (more chips and hummus). For this night, we brought ingredients to make a steak salad. Our Airbnb host has kindly set up a charcoal grill for us, so we grilled the steak and toast some bread on the side.
We eat dinner while watching the truly terrible Jean Claude Van Damme movie Bloodsport and finish up the very last of my chocolate cake. It’s amazing that anyone ever let Van Damme act… or should I say ‘act.’ I also have a Tate’s chocolate chip cookie or two, accompanied by a little port. My husband and I are truly very old people at heart, so we finish up the night watching a few episodes of Columbo.
Daily total: $0
Day 7
Morning: Unfortunately, K had insomnia last night, so he sleeps in pretty late. I drink coffee in bed and enjoy looking at the view out our big windows. Once he’s up, we get packed up and write a thank you note for our host. It was a great stay.
One of my big hobbies is birding and K enjoys wildlife photography, so we go out to look for some lifers! (The first time you see a new species of bird). Did I mention we are very old people in (relatively) young bodies? We first go to Dosewallips State Park and see some bald eagles, great blue herons, lots of various ducks, and a flock of Canada Geese, which, strangely, includes a domesticated gray goose. He’s much larger than the Canada Geese and seems to be watching over them. It’s kind of cute. Unfortunately, a lot of the birds are too far from shore to be seen clearly.
Our next stop is Point No Point (I love all the sad & disappointed names that early Westerner explorers gave places in the Washington/Oregon coast), a popular birding spot. We see a ton of birds here, and I can understand why it’s so well-known - Red-Breasted Mergansers, Western Grebes, Common Goldeneyes, Pacific Loons, and a few others I can’t identify yet. Most excitingly though, we see a whole pile of otters! They’re lounging around together on a rock just offshore and a ton of people are watching. We watch as they all slip off the rock and go hunting in the shore. It’s my first otter sighting in the wild, and it’s so cool! We also see some seals and possibly a sea lion. It’s a great spot for wildlife. We eat some snacks (hummus, chips, some sliced meat & cheese) before we head out.
I really want to come back to this area another time and explore further, but K has decided that we need to get back home in time for the Big Game. We take the 3:00 pm ferry back to Seattle ($16.40) and get home around 3:45 pm. I veg out at home while my husband watches football. He’s a Patriots fan but he still loves Tom Brady (??) so he’s happy to see Florida win. I don’t understand sports team loyalties at all, but whatever, I’m glad he’s happy. We order from a new Indian place called Spice Box and get vindaloo, roganjosh, and vegetables pakora – so tasty ($53.96). Happily, there’s enough left over for lunch the next day, since I have no plans for what we will eat yet!
I’m really dreading work the next day, as I know that it will be obnoxious. I want to get out of my job so badly, but it doesn’t look like I’m going on to the next interview stage for the job I interviewed no back on Monday. I’m feeling kind of down about it. I try to stay positive and promise that I’ll apply for at least 2-3 new jobs next week. I bake up some frozen cookie dough I had in the freezer and feel sorry for myself. We end the night by watching another episode of Columbo.
Daily total: 70.36
Food + Drink: $395.23
Fun / Entertainment: $26.40
Home + Health: $26.60
Clothes + Beauty: $0
Transport: $16.40
Other: $170.48
Grand Total: $635.11
I think this week was pretty normal for us. Obviously we spent a bit more than usual due to the weekend cabin trip, but nothing outrageous. Our largest consumer spending category is definitely food and drink – we live in a very busy area of Seattle with tons of restaurants and bars so believe it or not, we actually used to spend even more on eating out. We still try to support our local places by getting takeout or delivery during the pandemic and even occasionally getting a few drinks outside. I spent more than usual on groceries due to stocking up for the weekend away.

I am 25 years old, made $87,000 last year and expect to make $104,000 this year, live in Minneapolis, and work as a Data Analyst / Data Scientist.

Note: I’m not a citizen, but I’ve been living in the US long enough to be considered a resident alien for tax purposes. On my visa, I cannot work any job that’s not directly related to my major in grad school (IT/computer science), but I can invest in the stock market.

Section One: Assets and Debt

Net Worth: from -$13,603.63 (Jan 2020) to $9,605.97 (Jan 2021)
Retirement Balance: $16,000 in my 401(K).
I only started working 2 years ago and my company messed up my registration so they basically didn’t put any money into it my first year there (I found out in horror and they gave me around $1,000 to say sorry…). I contribute 9% and my company matches 3%.
Savings account balance: $2,500
I have $2,500 set aside as my “emergency fund”, and I’m building back my vacation & study abroad budgets after having to tap into them for a move. My job is very stable and I won't be let go any time soon (unless I quit myself) so I’m not setting aside a big emergency fund for now.
Checking account balance: $3,111.01
Investment account: $1,500 in some stocks.
I initially dumped half of my 2019 bonus and some monthly contributions (totaling around $4,000) to this account to test strategies. This was my “study fund” and I didn’t care if I’d lose it all. I grew the account to around $10,000 and withdrew almost everything (that went to all the fees I had to pay to break my lease, my brother’s lease, deposit, moving expenses, and new furniture) and left $1,500 worth of stocks in there right now.
Credit card debt: $2,243.76 on my BestBuy card and PayPal Credit.
I had the money to pay for the items in full but they offered X months interest-free and I wanted to throw money into my debts instead. I always pay off all balances well before the deadline. I also pay all my credit cards in full and have never paid any interest.
Student loan debt: $11,046.09 left on my $20,000 loans at 8% for my BA in Biology and Statistics. Day 1 of arriving in the US, they sat us down, handed each of us a pen, and said hey kids here are the terms of your 8% loans, sign the documents now! I just turned 17, didn't even know I had to pay this money back, and remembered thinking "Is 8% a lot?" That's how clueless I was.
As a non-citizen, I will never have them canceled, so my plan was to tackle this as soon as possible and I started paying more aggressively until they made it 0% interest since Q4 last year.
Car loan: $4,900 left on my $10,000 loan at 8.9%. I didn’t have a long credit history when I bought the car (September 2019) since I only got my first credit card after graduation, so the rate was terrible. I’m planning to pay this all off after my bonus comes in March.

Section Two: Income

Income Progression:
2012 - 2016: I had multiple student on-campus jobs all throughout my undergrad, making from $7.25 to $10/hour. After graduation, I couldn't find any job directly related to my majors within 3 months (I had only been searching for Bio lab work), ran out of money, and had to go back home. Honestly, I didn't want to keep doing science either and was very lost back then.
2017: My first full-time job was being a tutor for a private college prep institution when I went back to my home country to “figure out what I wanted to do with my life.” They paid pretty well for the standards of living there ($1,000/mo). I worked that job while self-studying how to code and data science courses on the side and preparing my grad school applications.
2019: I got a job at my current company a semester before I graduated from my MS in Data Science program. This was my first “big girl job.” I started out at $64,000 and couldn’t work for 2 months due to complications in my visa processes so that ate up all my savings that year. By the end of the year, they bumped my salary up to $76,000 and we also had an annual 3% raise, so in total $78,280 + 5% bonus.
2020: One of my teammates left and one thing led to another, I got a title change from Data Analyst to Data Scientist towards the end of the year. I asked for a raise and they bumped it to $96,000 + 5% bonus.
2021: After our annual 3% raise my salary is now $98,880 (+ at least 5% bonus). I think I’m slightly underpaid, but this job is very low-stress and flexible (especially after we WFH).
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $5,082.58
Taken from my last paychecks (before the annual raise)
Gross salary: $8,000
Tax: $2,081.68
401(k) deduction: $720
Health insurance: $115.74

Section Three: Expenses

Rent & renter’s insurance: $935 for my share for a 2bed/3bath condo. My parents pay a flat $700/mo for my brother’s share. He recently moved here since his school went virtual until at least the end of this semester and our family wanted us to be nearby to take care of each other.
Savings contribution: $900
Investment contribution: $420, but will increase once my car loan is paid off.
Debt payments:

$1,000 on car loan until paid off.
$200.13 minimum on student loans for now at 0% interest, will increase to $1,100 when car loan is paid off.
$300 for Best Buy & PayPal Credit promotional deals

Car insurance: $127.01 ($762.05 paid in full every 6 months)
Car registration: $25 ($300 annual)
Donations: $20 monthly (ASPCA), plus several hundreds throughout the year (last year I donated to BLM orgs and local animal shelters)
Gas: $0. I drive an electric car. Charging probably drives up my electric bill by a bit, but still cheaper than gas. Also, this means no car maintenance at all until my car battery dies, which probably won’t happen in the next 5 years.
Utilities (electric, natural gas): ~$150
Wifi: $40
Cellphone: $10.61 ($108.66 for 6 months and I got a $45 credit from my bank)
Groceries: $500 (for 2 people)
Subscriptions: $20 (HP Ink, shared Netflix account, YNAB, Disney+)
Pet expenses: ~$20 for wet cat food
Personal care/hobby: I collect perfumes. Between makeup, skincare, clothes (which I had planned to stop buying this year) and perfume bottles and samples (the majority of my "personal care" expenses...), I averaged $400/mo last year. Without the makeup, skincare and clothes, I budget $150/mo this year for my fragrance hobby.
Household supplies: $30
Education: $30 (language/technical textbooks, Udemy/Coursera)
Gifts: $30
Credit card fee: $21 ($250 annual)

Section Four: Background

Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Education is one of the top priorities in our household and this has been instilled in my mind since I was a kid. Perhaps because my grandparents were both professors and my parents both attended grad school, it was expected of us to have at least a bachelor's degree. With that said, my family tried to support our higher education financially as best they could and I'm very thankful for it. During undergrad, I had need-based financial aid and on-campus jobs, and my parents helped with the rest of my tuition. I still had to take (required by the school) a $20,000 loan. My grandmother helped pay for my 2-year master's program.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
During high school, I had a measly weekly allowance and my dad had me write out all the transactions in a notebook. I thought it was very silly back then but now thinking back, it was probably some good practice. Other than that, they didn't talk about money at all, and I was absolutely clueless and wasn't interested in personal finance until a couple of years ago. I don't remember how but I think I woke up one day and decided to read every book about personal finance I could find and now I do talk with my dad about finances.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
My first job was washing dishes as a student worker! We all had to do it our freshman year before we were allowed to find other jobs. I managed to find 3 other jobs (stage crew, sports event worker, and math tutor) and stayed with all of them for 3 years.
Did you worry about money growing up?
Even though our parents never let on to us about their finances, they made sure that we'd grow up comfortable financially, so I didn't worry because I didn't know anything.
Do you worry about money now?
Yes. As I grew up, I came to learn more about my parents' financial situation and realized that they've sacrificed a lot for us. I had the majority of my college tuition supported by the school, but my brother doesn't, and tuition in the US isn't cheap, especially when you convert it to our local currency. I also never know for how long I can stay in the US and keep making the same kind of money I'm making now so I'm trying my best to pay down the student loans ASAP.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I became fully financially responsible for myself when I started working at my current company. Before that my student worker jobs paid for my personal expenses in college but my parents still chipped in for tuition. I guess my family back home is my safety net but personally, I wouldn't ask them for help even if bad things happen to me in the future.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
Nope.

Diary

Day 1 (Thursday) - $3.35

Alexa wakes me up and turns the light on. I change into my work clothes and head downstairs to my “office.” My boss starts our daily standup call, talking about what we did yesterday and what we plan for the day.
I have my annual review meeting. Everything goes well and my bosses are very pleased with what I’ve done, especially after I transitioned into my new title as a Data Scientist, which honestly brought me more fulfillment in my job as well. We talk about our annual bonus and raise, which I already expected. It’s not a lot of money but hey any money is money and I’m not saying no.
Some people bought my photocards so I gather all the orders and purchase a shipping label since 1 order is with tracked shipping. (Don’t ask me how this works but I’m a K-pop fan and we collect expensive cardboards. Depending on the popularity of the member of the group, profit margins can go up to 400%.) I head to the post office and drop off all the packages ($3.35)
I’ve been waiting for the mailman all day and he finally comes! I’ve been working from home for almost a year now and my back pain is starting to kill me so I decided to “invest” in a $400 chair with lumbar and neck support. My cat happily takes the other chair and starts claiming her territory on it.

Day 2 (Friday) - $206.24

I wake up on cue at Alexa’s daily briefing. Half an hour passes while I ponder on a perfume sample set I saw in someone’s fragrance collection on Reddit.
I eventually give in and purchase the Zoologist sample set ($120.24). It’s within my budget this month, I’ve been eyeing this one for some time now and I can resell it for 80% value once I’m done testing them, so it’s not a huge loss anyway.
Late lunch today. I make a quick lunch with sausages and keto toasts and quickly finish it while watching some YouTube videos on personal finance and updates on $GME (no I did not buy any shares).
When in doubt, throw every leftover food in your fridge in a pan and make fried rice. Side dish is sweet and sour tomato and egg “cloud soup.” Then we have our weekly family video call with my parents back in my home country.
I go down the YouTube rabbit hole again and buy 2 more perfume sample sets ($86.00). All the purchases today (~50 samples) would probably take me months to try out so I promise myself no more until next quarter as I click the pay button.

Day 3 (Saturday) - $71.27

I wake up at 8:45 am and laze around for half an hour, scrolling down Twitter and answering my friend’s questions on how to enter the stock market. Today is my cheat day (I have one every 2-3 weeks), so I contemplate if I should order delivery for lunch. I check YNAB and decide that it’s too expensive, so I go downstairs to make myself a hearty breakfast with a latte, half a croissant, grilled chicken breasts, and snack on some shrimp crackers and tangerines.
I purchase a shipping label ($3.22) and head out to the post office. For some reason I want to smell like a lemon cake today, so I spritz on Xerjoff Lira, put on sunscreen, and head out. This perfume always makes me feel so warm and delicious.
I spend the whole afternoon catching up with my Chinese and Korean lessons for the week.
Suddenly craving some instant noodles, so I immediately get up and head to a local Asian grocery store to shop for instant and pho noodles (I’m planning to make pho for Lunar New Year) and some snacks for my brother ($38.71). We drop by a bubble tea shop nearby and get bubble tea and 2 dessert cakes ($19.71). I usually don’t drink sugary drinks, but since it’s my cheat day, I put in an order and pay for the both of us.
Some more PC orders came in and they’re all with tracked shipping. The post office is closed tomorrow but I’ll just pay now for the shipping labels so that I won’t forget ($9.63).

Day 4 (Sunday) - $0.00

I literally do nothing today until 4 pm.
I make dinner, then finish my Chinese lesson and review the flashcards I made yesterday. That’s enough activity for the day.
One of my friends calls to show me her album haul of the day and I'm tempted, but (fortunately?) there's no kpop store in my city so I make myself forget about buying any more albums.

Day 5 (Monday) - $40.10

I wake up with a headache, not feeling too well, so I request a day off and message my boss. I can’t go back to sleep, so I just lie there in bed for a couple of hours. I suddenly remember that WandaVision is on air, and there are a couple of movies on there I haven’t watched yet, so I subscribe to Disney+ ($7.52) and start binge-watching.
We ran out of soft drinks for my brother, so I have to drive to Costco again after lunch ($32.58). I also need to drop off all the orders that came in over the weekend.
I go to my old apartment for my move-out inspection (I haven't been living there since December but still had to honor the 2-month notice and pay for all the rent). There are a couple of spots that might cost me some deductions in my deposit. Sigh. At least I get to tell them to remove the charges on my lease for February, and they assure me that they will.
I finish binge-watching some movies on Disney+. I see Colourpop is advertising some Valentine’s Day palettes on my feed. I do not need those, I do not need those, I do not need those. I should’ve just unfollowed makeup brands on social media. Some more late-night scrolling, and then I finally go to sleep.

Day 6 (Tuesday) - $8.02

I wake up groggily, still feeling a bit sick. We have a late standup today, so I take my time making my coffee and start working, as my cat also settles in on my lap and starts napping. My head is still aching and I'm not sure if it's the cold or just keto flu so I load up on electrolytes, fish oil, and acetaminophen just in case.
Somebody lowballed me on one of my postings. Ugh I hate it when they do this, but this one is not selling too well, so I meet them halfway. I purchase another shipping label ($3.03).
Today is our bi-monthly deployment date, which means all the engineers (and anyone who has committed changes in our codebase) meet up and sit around until all the merges are deployed into production. I had some changes last week so I just sit there and do my own work until it's my turn. My boss told me this morning he had some test API from one of our new clients so I go to check out some of the data there. Oh how I love me some messy, messy data that nobody knows what to do with.
The repair guy who came to fix our washing machine doesn't leave until 5:15 pm so I drop by the post office late, but just in time as they're collecting the mail! Then I drop by a nearby (rather upscale) grocery store as I'm running out of heavy cream, but everything is so expensive. I compare price per oz and pick up the coffee creamer instead ($4.99).
I heat up the cauliflower rice and leftover curry and eat dinner as I watch Coco (I can't believe I've never actually watched it!) Then I review my Chinese flashcards for a bit, do half an hour of Just Dance until I sweat, play with my cat, and call it a day.

Day 7 (Wednesday) - $3.49

I stayed up quite late yesterday playing a mobile game and finally wake up after snoozing the alarm for the 84th time. My boss starts our standup at our usual time; there's nothing urgent or pressing today so I just take my time. I take a quick nap in the afternoon and go back to work.
I use the last drops of avocado oil to fry up some bulgogi for dinner. Need to go back to Costco for more avocado oil tomorrow, I guess.
After dinner, a friend asks me about perfume samples that she wants to try. I go online to search for them but no dice since they belong to a new collection that only got launched in Europe. I take this time to try out some similar smelling samples in my collection as well.
I review my Chinese flashcards and do some workbook exercises. After an hour, my brain is fried on Chinese but I don't want to go to bed yet, so I pick up a book on my bookcase that I was reading a while ago (A Random Walk Down Wall Street) and read one more chapter.
An order came in so I purchase another shipping label ($3.49), update my budgeting app for a bit, and then head to bed.

Summary

Category	Amount	Note
Food & Drink	$95.99	Groceries
Fun / Entertainment	$7.52	Disney+ subscription
Home & Health	$0.00
Clothes & Beauty	$206.24	Perfume samples
Other*	$22.72	Shipping labels
Total	$309.75	shipping labels not included

*I don’t count the shipping labels as expenses because they’re already factored into the profits I made from my sales, but I included them anyway because they're still charges on my accounts. Any profit goes back to funding my album purchases so... I guess it's a vicious cycle.
Overall, a pretty normal week for me in terms of food. I don’t eat out often (I allow myself only one meal and one dessert every month) and have used up my 1 dessert allowance this week so I probably won't have any more this month. I might’ve gone overboard with the perfume purchases this week, but tbh perfumes bring me joy. My mood is lifted and I'm transported to old and new places every time I put on a perfume that I enjoy, so for me, it’s worth it. I try to be frugal whenever I can, but I'll never skimp on education and hobbies that make me happy. Writing this week-long diary, I realize I need to get back to working out, though. I'll probably have to stop procrastinating and pull out my RingFit gears still inside the moving boxes. Playing Just Dance also makes me miss dancing so bad as I used to be active in several dance crews since college (but stopped after I started working full time). I'll try to stick to Just Dance for now to get my cardio until Covid is over and I can get back to in-person dance classes.

I'm 35 years old with a joint income of $490k, live in New York, and work as a program manager

0️⃣Section Zero: Background
Hello, MD! I hope you're all doing well, and are safe and healthy. I've gone back and forth for a while about whether I should share my money diary. I signed up to do one last year to chronicle our home buying process but chickened out (I'm so sorry mods!). I was worried I'd be judged for what I spent money on, not having a college education, or what might be perceived as frivolous habits. I don't know. Internet strangers terrify me. But I'm finally sharing this money diary because I want this to be a data point: you can have a career (or two!) without a college degree.
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
I moved to the US right before entering elementary school. I spent half my childhood in a simple four room shack with no running water or electricity (mom's side of the family) and the other half in a large house with a nanny and domestic help (dad's side of the family). From a young age I was told that college was chance at a better life and I believed it -- not going to college wasn't an option. My mom completed a healthcare related degree in our home country but she couldn't practice in the US. My dad dropped out of college in our home country due to his work as a student protester. Both of them worked blue-collar jobs to support our family and were always working. As with just about every parent, they wanted more for me.
I was accepted to a top ranked private university but didn't get a sizable scholarship so my parents and I took out loans, separately, to fund my tuition. I dropped out halfway through my sophomore year due to poor mental health stemming from an assault. No one knows (except for my fiancé and now, internet strangers) the real reason why I left school.
Did you worry about money growing up?
Yes. My parents never talked about their money struggles with me, but I knew money was always tight. After my youngest brother was born, I remember how excited I was to find a jar of peanut butter in our cupboard. We hadn't had any for a while. It had a "WIC" sticker on it and I didn't know what it meant at the time. My parents never talked about receiving government support but I'm thankful that we had a safety net available to us when we needed it most.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I started paying my parents rent to stay in my childhood bedroom when I moved back home. I didn't pay for groceries or to use one of their cars, which was nice. I was about 21 when I was completely on my own. My parents and I had a falling out over me dating a much older man who I'd come to learn was very abusive. There were a few months where I slept on a friend's couch because I barely had money to feed myself. My early 20's were rough. But if I were to go completely broke now, my parents would be there to help me. They're doing much better financially.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
No. I've never received an inheritance or any other passive income.
Finally, a note on Erik: he also doesn't come from money or finish his college degree. He immigrated to the US less than a decade ago and does not receive or provide monetary support to his mom or dad.
1️⃣Section One: Assets and Debt

Combined net worth:	$3.7M
Combined brokerage balance:	$2.14M	$317,587 (mine) + $1.82M (Erik)
Combined retirement balance:	$195k	$116,300 (mine) + $78,700Erik). We're behind on funding our 401ks. I finally convinced Erik to take advantage of his employer match program two years ago. He was concerned about the ease of withdrawing funds since we plan on living outside of the US when we retire.
Joint checking account balance:	$111k	We have a lot of cash on hand right now because we need to prepay income taxes, and will be furnishing our place.
Equity:	$1.42M	We put 40% down on a 2 bedroom/2.5 bath condo (<1,200 ft²) in a new construction last summer. Our down payment came from the sale of some of Erik's RSUs.
Mortgage:	$1.61M	For our financial situation, an interest-only mortgage made sense. We have a 2.35% APR 7/1 ARM since we don't intend to stay in NYC longterm. Our plan is to pay off the remaining mortgage in full after five years and either sell the condo or hold onto it as rental property.
Combined credit card debt:	$0	We pay off our credit cards in full every month. We put between $6k - 20k on our cards every month in a typical year. He's also the authorized user on my credit cards; I added him to my accounts about six years ago to help him build his credit file since we knew we'd eventually buy a place together.
Combined student loan debt:	$0	I finished paying my student loans two years ago. Erik received free tuition as an EU resident but had some cost-of-living loans which he's paid off.

2️⃣Section Two: Income My fiancé and I ended 2020 with a total cash compensation (base + bonus) of $493,750 but with last year's vested RSUs, our overall compensation is:

	Mine	Erik
Base	$131,250	$268,750
Bonus	~$13,125	~$80,625
Vested RSUs	$121,500	$835,500
Total Compensation	$265,875	$1.18M

Income Progression I don't recall my salary increases so I'm listing my starting base salary for each role. I'm also not including additional compensation such as bonus or RSUs.

HS and into my early 20's: minimum wage. I started working when I was 16 as a hostess for a restaurant and worked there throughout high school. In the summer before and after freshman year of university, I worked at a department store on commission. After I left university, I worked there full time and also picked up two part-time jobs (restaurant hostess, receptionist) to make ends meet.
Job 1: $30,000 as a business development manager for a staffing agency in a HCOL (rent was $600 for a room in a 2bd/1ba). I worked there for three months.
Job 2: $50,000 as a recruiting assistant then promoted to recruiter for a large non-profit in a HCOL (rent was $1200 for a room in a 3 bd/2ba). I was there for three years.
Job 3: $75,000 as a recruiter for a large research institution in a VHCOL (rent was $1600 for a 1bd/1ba shared with ex-bf). I was there for three years. Looking back now, I didn't realize how burned out I was at the end. I fully believed in our mission to save lives and was so grateful to have that job. I was working directly with these world class physicians and scientists, and I had no college degree. I felt like I had to prove I belonged there. To me that meant staying in my office until 2-3am some nights (mornings?). When an opportunity to change industries, I took it.
Job 4: $90,000 as a recruiter for a tech company in a VHCOL (rent was $1400 for a room in a 3bd/2ba). I was in that role for 2.5 years. When I joined the company, there were less than 5,000 employees. It was an amazing experience to have a hand in building teams of incredibly bright and kind people, many of whom now are now leading global teams of their own. But, I was traveling non-stop. It was exhausting and I experienced burnout (again). I had turned in my notice to HR and started letting people know. It was in one of those "goodbye" conversations that a director I closely worked with asked me if I'd be interested in joining her group as a PM. That opportunity changed the trajectory of my career. I stayed and switched roles.
Job 5: $110,000 as a program manager for the same tech company in a VHCOL (rent was $4400 for a 2bd/2ba with Erik). I was in that role for 2.5 years. I worked on public-facing initiatives, built some awesome programs, and partnered with senior leadership daily. By this time, the company had grown 10x and had no signs of slowing down. But I needed to slow down. I didn't really take time to decompress after my two previous roles. Erik saw how unhappy I'd become. He supported me leaving the workforce for a year and I'm grateful I had his support, the opportunity, and the ability to do it.
Took a year off. –$20,000 withdrawn from my brokerage accounts in a VHCOL (rent was $4000 for a 1bd/1ba with Erik). I didn't do anything remotely awesome during this time. I was coming out of a pretty bad depression so I took it easy on myself. I watched a lot of Investigation Discovery, cooked, napped, went down many Wikipedia rabbit holes, and joined Erik on all his business trips.
Current Job: $125,000 as a program manager at a tech company in a VHCOL (mortgage + common charges is ~$4400 for a 2bd/2.5ba with Erik). I've been in this role for almost two years.

Main Job Monthly Take Home

Deductions	Mine	Erik
Retirement	15% of paycheck to Roth 401k	7% of paycheck to 401k
M/D/V	under Erik's employer; my employer also provides free M/D/V but we would have different providers	covered by his employer + $~250 for mine
Life insurance and AD&D	covered by my employer	covered by his employer
Short & long term disability	covered by my employer	covered by his employer
Net monthly take home	$7,000	$10,00

3️⃣Section Three: Expenses This is what our YNAB budget roughly looks like (for annual expenses, I set aside an amount per month towards the expense):
Housing

Mortgage: $3,155
Common charges: $1,260
Property tax: $27,509 annual
Homeowner's insurance: $837 annual
Utilities: $300
Staff bonus: $1,200 annual (1 super, 5 FT front desk, 2 porters)

Transportation These would be significantly higher in normal times. We rarely leave our place and if we do, we walk.

Public transportation: $20
Rideshare/taxi: $30

Entertainment

Books & Magazines: $50 (Audible, Readly, news+, NYT)
Music & Podcasts: $25 (Pandora, Spotify, Patreon, Blinkist)
TV & Streaming: $120 (Hulu, Netflix, Masterclass)

Donations: $10,000 annual We donate to Children International on a monthly basis. The remaining amount is donated throughout the year to different causes. Last year, we supported AIDS research, mental health and addiction support, food banks, and international food programs.
Hobbies:

Fitness: $176 (Aaptiv, Future, Whoop)
Flowers: $125
Photography: $10 (Photoshop)

Fields

Pet insurance: $1,500 annual
Veterinary care: $1,500 annual
Pet food & medication: $500

Savings & Finance

Backdoor IRA: $6,000 annual
Acorns: $250
Betterment: $500
Credit card annual fees: $1,890 annual

Food & Drink Pre-COVID, we'd budget $3,000 to a "Restaurant", increase "Cafes & Bars" to $1,500, and decrease "Delivery & Takeout" to $1,000.

Delivery & Takeout: $3,000
Cafes & Bars: $700
Groceries: $300

Wedding: TBD Our original budget was $75,000 (international, <50 people). We've had to reschedule it twice now and have already spent $10k in lost deposits and rescheduling fees. We'll re-evaluate our budget later this year when we start planning again.
4️⃣Section 4: The Diary

Day 1: Monday | Total: $111.84

8:00am - First day back from holiday break for both Erik and me. He's still snoozing so I turn on the bedroom TV to see if our dog is still sleeping too. We adopted a senior dog, Fields, over the summer and quickly became one of those dog owners that installed cameras everywhere so we can watch him anytime, anywhere. Fields is still asleep so I check my work accounts and respond to anything urgent.
8:30am - Normally, this is when I'd take Fields for his morning walk while Erik makes our coffee. But our espresso machine is broken so we can't use it until the replacement parts arrive next week. Erik and I both start getting dressed to take Fields for a walk together. Before that happens, I take the dog outside to relieve himself and we quickly head back to the apartment for his breakfast.
9:30am - We walk to our favorite coffee spot in our neighborhood and get our usual: cortado with whole milk for Erik, cold brew with a splash of oat milk for me, and a breakfast BLT to share. We walk back to our apartment and get to work. $23.69
12:30pm - I take Fields with me to pick up our lunch at Sweetgreen: a kale caesar salad (hold the tomato and swap for the blackened chicken) for me, and a hot honey chicken plate for Erik. $27.71
4:30pm - Erik and I are dire need of coffee. We take the dog for another walk, this time to our other favorite coffee shop. The decor is very IG-friendly and their coffee is fantastic. I get their matcha latte with oat milk, Erik gets a cortado with whole milk, we split an avocado toast with smoked salmon, and Fields get a whole lot of snacks for being a good boy while he waits for our order to be ready. $29.95
4:45pm - We walk past a cute mochi ice cream shop that I've been meaning to try. I pick up eight mochi ice creams: ube, chocolate hazelnut, passion fruit, mango, and some seasonal flavors. $30.48
5:00pm - We get home just in time to feed the dog. His food is laughably expensive but we think it's worth it and most importantly, Fields is worth it! He's the best dog and we want to spoil him during his final years. Especially since the poor pup was returned to the shelter twice within a year. I can't imagine giving up this sweet old guy.
9:00pm - I log off work and head down to our building's gym to workout. I've been working with a trainer through the app, Future, and like it so far. Pre-pandemic, I was in really good shape as I was training for a half marathon and our now-postponed wedding. Since the lockdowns started, my healthy eating habits and will to workout has gone down a very messy spiral. I do a mile run on the treadmill followed by a set that includes split squats and deadlifts. Ouch.
10:15pm - I walk into the apartment to find Erik's made dinner from yesterday's leftovers: tacos! I quickly eat two tacos, then tidy up the kitchen while Erik takes Fields out for his last potty break before bed.
10:45pm - I rinse off in the shower and start my nighttime routine. Erik won't see me for another 45 minutes, at least. Tonight, I use a dermaroller on my arms and legs before rubbing in vitamin C lotion. While the lotion dries, I start on my face: facewash, essence, serum, niacinamide and azaleic acid, eye serum, and all topped off with a nighttime cream cream. This is a typical nighttime routine for me.
11:30pm - Finally in bed. We put on a Netflix comedy special while I finish my routine in bed: foot cream, hand cream, and cuticle oil. Erik is browsing on the iPad looking for pots and planters. We call it a night just after midnight.

Day 2: Tuesday | Total: $199.41

8:30am - We're both really tired. I want to lay in bed a little longer but Erik has a call at 10am and we need coffee. Since his pants are on first, I convince him to take the dog outside so I can get ready. He agrees. I put on sweats and prepare Fields' breakfast.
9:15am - We walk to a cute Australian coffee shop and order: a cortado with whole milk for Erik (it's the only thing he drinks), a cold brew with oat milk for me, and share one of my favorite breakfast sandwiches. It's got prosciutto on it and a perfectly runny egg! $23.58
12:45pm - I lost track of time and forgot to order lunch. I place an order at Chop't: avoketo chicken club salad sans tomatoes for me and a kebab cobb wrap for Erik. Once it's ready, I take Fields with me to pick it up. $25.67
1:15pm - While eating lunch, I order Ess-A-Bagels to be sent to two girlfriends across the country as very belated Christmas gifts. I meant to send them their gifts earlier but they've had family visiting them and I wanted to make sure they got to enjoy their gift. I know they both really love Ess-A-Bagels and wouldn't be too keen to share. $213.90 - $100.00 AMEX offers credit = $113.90
3:00pm - That salad was not enough. I pull a Daily Harvest mint + cacao smoothie from our freezer to make a smoothie with oat milk and split it with Erik.
4:30pm - Ok, we really need coffee. We head back to cute IG-friendly coffee shop we went to yesterday and order the same drinks but skip the sandwich. $12.74
4:45pm - On the way home, I tell Erik that I need to eat something more substantial. I was feeling hangry. We stop by our favorite mediterranean cafe. I order a kebab bowl and Erik gets the kebab sandwich. $23.52
5:15pm - We get home just in time for me to get ready for my last meeting of the day and feed Fields his dinner. Today, he gets lamb and red quinoa.
8:45pm - My trainer has a run scheduled for me today but I'm so tired; I don't think I slept well. I message my trainer to tell her I'm taking the day off but will make up the run tomorrow!
9:30pm - I catch up with some girlfriends on the west coast over text while watching an old Dateline: Secrets Uncovered episode. I remember we have mochi ice cream and eat two of them. This is a great night.
10:30pm - I need to sleep earlier tonight since I need to get a run in tomorrow morning. I have a Morpheus8 appointment at 11am and I can't workout after that.

Day 3: Wednesday | Total: $290.44

8:00am - The alarm goes off and I yell at Siri to stop. I roll back over and snuggle Erik. The run isn't happening.
9:00am - I receive a call from the clinic where I get my Morpheus8 done. My esthetician has a family emergency and can't make the appointment. I'm secretly excited to reschedule for a later date since I have a face lipo, neck lipo and buccal fat removal procedure in exactly a week. I know, I know. Scheduling procedures so close to each other isn't the smartest idea, but I wanted to finish my Morpheus8 series before more invasive procedures. To get the kind of results I wanted, I needed three Morpheus8 sessions booked about a month apart. Today was supposed to be my last one.
9:20am - Walk Fields with Erik to get our usual coffee order and split a bagel with smoked salmon, alfalfa sprouts, picked red onions, chili and dill. $27.85
3:00pm - During our team meeting, my director asks me if I've seen the news. I grab my phone to look at the news and feel my anxiety spike as I learn that the Capital is actively being breached. I know my mental health is going to take another hit after this. Instead of working, I doom scroll the rest of the day. I also realize that salad isn't going to cut it for lunch. Not today. I need something more comforting and warm. We decide on Chinese food: ma po tofu and black pepper beef with a lot of fluffy white rice. $64.52
4:45pm - It's time for my sort-of monthly nail appointment. I go every three weeks to this amazing salon that specializes in nail art but they're also superb at taking care of your nails. I pick a sunny yellow color to offset the shit that happened this afternoon. They're pricey ($75 + $20 tip) but my nails and cuticle beds have never looked healthier. I also buy a ceramic cuticle pusher tool ($15). $114.40
7:15pm - I convince Erik to meet me at our neighborhood pizza spot to pick up dinner. We order: a pepperoni Sicilian slice, Hawaiian slice, ham and cheese calzone, and four slices of cheese, root beer and diet soda. $46.65
8:30pm - While scrolling through IG, I see a dermatologist use snail extract for her NuFace. I've been meaning to buy more NuFace gel and this seems like a good cost-effective replacement. I find the same bottle on Ulta and add an eyeshadow brush to get free shipping. I'm project panning my eyeshadow palettes so this will be a fun new tool to play with. $37.02
12:00am - Bedtime.

Day 4: Thursday | Total: $112.13

8:00am - Same routine as the days before: get dressed, take Fields out, give him breakfast, and head out for our family walk.
9:00am - Another day, a new cafe. We order our usual coffees, and split a breakfast sandwiche: herb omelette on a toasted baguette slathered with spicy aioli and topped with bacon. $27.22
9:15am - I realize that I dropped Erik's credit card somewhere between the cafe and our apartment (I didn't bring my wallet so I asked Erik for his card at the cafe). I call the cafe and ask if they'd seen it; they hadn't. And just as I'm about to call the bank to cancel the card, the cafe calls back -- someone found it on the sidewalk and turned it in! We thank them for following up and tell them we'll pick it up tomorrow.
1:00pm - I wake Fields up from his nap so we can walk to get our usual Sweetgreens order. $27.71
7:00pm - Erik and I take Fields on a walk to pick up Thai food for dinner. We order beef pad kee mao, shrimp tom kha soup, chicken pad thai, and mango with sticky rice. $51.75
9:00pm - While reconciling this week's expenses, I see that my Sephora credit card payment was returned and I was charged not only a late fee, but a finance charge! I signed up for the Sephora card over the holidays to take advantage of their cash back program and this was my first payment to them. I go on the website to investigate what happened and find that I missed entering a "0" to my linked bank account. I call their customer service rep to explain everything. I ask her if she could waive the late payment fee ($35) and the finance charge ($5.45) if I paid the balance in full. She said she's able to waive the late payment fee but not the finance charge. I thank her for her help and hope this doesn't affect my credit score too much. $5.45
12:00am - Zzzzzzz.

Day 5: Friday | Total: $245.56

8:00am - Same morning routine as yesterday.
9:00am - Same breakfast routine as yesterday but add additional tip since they held onto Erik's card. $28.67
12:00pm - Wake Fields up from his nap for a quick walk to Just Salad. I get a chicken caesar salad while Erik gets a chicken poblano salad. $23.70
7:10pm dinner - Friday's are our date nights. Before the pandemic, we'd get dressed up and go out for a nice meal and spend quality one-on-one time. These days, we usually order in fancy sushi and watch a movie. Between us, we order 19 pieces of sashimi and nigiri like uni (my favorite), zuke, wagyu, and tamago. $193.19
10:30pm - As soon as Erik gets back from taking Fields out, we pile onto the couch to watch Jurassic Park.
1:00am - Sleep.

Day 6: Saturday | Total: $375.24

9:00am - It's a late start to the morning. After feeding Fields, we walk to pick up breakfast. We get our usual coffee order, a bagel with smoked salmon and a chocolate croissant. $34.12
1:20pm - I saw someone post in a cooking subreddit about seasoning that a local restaurant uses on their wings. Of course I google the restaurant and get hungry from looking at their photos. I end up ordering lunch from them: wings (of course), coconut crab curry, shrimp chips and chili jam, thai iced tea, and khua kling. It was all delicious but holy cow everything was so spicy. Definitely will order from them again though! $93.40
3:45pm - I see a notification pop up for a charge on our card. I assume it's something for Erik's current house project (building our custom closets). I ask him about it and it's actually a router extender. $125.85
8:00pm - We've been missing Mission-style burritos lately and haven't found a good replacement in New York yet. But we did find a restaurant that makes delicious Mexican food. I get two spicy pork tacos and one al pastor taco, Erik gets a spicy pork burrito and a mandarin Jarritos, and we split a large chips and guacamole. $49.87
10:00pm - While browsing Reddit), I see someone post decants for sale of fragrances I've been meaning to try. Fragrances were a serious hobby of mine for a while, to the point that I hired a fragrance "fixer" on a Paris trip to take me around the local shops. I've since scaled back my collecting and have been focusing on learning to differentiate scents better. $72.00
11:00pm - Goodnight!

Day 7: Sunday | Total: $134.57

9:00am - Another late start to the morning. We do our morning routine with Fields and walk to get breakfast. This time, we head back to the cafe that found Erik's credit card. We get our coffees along with the herb omelette baguette with bacon. $27.56
12:00pm - There's some leftovers from yesterday's very spicy lunch so we eat that for lunch. I think the food might actually be spicier today.
6:00pm - I FaceTime with a girlfriend on the west coast who shares some amazing life news. Her and her husband are moving from the west coast! While I'm sad they're not moving to New York, I'm thrilled that they'll be closer to us and that she has an amazing new role. This is a huge win for her career and I'm really proud of her.
9:40pm - We realize we haven't had dinner. We both want something much less spicy so we order in Italian: caesar salad, pasta alla gricia, and a spicy vodka pasta. $107.07
11:00pm - We owe a response to our wedding planners about our wedding date. Do we move forward with a summer 2021 (originally summer 2020) wedding or do we postpone another year? I have strong feelings about trying to hold a destination wedding in the middle of a pandemic. I don't want to put our friends and family at risk since we won't know when vaccines will be widely available. But Erik is worried that his dad won't make it to 2022 since his dad already isn't in the greatest health. We agree on a new game plan: we hold off on our wedding celebration until 2022. In the meantime, we'll travel to his dad as soon as it's safe and get married with him in attendance. I email the wedding planners our decision to postpone (again) and go to bed.
5️⃣Section 5: This Week's Total & A Brief Reflection

Food & Drink	$1,000.57
Fun & Entertainment	$0.00
Home & Health	$125.85
Clothes & Beauty	$223.42
Transport	$0.00
Other	$119.35
GRAND TOTAL	$1,469.19

This was a pretty normal spending week (during the pandemic) for us, minus all the coffee trips due to our broken espresso machine. I know we spend a lot on food and we're okay with our level of spend, for now. It gets us out of the house, gives us a reason to take Fields out for a walk and explore the neighborhood, and allows us to support our favorite spots. My goals for this year are to increase the amount we put into investments and learn more about tax-efficient strategies.
Apologies for any and all typos!
EDIT: typos and a few words

I am 35 years old, I made $67,665 gross last year (between multiple jobs) and live in Buffalo and work in higher education and retail.

Title: I am 35 years old, I made $67,665 gross last year (between multiple jobs) and live in Buffalo and work in higher education and retail.
This is my 5th MD update. Previous MDs in June 2019, October 2019, February 2020, and July 2020.
Ref29 questions:
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Absolutely. Both of my parents have bachelors degrees, and it wasn’t even a conversation of “if” I was going to college, but “where”. I ended up going to a private 4-year college, with a 75% merit scholarship. I was able to pay for the first semester with savings bonds/general savings, but took out loans for the remaining semesters. I worked 2 on campus jobs (tour guide and TA), plus at a coffee shop - this was more for spending money/gas etc. Looking back, I wish that I had put more of that income aside for paying for school, but I was definitely headlong into the student loan trap of “it’s ok, this is good debt….blah blah.”
I thought that i had the exact idea of what I wanted to do for a career - and that basically required a masters degree - so I went straight to grad school after undergrad. Private - and took out the maximum student loans for both years. I cannot stress what a terrible financial idea this was. The last half of my MA was in DC, so I used the loans for rent/food, as I had a full time unpaid internship. Long story short, what I thought was my career goal wasn’t.
I am FINALLY nearly done paying off my loans. If I had to go back and give my past self advice, it would have been to not go to grad school directly after undergrad. I still might have gotten my masters, but I would have done it in a much more financially responsible way.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
We had conversations growing up - but it was much more of a conversation now that I’m an adult. I’ve noted in past MDs, but my parents have told us that they regret not being able to help us all more as teenagers/college/young adults, so they’ve been extremely supportive of my focus on debt repayment.
Did you worry about money growing up?
Not really. I remember being conscious about it - we didn’t have new cars (EVER - like it’s still a thing), and we used coupons/budgets/bulk freezer meals for shopping, but I think a portion of that was that there were 4 of us kids. We were all involved in a variety of extracurricular activities as well, but I don’t remember even being like, limited or restricted from doing anything.
Do you worry about money now?
Absolutely.
While I am noting that I’m making progress, it is still very overwhelming. It’s really hard for me not to beat myself up when I either buy “treats” or things that aren’t really treats, but are just home comforts. I finally bought myself 2 sets (!) of decent sheets this past month after having 1 set of crappy sheets for the last 2 years lol. I still have so much work to do, on debt repayment, fully funding my emergency fund, and (massive goal here) saving for a down payment on a house.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I would say I was financially responsible for myself when I moved for grad school in the fall of 2008 (so when I was 22/23).
That being said, I definitely have had a financial safety net - my parents always assisted with grocery money if I needed it - when I was married, that definitely was not only a safety net, but also got me in a lot of bad habits.
Since my divorce, my parents have assisted with cell phone, car insurance, and letting me live with them for a few months when I moved back to the US. I know that if something happened, they would absolutely assist with a place to live if I needed it.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
As previous MDs have noted, my parents have assisted with assorted checks when my dad got a bonus, and they have always been extremely generous with holiday $.
Section One: Assets and Debt
Retirement Balance (and how you got there): $33,194.67 (up from $23,800 in February 2020)
This is a combo of Stash Retire ($1721.52), 401K from a previous job ($17,330.01), retirement accounts from my current job ($2807.58 in my optional IRA to which I contribute extra; $2947.46 in the basic retirement plan, to which my employer contributes 7%), and TSP from a previous job ($8,388.10).
Savings account balance: $1000
Checking account balance: $1381.07 (at the start of the money diary)
Credit card debt (and how you accumulated it): $7,558.08 (focus has been more on student loans, plus I am a bit guilty of using it at random points) (down from $19,556 in June 2019).
Student loan debt (for what degree): Current remaining balance is $972.57!!!!! This is down from $23,645.37 in June 2019) (combined loans for undergraduate and graduate degrees in International Relations. To give you an idea of how much I’ve paid off - I’ve paid $118,297.81 off up to this point).
*note: December was a PHENOMENAL debt payment month for me (just over $4k).
Section Two: Income
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $2847.53
*after using the IRS refund calculator, it became clear that I was expecting a much higher refund, so I stopped having extra withheld. Eventually I’ll get the hang of it.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: $1442.72 (average monthly take home August-December 2020)
My retail job fully reopened, and I also applied for, and got a promotion, which meant both an hourly raise and more hours)
Any Other Monthly Income Here:

Christmas $ from Mom & Dad - $1000
Stimulus Checks - $1200 + $600 (Both of these went mainly to debt repayment)

Section Three: Expenses
Rent / Mortgage $980.00/month (+ $3.95 service charge when I pay online) (no change)
Retirement contribution: $115.58/month Roth IRA from work + $80.00/month into Stash Retire (no change)
Savings contribution: $0/month (Debt payments are the priority)
Investment contribution: None
Health/Dental/Vision Insurance: $76.38/month (Through work, it gets taken out biweekly)
FSA contribution: $27.78 biweekly (I set my annual contribution at $750 this year, up from $600)
Debt payments
Student Loan minimums: $55.54 is strictly the minimum for my FINAL (!!!) student loan, but as you all know by now, I have been attacking these with a vengeance and plan on this being gone no later than March.
Credit Card minimums: Avg. Monthly Payment $300. (as mentioned in the debt section, I have slipped slightly on allowing myself to use the credit card, but still have been able to lower my overall amount)
Wifi/Cable/Landline: $64.99/month
Cellphone: Still on the parental plan, but will be transitioning off. I’m shopping around and have started to budget.
Subscriptions: Apple storage - $2.99/month; Netflix- $8.99; (even though I’ve been able to be at home much much more, we still get a monthly barkbox for the toys; Spotify Premium - $9.99/month. Headspace - $14.99/month. Renaissance Periodization - $16.19/month
Laundry (if you pay per load): $40/month. I put aside $10 per paycheck.
Gym membership $75/month - I budget this much for my ROMWOD and Movement Vault monthly subscriptions. This also covers my monthly subscription for my WHOOP band. My retail side gig also provides $225/month to work out. This covers my monthly membership to my crossfit gym, as well as extra megaformer classes. $32.63/month for WHOOP; $13.95/month for ROMWOD; $9.99/month for Movement vault
Pet expenses: $150/month - includes pet insurance. This is what I put into my budget for insurance, food, grooming etc.) Barkbox 31.54/month; Pet insurance $79.24
Car payment / insurance / average gas:$100/month (as my dad plans on retiring within the next year, he will be signing over my car to me, meaning that I will be taking on my insurance. I fully acknowledge that this has been nice to not have to worry about, and that my parents have been absolutely amazing. The current annual insurance for my car looks like it will be around $450. Future money diaries will take this into account.
Renter insurance: $12.50/month
Average groceries / household supply spend; Looking at YNAB, my average spend has been just over $700/month. This seems insanely high for one person, but I do also follow a RP meal plan, meaning that I tend to eat A LOT to fuel my workouts. I also haven’t gone out basically at all ….
Regular therapy: N/A
Charitable Giving: $75/avg. August-Dec 2020 (Much of this was “rage” donating in the run up to the election)
Annual Expenses:
YNAB (You Need A Budget): $83.99/year
NB: Anytime I leave my house, I am masked, including gym visits. It’s honestly not terrible once you find a mask that works for you!
Day 1: Friday
5:45am: Alarm goes off and I get up to put the kettle on to start coffee. Today is a weigh in and weekly review for my meal/training plan, so I enter my numbers and see what my upcoming week will look like as far as my macros. I notice that my chest/shoulder are sore, and hurt when I take a deep breath, but assume that I just slept on my arm wrong. I take out the dog, feed him, and head out to my weightlifting class.
7:30am: Nope, not just sleeping on it wrong. I make it through the lifting portion, but when we start the metcon, I have to stop because it hurts too much to take a really deep breath, instead stretching and cheering everyone else on. Annoyed, but hopefully it’s nothing too crazy. I think it’s just a strain from my muscle up drills the day before. Once I get home, I make breakfast - a savory oatmeal with oats, cheese, chicken sausage, egg whites, and mushrooms, topped with a fried egg and za’atar seasoning from Trader Joe’s. YUM. I log into work and get settled in for a 2 hour (ugh) staff meeting.
11:00am: Finally done with that. Thank goodness for my camera getting to be off. I take a shower and get into “work” clothes - aka lululemon from top to bottom (align leggings, ebb to street crop tank, and a sit in lotus wrap). Back to work until it’s time for lunch, which I have just after noon (rice, sweet potatoes, bell peppers, and ground beef, topped with avocado). Work continues afterwards.
2:00pm: Time for work #2! It’s a fairly uneventful (and slow) afternoon/evening, which is ok after the craziness of the holiday season. And I only have to tell 2 people to put their masks on over their nose and they don’t give me an attitude - woohoo! Around 5 I eat my food on my 10 minute break - another taco-ish bowl, just without the avocado from earlier. I get out from work at 7:30pm.
8:00pm: Home, take the pooch out and feed him and make my casein hot chocolate (casein protein is a slower digesting type vs. whey and it’s my evening “meal” most of the time) plus a couple dark chocolate peanut butter cups. I facetime my Mom briefly and then we each put on our respective Star Wars shows - she and my Dad are watching the Mandolorian (they just got Disney+), and I’m deep into season 4 of the Clone Wars. Bedtime routine starts at 9:30 with a couple of melatonin gummies and I brush my teeth and wash my face (eye makeup remover, then Neutrogena foaming cleanser, and a nighttime moisturizer from Aldi). Snuggle up with the dog and a heating pad with a Headspace night sounds playing.
Daily Total: $0
Day 2: Saturday
5:50am: NO. It’s like 30 minutes before I want to wake up...NO.
6:10am: Uggggggh
6:20am: FINE. Dog outside, then fed. I make coffee and another savory oatmeal (AMAZING - same as yesterday, just no bell peppers). Catch up on podcasts and my YNAB budget. In happiest news, I can take a full big breath without that weird pain from yesterday! Yay!
10:00am: Home from my workout, which went amazingly - I love a good long chipper of a workout! I take the dog out for a little cold weather walk and then make my post-workout meal - Kodiak chocolate chip pancakes with blueberries! (use 1 egg and almond milk to make the pancakes and it fits my post-workout macros: 35P, 10F, 65C). I follow this with a cuddle session with the dog while watching Marple episodes and drinking coffee. I also add items to my lululemon shopping cart and exit out of it before I can spend money. While I get a great discount (especially on markdowns), I know I don’t really NEED anything, so I don’t get anything.
1:00pm: Off to the mall for work. I stop on the way to fill the gas tank ($25). It’s a busy day, but a good one - during my break I eat my taco bowl (rice, sweet potatoes, ground beef, peppers and avocado). I work until 7:30pm.
8:00pm: Home, dog out, casein hot chocolate - the usual. I’m nothing if not a creature of habit. I pull out a Trader Joe’s chocolate croissant to prove overnight in the oven. Bedtime is around 10pm.
Daily Total: $25
Day 3: Sunday
7:50am: Whoooops, I intended to wake up around 7:15, but I didn’t actually set the alarm. Luckily the dog wakes me up with a polite whine - I take him out, make coffee and a bowl of oatmeal (oats, almond milk, egg whites, topped with blueberries), and head to my workout around 9.
11:00am: 2 workout classes later, I’m home - post workout meal is the aforementioned chocolate croissant, and a little egg scramble of egg whites, mushrooms, chicken sausage and broccoli. The afternoon is spent with old Miss Marple episodes on Amazon Prime, combined with laundry and apartment cleaning.
3:00pm: I made a quick loaf of bread (2 hrs of rising, then shaping) and put it in the oven. Happily it turns out pretty damn tasty - I make Trader Joe’s Cippino (seafood soup) and have that with toasted fresh bread around 4/4:30pm. A Clone Wars marathon ensues - the Bills are playing in the AFC championship tonight, so the city is basically a giant ball of nerves. I don’t watch the games (and haven’t all season - mostly because I don’t have all the apps/cable), but I follow the score on my phone while watching many (MANY) episodes of Clone Wars. I facetime my mom and dad around 7 after they finish the Mandolorian and we can all squeal with excitement.
9:00pm: Melatonin gummies, contacts out, teeth brushed, face washed, bedtime.
Daily Total: $0
Day 4: Monday
5:45am: Awake, coffee, take the dog out, head to crossfit.
7:30am: Home, dog out again, then breakfast (homemade toast, everything but the bagel smoked salmon, scrambled egg+egg whites) and more coffee. I login to work at 8am, and get the morning podcasts going (Up First, the Daily, Post Reports, the Intelligence).
10:00am: I place a Target pickup order for the snacks for our break area at the mall (seltzer, peanut butter crackers, cookies, granola bars - all single serving packs). I will be reimbursed for this by the store. ($39.57 - I get a notice that an item isn’t available after I place the order...oh well)
11:00am: I’m traveling out of state for a couple of days - it’s a long awaited tattoo coverup (don’t get a tattoo for a significant other….I knew not to do this...and yet I still did), so I make my list of items to pack and things to remember to do (take out trash, do all my dishes, etc). I will be driving to my destination (Indiana), staying at a hotel by myself, going to the tattoo shop (masked), and back to the hotel. Not telling friends I’m there, not going out anywhere. And I’ve scheduled a test for 4 days after my return, per NYS rules. If I could make the drive nonstop, I would, but your girl isn’t giving herself a UTI lol. I’ll be masked and sanitized anytime I step out of my vehicle. Still super nervous, but getting this tattoo covered up is like….the final FINAL step. I also take a shower (finally, yes I’m gross and have been sitting in my workout clothes since I got home - god help me if I ever live with a human again lol).
2:00pm: Time for head out for work! On the way, I pick up my previously mentioned Target order, and also pick up meals for my trip from a local meal prep place - I get a bunch of great stuff (2 breakfasts, 2 dinners, 1 lunch plus energy bites for the car), plus it means that I can just hermit it up in the hotel room apart from the actual tattoo appointment. ($62.68). I get to the mall early before my shift starts - since I know I’ll have a tub in the hotel room, and I don’t have one in my apartment, I get a couple of bath bombs and lotion from Lush ($25.93) and a whole bunch of sheet masks from Sephora ($25.01). Then time for work - It’s a fairly quick shift, which is nice, not too terribly busy and we get a lot done. And people at the mall are generally not pills today - epic win!
8:15pm: Home from work - take the dog out and have a little evening meal of homemade soup from my co-worker (it’s a kale sausage soup her husband makes and it is AMAZING) and the rest of my homemade bread. I finish packing up and the poor pup definitely knows something is up. Bedtime around 10pm.
Daily Total: $153.19
Day 5: Tuesday
5:45am: Alarm, dog, coffee. Rather than dirtying dishes, I heat up one of the prepped breakfasts I brought (a breakfast sandwich with chicken, which is actually quite tasty - plus some blueberries). I get the car loaded up with my stuff and the dog - he’s staying with my parents while I’m gone - and head out by 7:15am. After I drop him off I top off my gas tank ($14.10), and also get a couple of bubly waters and a can of death wish coffee for the road ($6.25).
12:00pm: Lunch stop at panera - fuji apple chicken salad and a cup of chicken noodle soup - drive thru and eaten in the car ($10.94, but I have a gift card). Road Trip Podcasts: You’re Wrong About and Noble Blood.
3:00pm: Gas stop (there’s also a few bathroom stops, but since I didn’t spend anything, it’s not terribly relevant, right? :) ) ($27.01).
5:30pm: Arrival! Check in to the hotel - masked front desk employee, check. Bring my stuff up to my room, and jackpot - biiiiiiiiig tub. Looks like those bath bombs were a solid choice! Open up the work laptop to see if there is anything urgent - nothing crazy - and decide which meal I want for dinner. Bourbon Chicken with Broccoli and Sweet Potatoes it is. Plus a Sparkling Apple Cider vinegar beverage (ginger and lemon) from Trader Joes. Before I eat, I do a lower body focused stretching routine from ROMWOD since I spent so long in the car.
7:30pm: Bath Bomb, Face Mask, Feet Mask, and finished Night Stalker on Netflix. Since I’ll be quarantining until I get a negative COVID test after my trip, I order 10 meals through the same meal prep company that I got my travel meals from ($88.43 - includes both delivery fee and tip). They will be delivered on Sunday.
Daily Total: $146.73
Day 6: Wednesday
6:00am - I had intended to sleep longer, but my body is like - nope, you’re waking up at the same time no matter what. Coffee (keurig in the hotel room - ick) plus a prepped breakfast (a goat cheese egg white scramble with sweet potatoes - which is delicious). Morning podcasts and I open up the work laptop. Since I’m awake I guess.
7:30am: Hotel room workout - I do yesterday’s workout from my gym, with a few modifications, but it still feels great to move after sitting in the car for so long! Shower afterwards, then food (Mexican Taco Bowl!) and work.
10:30am: Squuuuueeee it’s time for my tattoo. I double mask up, drive through for a Starbucks order ($4.74 - paid for on my Starbucks app with previously loaded funds) and head to the shop! I already paid my deposit and took advantage of a gift card sale before Christmas so I don’t owe anything additional today. We do linework, shading, and partial color. It’s going to take 2 appointments to do the full thing, so we make my next appointment for May (augh, I cannot wait!). My coverup is over black text, so a cover up involves a LOT of layering of color. I’m impressed that I still have stamina after not getting a tattoo for nearly 3 years.This is going to be BEAUTIFUL.
2:30pm: After my tattoo appointment, I make a quick stop at CVS (still double masked!) to pick up aquaphor, orange dial soap, ibuprofen, and toothpaste (cause naturally that’s the one thing I forgot to pack - d’oh) ($22.00). I make a curbside pickup order for Panera - another soup and salad combo ($10.55 - again paid for with gift cards!). I head back to my hotel room, eat, put on more podcasts (Planet Money, Can He Do That, Code Switch) and log onto work. An uneventful afternoon follows.
6:00pm: Facetime call with my mom, then dinner and various true crime documentaries on Netflix and Pinterest browsing because as per usual, now I want allll the tattoos. I also put in an order for a grocery pickup on my way home (coffee, coffee creamer, fruit, etc) ($66.82). I try to make a testing appointment through NYS for my return COVID test on Monday, but the automated system keeps putting me in the first available, which is Friday….I’ll try to schedule again on Friday so that the timing works. Bedtime tattoo routine of wash, aquaphor and ibuprofen, as well as a sheet face mask. Sleep around 10:00pm.
Daily Total: $104.11
Day 7: Thursday
6:00am: Welp, up and at em! I finish packing all my stuff, check out of the hotel and warm up the car. I head out around 7:00am. Top off the gas tank ($12.80) and I also add $15 to my Starbucks card and drive thru a Starbucks (Spinach Feta Wrap + Cafe Misto with almond milk). Then it’s time for podcasts and lots of driving. My mom had suggested a podcast from Serial - S*%*Town. IT’S AMAZING and this drive has never gone so fast!
11:00am: (or sometime around this time) Stop for gas ($27.01) and another Starbucks stop ($15 reload) to get another misto, a bottle of water, and a fruit/cheese/hard boiled egg box.
3:00pm: I was going to try to make it all the way without stopping for anything else, but my stomach is about to eat itself. I stop at a Tim Hortons about 45 minutes away from my parents’ house and get timbits and a hot chocolate (which is gross) ($6.66 - eeep). I get to my parents’ house - my mom and dad stay upstairs and in the basement respectively while I use the bathroom and retrieve a very happy pup. Once I get everything out to the car, my mom and dad come outside (double masked, as am I) and we quickly wave and air hug from a distance. On the way home, I drive through the grocery pickup and get my groceries.
5:30pm: Finally home. The dog is very happy to be home too - my mom said when she would come into the bedroom where he was, he would look at her and be - “oh…..just you…”. Such a momma’s boy :) Dinner is actual food (the rest of the kale sausage soup). I also put together a batch of cranberry almond biscotti (based off the Ina Garten cherry pistachio biscotti) - the apartment smells delicious. Settling in for post-travel isolation lol.
9:30pm: Melatonin gummies, tattoo upkeep, and then bedtime with the dog!
Daily Total: $76.47
Weekly Total: $505.50
Food & Drink: $326.64
Fun & Entertainment: $0
Home & Health: $22.00
Clothes & Beauty: $50.94
Transport: $105.92
Reflections:
First, GODDAMN I AM SO EXCITED TO PAY OFF THIS STUDENT LOAN. Just paid another $200 on it this morning, so we’re under $800!! If you hear an excited scream from the Western New York area next month, don’t worry, it’s just me.
Second, this was a higher spend week than usual, but I’m really proud to have budgeted for all of it. I had basically prepaid for the tattoo (on the gift card) and there’s still leftover for my next appointment. I had also budgeted and saved for the increased amount of gas and food.
Third, hopefully this isn’t too boring. My life pre-pandemic wasn’t terribly interesting, and it certainly isn’t now lol. I’m hoping to continue my debt payoff progress by finishing paying off my credit card debt in 2021, and start saving my 3-6 month emergency fund before starting that house down payment savings! I’m even starting to allow myself to start actually looking at Zillow.
I have been isolating since I got back - just drove through and got my COVID test, so fingers crossed for a quick reply!
Lastly, the coverup tattoo is going to be beautiful. I can’t wait for it to be finished!
Thanks for reading this whole thing!

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5+ Years of budgeting, finally crawling out of the hole

Long Post Ahead
TL;DR: budget even if you're poor. you'll be ready when things turn around. life will change. be ready when it does whether its good or bad. its ok to spend wisely on things that are important to you. learning about personal finance before you're cashed up will help you so much. . . .
Hello poverty finance from Australia. Its taken years to go from unstable poor to stablish - low income household. I have lived under the poverty line and just above it for a very long time. I probably just learn too slowly when it comes to finances. But as of 2021, I can say that if the new job holds, I'll finally be heading out of it. Please be nice. I know I've made mistakes. Just trying to own them and do the best I can.
I wanted to share my timeline with you all. For me, the journey hasn't been linear. But every damn month I would look at my spreadsheet and work out what I could do. As a type this on my dying budget smartphone with a cracked screen on my 3G prepaid phone plan, I hope someone out there finds it useful.
I know it can feel pointless budgeting peanuts. But in my experience it allowed me to allocate the money to the things that were important to me. Which for me, is providing for my kids. I scrimped and save and make sure they get quality shoes, go to a good school, get to do some fun things and we eat well. When extra money came in, I knew how to handle it.
My friends bought houses, had phone plans and new high end phones, took out car loans, travelled, had expensive weddings and decent home internet. One of my friends earned more than double what I did, but lived pay to pay and always had less.
I kept out of debt and did everything to get bills under control. I try to get secondhand clothes from friends for my kids and I where possible. I always left myself some fun money where possible for my kids even if it was just for a hot chocolate. I discovered if I save too aggressively and deprive myself too much I cancel my automatic transfers and then spend the cash. I bought everything outright. Or I didnt get it. Never use afterpay. Sometimes I use layby. Automating small transfers to my untouchable savings account changed my life.
I was blessed to not have a rent increase between 2012-2020. Mostly cos the place was a dump and the owner didnt want the hassle of finding another tenant. dealing with rat infestations while your in your 3rd trimester of pregnancy in your mouldy house isnt fun. but having a roof over our heads wasn't something I would compromise. Commuting for 4 hours a day partially by ferry with a 1 week old during a measels outbreak to get your older child to school isnt fun. After my first pay from work this year, I realised i had a month worth of expenses banked. I hope to keep moving onwards and upwards.
Australia has socialised health care and deferred study loan payments as well as partial family welfare for working parents and child care subsidies. . .
2012 . .

No car (Car repossessed 2010)
House with ex repossessed
Credit card debt
1 baby no financial support from other parent
Burnt through savings
Regularly having account in negative
Renting Run down 1bdrm semi.furnished house in a regional area
Addicted to smoking
Depressed
prepaid phone . .

2013

Still no car
Signed up for diploma 22K deferred student loan
shaved my head #2 cut, bought clippers and stopped spending money on hair.
12 hour days, 90min commute each way 5 days a week
Electricity shut off for 2 weeks
Toddler getting sick regularly from daycare
Quit smoking
Recieved a windfall and spent it all on 12month ymca gym membership paid upfront and got an extra month free
Started yoga and pilates at the gym
Still cant control money, account in negative regularly
Got free food from neighbours sometimes
planted tomatoes and basil
started a meetup group (didnt make any money) to meet people. used groupon discounts to organise events or did free stuff
prepaid phone . .

2014

still no car
started university
12 hour days, 90min commute each way 5 days a week
toddler needs operation from getting ear infecfions at daycare
total burnout, failed some subjects at uni
closed the meetup group
still growing food
money still not covering expenses
prepaid phone
volunteered and scored free tix to a festival and met cool people
accessed retirement fund due to financial hardship to pay urgent expenses
doing yoga whenever i have any spare money

. .
2015

started a budget
started learning about FIRE
did some more volunteering, made new connections which lead to more volunteering.
still no car
still attempting to study not doing great
still depressed
prepaid phone
eating healthier
doing yoga whenever i have spare money
account isnt in negative as often
saved my first 1K emergency fund
used emergency fund
bills are getting paid on time
account stays in the black

. .
2016

flunked out of uni
still budgeting
opened an untouchable savings account
still learning about FIRE. taught me flashy toys don't equal wealth
learning about minimalism
making lifestyle changes
still no car
prepaid phone
asked to be on a committe for a festival. got paid a small sum. direct result of prevous volunteering
bills get paid on time
any windfalls go straight into untouchable savings . .

2017 * made last payment on credit card debt

child started school. could buy school supplies with meagre savings
still budgeting
bought a cheap car with cash from the money in untouchable account
saved money, had savings wiped by unexpected bills
prepaid phone
car accident. car gets written off. insurance pays me more than i paid originally. i buy another older but sportier car in cash new car is a lemon. drain untouchable savings repairing it

. .
2018

still budgeting
still prepaid phone
make regular small deposits to untouchable savings
start putting away bill money in untouchable account
earn small bonuses at work. put some extra money in my kids account
get a tax penalty for my bonus forced to pay 70% to tax office in instalments
car playing up. its still drivable and i cant afford to replace it so ... meh
lodge some outstanding tax returns and get bonus money.
i take up hiking and buy hiking boots with cash
buy uniforms for my kid and pay school fees and other bills in advance
get pregnant boyfriend relapses after a long period of sobriety and im left alone
tell my doctor im struggling and get a referall to see a psych. i get a rebate but its expensive. best money ive ever spent.
i super frugally prepare for baby. find out im having a boy and hit up friends with kids for hand me downs. score bigtime.

. .
2019

still budgeting
still prepaid phone
im eligible for maternity pay from my last job because of my years spent budgeting im able to stretch and live within our means
i get a free newborn baby photo shoot by signing my baby up to be a model in a photographers workshop
we have no nursery at home. i let my older girl sleep upstairs in the bedroom and slept on an airmattress downstairs next to the babys cot for 5 months.
thank god i can breastfeed and dont buy formula
i take out more retirement $$ due to hardship
spend 4hours a day commuting with baby to take daughter to school and realise i need to move
look for a new rental but cant afford to move back to the city, or anywhere close at all.
pause all savings and just scrape by

. .
2020

still budgeting
still prepaid phone
decide to attempt to study at uni again to improve job prospects
daughter has to be homeschooled due to pandemic
defer studying until 2021
not commuting for school saves us so much time and money
i get back on track with small deposits to untouchable account
australian goverment starts stimulus money. i save ALL of it
buy a cheap reliable older car from a family member with cash
flight prices bottom out and i get cheap flights to visit an aunt and have a holiday.
realise cost of living and lifestyle in this city is good while holidaying
find a pet friendly rental, apply and am accepted before i flew home. empty retirement $, get rid of most of my belongings and drive 1700km (1056 miles) to move to new city within 2 weeks.
car played up on the way, and for reasons unknown the mechanic only charged me an hours labour to check it out.
no furniture, no tv. no dining table. picnic set to eat off of. camp chairs. travel.cot, mattresses on the floor. still better than before. we have ceiling fans! and air con. and no mould.
we live walking distance from a school. school fees are less. no commuting.
i find free exercise classes
december 2020 i get a new part time job, and negotiate the salary . .

2021

still budgeting
still prepaid phone
have a dining table, storage ottoman /seat and kids beds now
started new job
set up automatic savings transfers until june 2021. going to try my best to build an emergency fund and maybe even invest. rebuilding retirement fund asap.
study is commencing soon
still shave my head. cos ladies can rock this look too 😁

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I am 35 years old, make $56,000 ($231k combined), live in Seattle, and work in higher ed administration