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September 2018: I was NOT expecting this

I’m gonna be quite honest: September was a damn expensive month. How the hell did I manage to pull out not only a positive savings rate, but a halfway decent one? I honestly have no idea (although this is the power of including my 401(k) contributions in my income as well!).

I didn’t post much in September: I had four posts, three of which were for things that happened in August (CampFI and August’s spending report). And a lot of that is because that month saw a few big changes in my life that have occupied a fair amount of my time, including the resumption of weekly chorus rehearsals. Ah, sleep on Tuesday nights, I miss you dearly!

And of course I had FinCon at the end of the month! Continue reading “September 2018: I was NOT expecting this”

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July 2018: my biggest impulse purchase ever (and a $150 hiking weekend)

July was shaping up to be a fantastic reversal of my not-so-hot savings rates of the last few months. I was this close with a hefty petsitting paycheck, my COL adjustment kicking in for a very slightly bigger paycheck, a lower month for groceries thanks to gift cards, and not a whole lot else other than gas to get to the beach.

And then last weekend struck. Continue reading “July 2018: my biggest impulse purchase ever (and a $150 hiking weekend)”

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February 2018: birthday month edition

February was a bunch of working extra and two weekends spent out of town; one to see my parents, and the weekend closest to my birthday in LA. I’m now 26 so I guess that makes me Officially Old and Done With the Quarter-Life Crisis or something. Just kidding, the quarter-life crisis will for sure continue, probably on multiple fronts! Boy am I glad I figured out the financial aspect and am working on the FIRE thing so I at least know that what I want to be when I grow up includes not being tied to a 9-5!

General sarcasm at myself/my ongoing “what do I want to do in life?” emergency soul-searching aside, turns out there’s not much new to report since I wrote about much of it as it happened. So if you missed all that because for some unfathomable reason you haven’t been religiously keeping up with my posts, go read them (whoops, sorry, the sarcasm continues)! And PS I’ve now got a handy archives page so you can go catch up on everything 😉 Continue reading “February 2018: birthday month edition”

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January 2018: uber frugal month?

So I started off 2018 with the goal of doing an Uber Frugal Month challenge (among other goals, with varying degrees of success) for January. And then I broke that with a car repair and a plane ticket to LA over my birthday weekend.

Yet again, here’s where emergency funds are amazing: I didn’t break (much of) a sweat swiping my credit card for either of those transactions (and to be fair, the plane ticket was decidedly not an emergency. That came out of my Tip Yourself savings which is not earmarked for emergencies). Those pushed my spending up much higher this month, but I was not worried about covering them.

I’m leaving for LA next week and I cannot contain my excitement. That $370 is already well-spent and I’m not even there yet! Continue reading “January 2018: uber frugal month?”

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December 2017: I kicked ass

Previously September was my most impressive spending report, at least savings-wise. (I’ve had some other pretty impressive months, but those were impressive if you used the “holy shit, that was a ton of spending” definition of “impressive.”)

Well, turns out December just blew that out of the water!

Overall it was a pretty quiet month; and that combined with the fact that I worked four of five weekends at my second job helped contribute to just how much money I had left over.

In other news, I’ve officially been tracking my net worth and spending for a year, and what a difference that year has made! Continue reading “December 2017: I kicked ass”