A DC twenty-something's adventures in pursuit of financial independence
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)”
Last year I wrote a post about saving money on car insurance. It included a lot of the basics—shopping around, getting a policy for a full year instead of 6 months, and paying for that year up front instead of monthly. Plus it’s the same company I have my renter’s insurance with, so I got a bundling discount there.
Well it’s that time of year again (not a coincidence that this is now the second year in a row I’ve opened up a new credit card around this time ?). And I’m back with more money-saving tips. Except that they aren’t the basics this year. I’m actually terrified to do this: I’m dropping the comprehensive and collision coverage for my car. Continue reading “How to save money on car insurance: terrifying decision edition”
Today. That would be today, y’all. Well, yesterday by the time you read this, but the fact remains that we’re only halfway through January and I just absolutely annihilated all of the savings from the spending I previously hadn’t been doing this month.
I have to laugh at both myself and the universe here. Wasn’t I just saying that because of my uber frugal month challenge and my double side hustle income that January’s spending report might possibly rival December’s success? Or that the frugal month challenge was going strong? That was literally two days ago. Clearly the universe heard that and decided to throw me for a loop.
I’ve had an expensive day. The numbers aren’t finalized, but I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $700 today. Considering that was the sum total of my expenses last month excluding rent, I have well and truly broken the uber frugal month challenge. Continue reading “The day I broke my frugal month challenge”
We’re halfway through the first month of the year, and I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling so refreshed and ready for the rest of 2018!
Just kidding. I’m exhausted.
As I jokingly said yesterday, I’ve got two jobs and a blog, so if you ask what’s new with me, the answer these days is pretty much going to be “not much.” Despite the exhaustion from two jobs, I can throw all the internal tantrums I want about wanting to go to sleep early instead of writing, but here I am with a tab open to WordPress because having a blog is a thing, too.
What I can do instead is cop out on a fully-formed blog post. I’ve got nothing, y’all. So here’s a mid-month update instead! Continue reading “Mid-month update: January 2018”
Essentially all of life is a trade-off: when we say yes to something, we’re saying no to something else. We trade our time and energy 40 hours a week at our jobs in exchange for a paycheck, which means saying no to the myriad of other things we could or would rather be doing during that time.
When we say yes to an evening in reading a book or watching tv, we say no to an evening out somewhere or spending time with friends. And vice versa.
When we stay up late writing blog posts, we say no to getting more sleep. Ahem, I digress. Continue reading “What are your trade-offs?”
Oy. Two weeks ago was an unexpectedly busy week and I didn’t actually mean to disappear but that’s just what ended up happening. Last week I was at the beach with my family and bless me, I legitimately went into the week thinking I’d sit down some afternoon and write up some posts to schedule during the week to make up for the disappearance. Jokes. Beach week is for going to the ocean twice a day, reading, sleeping, and eating too much. There’s just no room for blogging in all that vacationing!
So much vacationing!But I’m back and here to talk about this month in my finances. Continue reading “July 2017: car windows and Craigslist”
Now that the blinding rage has died down, I think I’m calm enough to write this.
I don’t drive my car every day or even every week. I don’t check on it every day. Maybe I should, and maybe I will in the future even though I don’t want this to make me obsessive about my car. It’s 11 years old with almost 150,000 miles for goodness’ sake, and I don’t want to waste my life energy worrying about it. But disaster struck a few days ago. Continue reading “A $500 lesson in adulting and the importance of savings”
No, it’s not to spend 15 minutes on the phone with Geico, although maybe that would save you money! Although fun fact: my parents have been with their car insurance company for ages. A few years ago just for fun my dad decided to call Geico to see if they could save him anything and the guy who answered was like “uh your rates are amazing. No, we can’t beat that.” So maybe calling won’t save you money after all! Anyway, my parents gifted me my mom’s old car about a year ago and I’m now on my third car insurance policy. I’ve learned a bit along the way about how to save money in that department and I thought I’d share, even if this information may be pretty straightforward and obvious to people. Continue reading “How to save money on car insurance”