Earlier this month I came to the realization I had a problem with spending on takeout food. On average it’s about $25 every time I put in an order and was doing it 5x a week. So $125/wk or $500/mo and or $6k per year. Along with that comes a nice side of high blood pressure and and extra 30 pounds. 271 pounds was my high and that was really awful.

Still doing damage control from years of stress eating, binge eating, not sleeping, high sugar consumption, and not consistently exercising. My weight was 268 this morning so that’s a small improvement. A long way to go…

This month I haven’t done any travelling, I don’t have any plans to go anywhere short term. I was also extremely bitter that someone I chatted with on/off for 120 days who lives <20 miles from essentially ghosted me. He told me he went to a funeral. I said I sorry and asked if needed anything. “No I’m good”… a week goes by and I just fairly unassumingly text Hey. No response even 10 days later. Deleted his texts, name, and number from my phone. Henceforth not chatting with anyone in their 20s. Got burned twice in the last 6 months and learned my lesson.

On to the finances. 401k is down slightly due to softness in the stock market. I did get a small tax refund back of <$400, largely due to some losses from last year related to cryptocurrency. Continuing to add to the Roth IRA , and small weekly additions to the M1 account. On cash the numbers here are a bit misleading. My car payments are caught up until 4/5/23 and I don’t owe another rent payment until 5/1/23.

On the car I’m still chiseling away, made a $647.10 payment on 2/4, a $500 payment on 2/9, and a $487.18 payment on 2/23. I did receive the refund check from the warranty on my last car almost 100 days later… Excluding interest I have about 30 payments remaining on a 60 month loan. It’s a grind but I’m seeing the results. Some people finance a car for 72 months at a crazy high interest rate, not on my watch. Without this debt I’d have over $200k net worth and crazy low overhead.

	2/28/23	1/31/23	Difference	% Change
401K	$ 167,673	$      169,051	$         (1,378)	-0.8%
Roth IRA	$   25,508	$        25,539	$              (31)	-0.1%
M1 Acct	$        663	$             580	$                83	14.3%
Cash	$     3,635	$          3,377	$              258	7.7%
HSA	$     2,988	$          3,104	$            (116)	-3.7%
Total	$ 200,468	$      201,650	$         (1,183)	-0.6%
Credit Cards	$        163	$          1,799	$         (1,636)	-90.9%
Auto Loan	$   14,382	$        15,973	$         (1,591)	-10.0%
Net Total	$ 185,923	$      183,878	$           2,045	1.1%

Not letting money burn a whole in my pocket is sort of a life hack. I basically have every material posession I think I will need for a while. A house / condo / townhouse still seems super unattainable right now. $280k or $320k? For that? What about the mortgage interest, the maintenance and the taxes. Older folks don’t realize how unattainable home ownership is these days, especially for a single person. Even the nicer properties to rent here in the lovely walkable West Village start near $1840.

A year ago my net worth was $182k, but I also didn’t have an auto loan. The market has also been down about 8% since a year ago. April 2021 I was at $150k and April 2020 just around the time I started working from home I was closer to $50,454. 5 years ago a mere $35k. So lots of improvement long term even if short term it doesn’t look the best.

I’ve also been shopping around gyms. I kind of think I should have one gym membership where I can workout with a friend and another where I can go solo. So my Anytime Fitness membership and then maybe Lifetime or Crunch. I really want Equinox but not for 60% the amount of a car payment. The Anytime location called me and said if I wanted to keep going to that location I’d have to spend an additional $20/mo from the $32 I’ve been paying. A 62.5% increase in price for the same membership experience didn’t really seem fair to me. Especially as a customer for years.

In closing I’m trying not to stress about life, or get burned out but it’s hard. Between the reorg, my plethora of meetings (one day I had 10!), timely deliverables, and a Windows 7 laptop with an obnoxiously loud fan that Google won’t even support with the latest web browser…I’m starting to see why people go on sabbaticals especially since I haven’t gone on a vacation / taken a break from working longer than 2 weeks since 2012.

I guess gay men tend to go on more vacations because of good taste and more disposable income often due to lack of a high maintenance partner, or the lack of kids. One of my good friends is in New Zealand and I’m having FOMO. The last time I left the country was to go to my ex’s wedding in 2017, almost 6 years ago. That kind of makes me feel like a failure, only having 1 relationship since late 2014 and even then we never went travelling anywhere together. Lately I’ve just been feeling lost. Do I stay here or do I move somewhere? I don’t think going back to NY is the right answer but I’m also not really happy with Dallas. I like social activities that don’t involve alcohol, but most of the gay scene is around drinking and partying.

Also the pressure of turning 40 in just over 5 months. Not really where I want to be. I also fucked things up royally in my 20s when I quit a job without having an action plan. Today I’m earning the most I ever have in my entire life and there’s no guarantee of finding a higher paying position with less stress. Plus all jobs suck in some capacity… I guess in closing there’s one bit of advice I can give myself. It’s a marathon not a sprint. Time for bed now.