Was chatting with an online friend on twitter earlier. He mentioned a book recommendation to me. Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You To Be Rich. Despite having read it years ago I hadn’t put together a mock annual budget. So I did that while watching Blacklist and with Suze Orman episodes playing in the background.

Some observations:

• I eat out way too damn much. At work I can get a hot meal by using a microwave. The same at home. With a place of my own I can get used to inviting friends over more without feeling any guilt. Over $5k on food alone over the course of a year. I could see that in NY or SF if I was earning a six figure income, but I’m in Texas and not…. Some people are able to feed a single person on $100 a month. I might need to adopt some of these principles into my own life. Live in the richest country in the world and I’m in financial deficit.
• That monthly budget is paying the minimum on my student loan which I am adamant about not doing. $800 – $1000 is my monthly goal. The townhouse equity payments are helping toward that. I pay an extra $100-125 a week without thinking twice about it.
• I’m smarter with how I spend my money than I give myself credit for. Since starting this blog I’ve made about $20k in student loan payments. Yes I drive a new car but it’s at 0% and the total amount is less than 30% of my gross.
• I’m impatient. Soon will be year 14 of owing student loans to Sallie Mae / Navient. Done with these fuckers. Should’ve paid them off years ago. My original goal was 2010 while still living with my parents. Quitting my job, getting a really shitty job and a slightly less shitty job, then moving to DFW and no job for 6 months before getting a shitty job that bounced my paycheck were a series of obstacles I had to face. It’s been a few years but during the middle of the process it was extremely painful and very much fresh in my mind. I don’t believe in job security anymore. In the grand scheme of life, only my individual skills will keep me employed. I see new grads from college landing jobs with starting pay higher than my own. My conclusion is working on my skills is an absolute must. Salary only increased 2% last year. Another 2% increase is nothing. Without letting greed or bitterness into the equation, it’s time to go hard. Learning from people who have already done it and getting ideas.

It’s 4AM and I need sleep. Thanks all for reading. I wish you a happy and safe 2015!

Merry Christmas / Happy Hanukkah / Happy Kwanza / Seasons Greetings:

Navient / Sallie Mae – Month 32 Update

Month 32 – Nissan Altima 2014 Payoff

Month 32. The last month hasn’t been particularly easy.I’ve been juggling the expenses associated with furnishing a new apartment. I spent approximately $1012 on furniture for the living room (consisting of a sofa, loveseat, ottoman) and that figure includes shipping and tax), $184 on a computer desk + chair and roughly $100 on a coffee table. I still would love to get some accent tables and a headboard but neither of those are essential right now. I’ve never spend this much money in my life and my credit card has been getting a ton of usage these last few weeks. The end is near though.

Ashley Furniture Commando – Sofa

Ashley Furniture Commando – Loveseat

It looks like I will get an additional $12,000 or so as a result of the refinancing the townhouse out of my name. To me that is a significant amount of money and I’m very cautious about how to best utilize it. Ex says I made out like a bandit. The obvious way would be to apply it directly toward my student loans as I receive each installment. As of this date December 9, 2014 the amount I will receive would represent close to 47% of my student loan. Between my tax return, expected bonuses, settlement money owed to me by the glass company I worked for and “cash flowing it”, I think I can hold true to the original purpose of this blog. To be free of my student loans a few months into the ripe old age of 32. I can see the car paid off by the time I’m 34. Then absolutely no debt, my retirement savings will be well underway.

I started reading Tony Robbins Book – Money Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom. It will help me answer the question about what I’m doing with my retirement accounts. Don’t want to get killed in fees. So ready to move out, 6 more days…

As of 12/9/2014:
$5334 in 401k, $4743.89 of that is Vested. – YtD Return of 6.42%
$402.47 in Betterment Roth IRA
635.39 in TDAmeritrade Roth IRA
Total Retirement: 6371.86

Currently, my contributions are increasing by 480 each month. At this rate assuming I lose none of my principal and earn 0% interest I will have over $50k by the time I turn 40. Torn right now between maxing out Roth IRA contributions for 2014 and getting out of debt .When I’m debt free I’ll definitely max out my Roth.

Current Roth IRA balance and expected future value at age 65 – 2048.

Maxed out Roth IRA Contribution from 2014 to 34 years the year 2048.

So wait what? I can have over 5x the balance / $32k by just contributing an extra $4462 one time?  These calculations don’t factor into the equation risk. The student loan payment will always be there unless I pay it off. The $450-1000 I save in not having a payment each month could easily be used to funnel money into a Roth or other investments. 13 years though of interest accumulating, feeling the weight of Sallie Mae / Navient over my shoulders. It’s almost half of my entire life I’ve owed this organization money… Think I’ve answered my question….

Month 31, had a lot of recent expenses lately.

Approximately:

$150 Electricity Deposit
$489.69 – 6 Months Uninsured Motorist Coverage (includes uninsured motorist coverage and a $1k deductible)
116 – Renters Insurance ($100k coverage)
$650 –  Cost of Washer & Dryer

Total : $1406 of unexpected expenses, basically my whole next paycheck is accounted for. Getting another $1000 advance from refinance of the house soon. That will basically solidify everything I need for the move.

Really looking forward to the idea of being on my own, almost a month away from now . Having a cold snap in Texas now, temps in the 30s. I was just getting used to having a cheap electricity bill too.

Reached irreconcilable differences with my now ex-partner. Planning to either sell the house or refinance and take my name off. Will split the accrued equity.

This almost happened about 3 times before, choosing not to air my dirty laundry on here. Long story short I think we will be happier being with other people.

Signed the lease on my very first apartment today. Monday I should have final approval.

My payment are as follows:

804.19 – Due 12/15 –  Pro-rated first month’s rent. 300 of that was pet deposit (150 refundable), 100 security deposit and 55 application fee.
823 – Due 1/1

Then basically 823 after that.. 763 rent plus 50 for washer / dryer and 10 pet rent.
Considering my take home pay of $3200 a month I certainly think this is doable. Utilities and water should each be close to 50% less than I pay now. No Housing Association dues will free up $100/mo.

I really think renting will be better for me than home ownership. I won’t have to worry about big items to repair such as the cracked driveway, eventual foundation work that will need to be done, cracks in the walls, plumbing work, etc. Nor will I have to pay property taxes to the tune of roughly $2k and annual interest on a 100k+ loan, PMI, etc.  I really feel that once the $7k-8k in money for basic stuff is factored in, for my current needs downsizing from a 3br to a 1br is better financial sense.

Will write more about this but I’m headed to a party now. 😀

Month 30, the time flies.

Month 30 Update – Debt Free 32

Got a couple hundred dollars from my partner that I used toward the student loan and toward an emergency fund.  I used that along with some bonus money to pay down over $1500 toward the loans. Including the $125 payment made a few minutes ago, and car payment I spent 1885.79 toward getting out of debt.

After a lot of deliberation I did make the decision to purchase a road bike and also join a local bike club. The membership was only $25 per year. The road bike after all tax was $531. Shipping was “free”. I originally ordered a model that was $130 cheaper but after my first road bike experience I didn’t want to cheap out and have a bad case of buyer’s remorse. I got the bike last week and rode an astonishingly high amount of 50+ miles in a week. Yesterday I did 20 miles alone.

The first road bike is on Craigslist. A few people haver asked about it, but no one has agreed to meet me in person. I’m asking for $120 with cyclocomputer (paid around 30-40 for that) included. Bike hasn’t been ridden much and I paid about $170 for it. I may just put the computer on my new bike and drop the price to $100. Only thing is the rear brakes need to be adjusted and I think that scares off some people.

My mountain bike is being repaired for free now as part of a repair contract I signed up for when I purchased it. I’m debating whether to keep it for inclement weather & trails or to sell it. Won’t be ready until the end of October though.

Why am I biking more:

• Travel more distance in less time vs walking
• Easier on joints with my 220+ weight
• Quicker recovery time vs walking (no shin pain)
• Able to keep up with community more (goes back to weight, I can’t keep up with a runner for more than a minute)
• One of my childhood passions growing up. Used to spend hours on the bike and not want to come back in the house.

Ordered this bike through Bikesdirect after carefully measuring myself. Did not want a repeat of the Amazon bike. I am happy to say the fit is perfect. Had a little issue with assembly though. Stripped where the pedal screws into. Was riding a mile from home and noticed how unusual the pedal felt. I jiggled it and the whole thing fell out. Freaked out about having to by a new crankshaft, only one I saw in black was from the UK for about $65 and would ship in about 2 weeks. Then I considered upgrading to the Shimano 105 but the price on that is over $115 and new pedals. Luckily I had a moment of clarity and went to the local bike shop. Pedal was fixable by screwing a larger part in the whole with recessed threads. Repair and a tune up ran me about $64.

Bike pedal issue:

I did aggressively compare the specifications on this model to what was offered by my local bike shop. The ones on this bike are superior and it’s built pretty well for China. Crossing my fingers that my problems with be minimal from now on.

So one of my friends told me he has $30k in credit card debt. This is the same one who recently financed close to $30k for a new car and has a TCO of almost $1600/mo. He makes a good chunk more than I do annually but wow. Considering the average credit card is about 13% interest, he’s paying close to $4k in interest each year. My friend also tends to spend rather extravagantly compared to my $10-25 dinners out.

I value our friendship, but it makes for an interesting point.

Don’t take money advice from broke people. Especially if they’re going further into debt to impress people they don’t like. Don’t take fitness advice from fat people. They may be good intentioned but the fact that they haven’t been able to make the plan work for them is proof that maybe they aren’t the people to go to for sound advice.

Started cutting back some carbs in my diet yesterday. Eating a whole sweet potato instead of the 1.5-2 servings of oatmeal/cereal I would normally have because it never really filled me up. Understanding more and more that all calories aren’t created equal. And certain foods have way more calories than I would’ve ever imagined. My ‘Wheat Belly’ has really made me start thinking about the impact of what I eat on my body.

Off to go enjoy the outdoors now…

Flashback to 2012, I purchased the then-new iPhone 5. Why did I upgrade?

• The device was able to store twice the amount of files as my iPhone 4. 16gb vs 8. Was running into issues not being able to keep enough of my music files on it.
• Crack-prone. Broke the screen on it twice. Once while taking my bag out of the trunk on the way to work. Again while at a bar, tipsy and a friend slapped it out of my hand.
• Slow – Moving from single core to dual core. iPhone 5 was and still feels way more responsive than the old phone. It’s rare the the 5 slows down other than when I’m running out of space.
• Screen size – Bigger is better when trying to fit a lot of information into such a small form factor as a phone. As long as it still is the size of a phone and not an iPad.

What are my reasons for wanting to upgrade this time?

• Size of screen. A slight bump up would be nice. A friend of mine has a 5.2″ phone and I thought that was too big. How can you sit down with form-hugging dress pants, have that huge bulge in your pocket and act like it isn’t bothersome. Even worse with a case… So no Plus for me.
• Timing – I have an unlimited grandfathered plan with at&t. The phone I picked out, the 64gb $299 plus a $40 activation fee. My old phone should get close to $180 from Gazelle. I can tolerate an extra $150 for a phone. Buying the phone I want out of pocket from T-Mobile would be $749.91 vs $299 for a 2 year contract. Then the 5gb plan (equiv of my ‘unlimited’) would be $70/mo plus ~20% in fees / taxes. So round that to $84. I pay $87 now. Not a huge amount of savings. $Also 450 over 2 years is an additional $18.75 a month extra.
• Newness – I use my phone probably over $100 times a day each and every day. I got the battery replaced for free recently as part of a recall program. I would like something more cutting edge and able to use more modern technologies like H.265 encoding / decoding. The Pay system I’m not so jazzed about. Just because it takes out the process of consciously thinking about payment decisions. A beep and cha ching your account is debited. I use this with one of my credit cards and it can be scary. One could argue the phone is actually safer than that. A malicious person couldn’t just beep your phone and have your credit card number.
• Camera – I take a lot of pictures with my phone. Better image quality is a huge plus. The 5S was already much improved. The 6 offers some nice touches that will make it easier to take great pics and video.

Other than that I didn’t really need a new phone. It’s definitely a want and most of the things I’ve been complaining about are ‘first-world problems’. Think we’re all guilty, I see folks make the biggest deal out of the smallest issue and I just want to tell them to get a grip…

Last but not least the world / internet can be a vile place. I won’t go into detail, but it sickens me how some can profit off violence or exposing people in the worst possible manner. Some things cannot be unseen… A certain level of ignorance does bring about bliss.

Making progress:

Down to $28,473.08 on Sallie Mae. Last month I was at 29,377.51. I will be under 28k in no time at all. I may not make my target of paying this off before my 33rd birthday, but I am ramping things up quite a bit. Thanks heavily to the budget my bf and a friend helped me put together. I know it’s irony that two people who don’t have blogs about getting out of debt helped me stay on path.

I got a bonus at work this week. I wasn’t expecting much, but including my retirement contribution over it was a couple hundred more than I had otherwise so not complaining. My bf also got his bonus and wrote me a check out for $1000 (415 went toward home repairs) toward my debt pay down efforts / long term savings. He didn’t have to do that and I’m quite appreciative. For September staying on target for the $1k toward Sallie Mae goal I set some months back. Might go over actually. If I paid $452 for the month, then add $500 I was given plus $500 extra I intended to pay anyway.

Month 29 Auto Loan Update – Nissan Motor Acceptance Corporation

The idea of having debt outside the mortgage until 2019 is quite unsettling. Even though it’s 0%, if I were to lose my job tomorrow I’d still owe that money to NMAC.

Also want to cover my retirement as of now:

$4206 in my 401k
$445 in Roth

$4651 total. 14 months ago I didn’t have a penny in retirement. I differ with Dave Ramsey’s philosophy of not putting any money toward retirement when paying off debt. Especially if you waited until your 30s (or later) like me to start the process going. You can’t turn back the years or offset a company match you might have made. I’m still paying extra toward it.

Earlier this month I had this strong desire to get a fancy road bike saying I work hard and deserve it. The one I wanted was about $500. It was also Labor Day so sales were in full effect. I talked myself out of it after getting the electricity bill in the mail and remembering I already have both a road bike and a mountain bike. I also tend not to ride when it’s above 90 degrees. These numbers need to keep going down, not up…

I started seeing a therapist to address issues I’ve been having with Social Anxiety and some depression.
She charged $125 for our first visit, each one thereafter is $100. A little expensive yes but I think it’s worth it. I was in denial for the longest time.
What I haven’t mentioned on this blog is that I’ve spend over a year looking for friends online and the past 3 trying to make friends in general (with mixed luck).

Labor day weekend was particularly hard for me. One part because my mouth has been hurting and two because I felt such an intense feeling of loneliness. I laid in bed most of the day yesterday, only going out to walk the dog. On social media I saw friends post pictures having fun on the water, at barbecues, etc. I was wallowing in misery inside the house wishing someone would just ask me to do anything.

Today was much better though. Got a decent amount of sleep. Actually took a lunch break at work. Immediately after work I walked / sprinted 3.67 miles for an hour at a pace of 16:21 min/mi. Then I went shopping at Tom Thumb. Boyfriend made some delish matzo ball soup.

Last week our plumber came and fixed the downstairs shower. $250 later you can actually take a shower in warm water instead of ice cold. Bf wants to redo our bathroom upstairs and to do that we need one functional bathroom. Tomorrow a new handyman is supposed to take a look at some work we need done to the house. Minor work, like fixing doors that don’t close all the way, hanging closet that is dangling from the wall and sliding closet doors that don’t actually slide but instead get stuck and frustrate the hell out of me when all I wanted to do was pick out a pair of pants…

The old handyman I tried to have come by on two different occasions and no followup on his end. On top of that, the work he did to fix our showers didn’t hold up. So money down the drain figuratively speaking. Hopefully the local guy I found online is better.

So I’ve learned a few things about myself the last week:

1. I have to take a break at work. If I don’t, I feel like I’m losing my sanity. Start to tread work and literally feel like a slave to money / the job.
2. Plan things with friends. Things don’t happen with a plan for me. They used to, but not here. Not with early-stage friendships.
3. I don’t like being alone. While I am introverted, the feeling of being by myself really takes a toll after a while. Especially on the weekends. I dreaded the weekends / not going into work for the longest time because of that.
4. I need exercise. Without even maintaining my health, I start to feel down pretty quick.
5. I don’t need to eat meat all the time. Could go 85% vegetarian and not really care. It can be significantly cheaper as well depending on how you plan it. Not to mention I feel more energetic without having to digest a huge portion of meat.

That’s my random post of the day. Hope you enjoyed. 😛

The last month I started doing what Dave Ramsey refers to as a Zero-Balance Based Budget. Every dollar gets a name. My bf does a lot of number crunching in Excel as part of his job. I do too but not nearly as much. A few months consecutively I’ve always had more month than money. I thought I had all the answers. There are some nasty habits I was getting into.

Amazon.com shopping – I love shopping on Amazon and get some really good deals. However some of my purchases were non-essential and I would spend $400-500 or so over the course of a month on things that were nice. Since July 24th I haven’t made any purchases on Amazon. 

Credit Card – I fell into the trap of thinking because it’s earning points I should put every single item I want to purchase on the card. The problem is it’s ridiculously easy to underestimate purchases and make a silly justification about the points. My Chase Freedom card gives me cashback (right now it’s 5% back on gas plus the always-on 1% offer). My big bills I’ll put on the card but small things like food, movie tickets, it’s not really saving me much.

So here is what I came up with for a two weeks budget:

So you may see the a/c is on there. We had company over the other weekend and they were complaining that it wasn’t getting cold enough inside. I was in denial for a bit, then decided to call in to report it. The technician came to the house while I was at work and replaced the capacitor in the unit. I came home and it was working fine. Did a double take on what he actually did to fix it. $275 and my bf game me $250 back. Could’ve been worse, had the compressor gone on the unit it would run over $3k.

Onto my budget, my $280 car payment is due the 14th of the month and I have $450 set aside in that account right now. Really loving the car right now, gets 30mpg in mixed driving and provides a nice sporty / cushy ride. Doing good on my grocery budget, can’t buy pistachios, walnuts, kale chips or anything like that at $7+ a pop but I manage pretty well without it. My credit card balance will be zero again after my next payment for the electricity / car fill-up. It was -$5 2 days ago and now $235 because of $158 utility bill, gasoline and some other small things.

Off to bed now, still working on the $1k emergency fund. I have it for 5 seconds then a bill comes up or I want to pay them down. Got a smaller raise than I hoped, but good feedback from my boss.