My Feb. Spending Report

I'm happy to report that I did not go over budget in February!

My final spending was:

Train: $16

Target & Duane Reade for some necessary items: $34.35

Brunch with a friend: $14

Ice cream for F and myself: $9

Thanks for all of your encouragement! So far this year I haven't gone over more than $11 on my monthly budget. March is going to be another tough month for me to stay on budget. More on that later.

Setting Up Your Financial Life

One of my favorite things to do is help people get control of their finances. It is incredibly gratifying knowing that you are helping your friends take control of their money and their future. And hopefully, setting them up with good financial habits for the rest of their life. I say hopefully because you can't live someone else's life and you never know what will happen.

So, as part of my 2010 list I'm helping a friend/coworker take control of her finances. She is recently out of graduate school, in her first full-time job, and in her early 20s.

I've decided to turn my helping her into a blog series of 9 or 10 posts. Stay tuned for my first post in this series on budgeting.

2010 List

I want to start out by saying that I stole this idea from someone else. In January someone I know made a 20x10 list for 2010. It is 20 lists of 10 items that you want to complete in 2010. That's right 200 things. At first I thought the list was crazy, I mean how could I even come up with 200 things? However as I thought about it the really grew on me. This list does not have to be 200 large and exciting things. It can be a simple as places you want to eat and movies you want to see.

There is no denying that my life is hectic and as a result I find myself often thinking about only three things: 1. work, 2. school, and 3. wedding. I don't want 2010 to only be about these three things! I also wanted to remind myself that there is more to life then wedding, school & work.

So I made a 20x10 list. To perfectly honest it is not quite done. I'm still missing 26 items (which I intend to fill in as I think of or do certain things. My 20x10 list consists of 3 sections dedicated to wedding, 3 sections dedicated to travel and then sections on exploring different aspects of NYC, places I want to eat, books I want to read, movies I want to see, recipes I want to make, things I want to learn more about, things I want to learn how to do (like make paper flowers and jump start a car), there is a section of fitness and of course a section on budgeting.

In fact going snowboarding and making it off the bunny hill was on my list and I can now cross it off!

The majority of my list are small items, but they are items that remind me that life is more then work, school, and wedding. And so, I'm grateful for my 2010 list. I think it is going to keep me sane.

picture by sunshinecity

Spending Report

I probably spent more time falling yesterday than actually snowboards and I'm incredible sore today to prove it. However, it was a fun trip and for a second time out it wasn't that bad.

My spending this weekend consisted of:

Vending Machine: $1

Tip for dinner on Friday: $6

Laundry: $13

Breakfast Saturday: $7

Snowboarding and eating while snowboarding: $76.20 (this includes a lesson, F treated me and paid for my train ticket and lift pass so I paid for food and drink).

Dinner on Saturday for F & I: $25.69

I spent a total of $128.09 which means I have $78 left to last me until next Sunday.

The only way I'm going to make it is if I don't spend money at all until Saturday. Next weekend we are off to CT in order to do some wedding stuff so that's $25 for my train ticket. I'm budgeting $15 for lunch while we are out there and then the remaining $38 for brunch and other on Sunday.

I'm focuses, I'm ready, I'm going to make it!

What is Your Leisure Time Worth to You?

During my lunch hour I was browsing through some online articles and came across Laura Rowley's yahoo column. This week she wrote about a survey that asked the participants what they would do to double their salary:

I was struck by a recent poll that asked Americans what they would be willing to do to double their monthly income. Among a representative sample of 1,000 adults, one quarter of respondents said they would be willing to work every day of the year, according to a survey conducted by Capital One Bank.

A few calculations immediately jumped to mind: The U.S. median income is about $50,000, according to the Census Bureau. Double that to $100,000, and presume you lose roughly 30 percent to taxes. Divide what's left -- $70,000 -- by 365 days a year and you get $191.78 a day. Or, for an eight-hour day, $23.97 per hour.

The article goes on to talk about trading time for money:

There's often a rush to trade time for money, even though a variety of studies have found people who are "time affluent" are happier than those who are materially affluent. That's because people with time can spend it having fun with family and friends, exercising, pursuing personal or spiritual growth or volunteering -- all of which have been found to be important contributors to well-being.

The problem is, it's awfully hard to put a dollar figure on leisure, and so we discount its value -- and mentally overestimate the pleasure we'll get out of doubling our money. Some people might imagine they'd use all that extra dough to hit the mall, the spa, the beach, the slopes; to put up their feet in a custom home theater and chill.

I agree that we tend to think that once we have all this money our lives will be better, and who knows, maybe they will be a little bit better. However, I strongly believe that you have to consider how something will affect all aspects of your life before making a decision. If making double my salary means that I don't have time to spend my money then it is not worth it. Free time to pursue other interests is a gift and I know it helps keep me sane. Because I'm in school I have very little leisure time and so I cherish those moments even more. However, because I'm in school for something that I really enjoy I really don't feel like I'm at work all the time.

Time to relax and enjoy other things outside work will always been more valuable to me then working 60-80 hours a week, but making a large amount of money. However, I'm also convinced that there is a way to make more money and keep the balance in my life that I am constantly striving for.

February Spending Update

So far so good friends! I haven't spent a dime since my last post, which means I still have $207 to last me until the 28th.

However, I am about to go spend $1 at the vending machine because I'm craving something salty and my banana chips aren't cutting it!

February Spending

Alright folks, I need some accountability! I have $207 left in my flexible spending pot to make it until Feb. 28.

My upcoming plans include a day trip to snowboard, but with some discounts I should be able to do this for under $100. Which means the rest of my spending needs to be minimal! The good news is that I've got a paper to write for Feb. 25th so that should keep me in and working. When it comes to groceries F and I are good on dinner, though we will need to buy milk and bread at least one more time. It's probably a good idea for us to stock up on snacks as well.

I really think this is doable, and to make sure I meet this goal I'm going to be posting my spending.

My 403b

Before I begin I would like to remind everyone that I am not an expert and nothing I write should be considered advice. When it comes to investments we all need to find out what we are comfortable with and go from there.

I'm very aggressive in my 403b. I view it as money that I'm not going to be touching until I'm 65 (36 years from now) so there is no reason to be conservative. Of course, having that viewpoint during a recession means that my accounts just seem to be going down. I purposely only check my accounts once a month for net worth purposes and then ignore them as best as I can. However, once a year I like to take a look and see what has happened to my investment choices. When I spoke about rebalancing yesterday this is what I was talking about. Since I put a certain percentage of my money into different index funds as those funds do well or do badly my total overall percentage changes. Rather then physically move money around (and have to pay fees) I rebalance by altering my future investments.

Before I show you where I am here's another note. This is just my 403b that I've had since I started my current job. I also have a Roth IRA and other investments that are not included in these numbers.

Here is my current allocation in my employers contribution:

And here is my SRA contribution:

Both actually breakdown in very similar ways. I average about 85-86% stocks (foreign and domestic), 10% bonds, and 4-5% short-term (mainly government bonds).

I'm actually really happy with this distribution. However, like I mentioned before having an aggressive portfolio during a recession means I'm not actually making much money (though I am buying lots of shares)!

There you have it folks. I try not to focus on the dollar amount and keep reminding myself that when we crawl out of this recession (which we will do) it will all pay off. Right now, I'm getting a bargain.

Rebalancing my Retirement Accounts

I normally rebalance my retirement accounts in January. However, I had an insane January and it didn't happen. In all honestly, February isn't shaping up to be much calmer. However, snow has come and we get to leave work early (in my opinion we shouldn't have had to come in at all). Either way I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity to catch up on some school work and take a look at my retirement accounts.

At least part of my day can be productive!

Financial Discussions to Have Before Marriage

While I was reading an article about annuities in the New York Times online I happened to glance over at the "most popular - your money" and saw and article called "Your Money: Money Talks to Have Before Marriage". Because of the combination of my pending nuptials and my love of personal finance I ended up clicking on it before I even finished what I was reading.

I've always been a big believer that in a relationship financial compatibility is just as important as every other type of compatibility. Of course, it is also one that is often ignored. F and I often talk about money. I'm pretty open about my financial situation with people I care about so it didn't take us long into our relationship to begin talking about money, but we are far from perfect.

The article goes into four main things that should be discussed: ancestry, credit, control and affluence.

Ancestry is about our pasts and our relationships with money. Money is an ingrained part of our capitalist society that is not often talked about. Having this first conversation helps your partner understand where you are coming and vice versa. F and I may not have talked about this as deeply as the examples in the article, but we have talked about money enough that I'm not stressing over having an "ancestry" talk.

Credit is all about sharing your credit reports (by the way, we should all be checking our credit reports once a year)! While I can't say that I've seen F's credit report I do know that he has a higher credit score than I do, and because of my mortgage I also have a lot more debt than he does.

Control is about who does what financially. This is going to be a tricky one for F and I. When we first moved in together we had to sort through simple issues like when to pay the bills. (I like to pay as soon as I get them, he likes to pay when they are due). In fact, this issue of control is a big one for me and it is mostly why we have no intention of combing all of our finances. I know myself, if we shared everything I would become obsessive over his spending. In my opinion it is better to be honest with each other, but also control our own money and when we do need to share an account (for example when we buy a house or have kids) then we'll take it from there. However, for our sanity we each need to have money that belongs to just us to do with what we want.

Finally, affluence is about asking each other how rich you eventually want to be. This is something F and I haven't really talked about. Though I know he would LOVE to be a stay-at-home dad. I think this is an interesting conversation to have because it helps set your financial goals and what you are willing to do to get them. For example, I'm not willing to work 60 hours a week to make six figures. I'd rather have time to spend with F than money to spend of stuff. (Don't get me wrong though, I plan to be able to spend my life traveling, and eventually retire very comfortably).

2008 vs 2009 Spending

Last month a commentator asked me to to post dollar amounts of my spending in 2009. I've been thinking about it since then. I used to be more open on my blog, but after having a "blog outing" scare I scaled back on what I actually posted.

However, I've decided that it's okay to post what I spent. I'm not going to post my fixed expenses, but it doesn't hurt to post my liquid expenses.

In 2009 I spent a total of $13,906.65 and in 2008 I spent a total of $11,488.25 in the following categories:

Category	2009	2008
Clothes	$1,022.57	$656.3
Computer/Electronics	$315.65	$377.68
Dining	$2,510.03	$1,654.38
Donation	$132	$338.20
Entertainment	$1,120.99	$926.27
Fees	$168.25	$47.70
Gifts	$1,540.81	$1,541.89
Groceries	$1,278. 59	$1,479.78
Health	$1,151.42	$190
Hobbies	$27.34	$32.44
Household	$794.66	$165.40
Insurance	$291	not recorded
Laundry	$238.22	$20
Media	$149.26	$179.24
Moving	$974.01	$0
Personal Care	$496.44	$468.87
School	$651.24	$0
Sports/Fitness	$189	$675.11
Transportation	$647. 37	$808.09
Vacation	$1,711.90	$1,899.93

$30 Challenge

I ended up spending $10 over my $30 challenge.

On 1/26 I spent $15 on laundry (planned);

On 1/27 I spent $4 on a frozen dinner meal at the grocery store;

On 1/28 I splurges and spent $7 on pizza; finally

I spent $13 on 1/29 on some wine.

What I've learned is that if I'm hungry after class it doesn't matter if I have food at home, if it can't be made if five minutes I'm going to spend money. Since classes are back in full swing this month I'm heading over to trader joes to stock up on yummy quick meals so I'm not tempted to spend money.