Best money diarie5/7/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Sometimes they have deliveries in partnership with other local retailers that I like to take advantage of (and can again now that I WFH on Fridays), and this week we got a couple of bags of flavored nuts from City Peanut! $33.92 I ordered two pints of ice cream to be delivered from one of our favorite local ice cream shops called The STIL. I don’t think I left the house at all the past two days.) Friday, April 22nd OMG, two days in a row of not spending money!!! □ (Another WFH day. I worked from home and managed to not spend any money! Yay me! Thursday, April 21st Note: I only included money spent, not money earned, and I also didn’t include anything blog-related. Of course, this is only a week and doesn’t capture EVERYTHING I spend money on, but it’s a good snapshot! I find money diaries SO interesting to read (also, I’m nosy), so I thought it’d be fun to share one here in case you’re curious (read: also nosy) about how I spend my money. I shared my Money Dials and Money Rules in the blog post last year and still find them to be accurate, so there’s nothing to update here! These numbers don’t take into account blog income/expenses I’d REALLY like to get to the place where my blog makes at least the same amount every month as I do at my full-time job (and basically double my take-home pay). ![]() I’m getting a raise this year but it’s still not a huge amount and won’t change things that much. Plus, with inflation, the value of it went down a lot. I still have the same amount saved as I did last year, which is great because at least it’s not going down, but I’d like to at least double that. Sadly, both of those increases came at the expense of my savings goals. A month ago, I adjusted my contributions so that I’m going to max out my Roth this year! Yay! (I also took about half of my tax refund and applied it to my 2021 Roth because I didn’t max it out.) The big thing is that last year, I finally started contributing to my Roth IRA regularly and set up automatic contributions so I don’t even have to think about it. Normally fixed costs would be around 60%. I’m sort of in an unusual spot with fixed costs, because somehow I fell behind paying Korri utilities by about six months, and now I’m paying two months at a time until I catch up. Over the past year, my fixed costs went up, my investment contributions went up (yay!), but my savings goals is currently nothing and my spending money went down. Ramit recommends that 50-60% of your take-home pay goes towards fixed costs, 10% goes towards investments, 5-10% goes towards savings goals, and 20-35% goes towards guilt-free spending money. ![]() It’s still not where I wish it was below I shared both my actual spending and my spending goal (each category is shown as percentage of total take-home pay). There is a chapter in IWT about conscious spending, and it was enlightening to put together my own Conscious Spending Plan last year based on my current spending and updated the numbers to where I’m at currently. (But □□□□ for forgiveness!) I also have two senior cats and pay for all of their care. I have other long-term goals including endowing at least one college scholarship (but ya need big $$$ for that, which I do not have right now lol).īefore I dive in, here’s where I’m at as a PhD-educated/full-time employed, partnered but unmarried woman with no children: I do not own a house (Korri owns the house we live in and I pay rent to him), I do not have any credit card debt or car payments, and I have a small amount of student loans remaining that I’m hoping will be forgiven, but if not, I can pay them off before they start accruing interest again. I wrote this last year and it’s still true: Currently, I envision my Rich Life looking like traveling often (and staying in fabulous accommodations), buying good food, not thinking twice about paying for whatever my cats need to feel comfortable and live their best lives, giving amazing gifts to my loved ones, and paying for convenience. You can define that however you want! I love that Ramit teaches you to ask yourself what you WANT to spend money on, and then he teaches you how to do exactly that, with no guilt. The main theme throughout the book is that of creating and truly living your Rich Life. I Will Teach You to be Rich by Ramit Sethi is a popular book in the personal finance world, and I highly recommend reading it if you have any sort of interest in getting your personal finances in order! (The companion podcast is also FABULOUS and features couples sharing their real money issues “behind closed doors”!) ![]()
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