The best remedy for this, I think, is some punches delivered directly to my face.
Synopsis/TL;DR: 25y.o. with (effectively) no debt, $52,000 salary, full time job, part time school. Capability to grow moneystubble some months but a propensity to fall victim to wussypants syndrome especially as it relates to food (and guilt spending on friends/family).
Here is my actual annual (YTD) and monthly average spending and income for 2014.
Category | YTD | Month | Notes |
Income | 39,669 | 2,834 | YTD includes tax refund, tuition reimbursement, and $ from parents for plane flights home. Monthly is just my paycheck |
Spend Tot | 36,238 | 2,093 | |
Difference | 3,431 | 741 | |
% Saved | 8.65% | 26% | |
Rent | 10,160 | 960 | |
Edu | 9,208 | - | Grad school. Paying in cash. 1/3 is reimbursed by work. Done 5/2015 |
Groceries | 4,107 | 339 | "Family" of 2. Proceed face punch. |
Dining | 3,619 | 339 | Insert face punch here. |
Useless stuff | 3,522 | ??? | Gifts, household, "entertainment", clothes, cash, tax prep. |
Car | 2,288 | 214 | Gas and Insurance |
Gym | 1,375 | 70 | Rock climbing gym. My only work out, especially because in winter after dark, a tiny gal like me cannot be outside alone for both temperature and safety reasons. |
Travel | 1,077 | - | Mostly paid back by parents because otherwise I'd never visit home |
Utilities | 465 | 80 | 40 electric and 40 internet/month |
Medical | 417 | - | Mostly out of network mental health |
*Disclaimer: I consolidated some categories by hand, so I apologize if my totals are off by a little.
Assets:
Category | Amount | Notes |
401k | $11,900 | Started 3 years ago. See questions below |
Savings | $4,940 | In savings account to cover next year's tuition in full |
Investments | $1,708 | Index fund, just started last month |
Car | 2007 Hyundai Elantra | Paid in cash, ~150k miles |
Liabilities:
Student loan: $53,000 from undergrad. However this is entirely covered by parents, so effectively $0, and it should be gone by next year.
No car loan
No month-to-month credit card debt
Some notes
- Commuting is expensive for me, but boyfriend walks to work. He is the one with more of a pants on fire debt emergency due to his grad school.
- At 25, I don't pay for health insurance yet but that changes next year.
- I don't pay for my cell phone either. That may also change soon.
- I may be moving to California next year for boyfriend's job. Hello rent increase!
- I finish my (fully paid in cash) Master's degree next May, so that cost will go away! And my salary will increase!
Goals
- Save more than 26% per month (and more than 8% per year). Even with my luxurious dining habits, 26% per month isn't shabby, but I know I can and should do better.
- Save $100,000 for a 20% down payment on a ~$500,0000 condo/house. This would probably get me a 1 br near my work's office in CA. Until then, I'll just be hemorrhaging money on rent equal to what a mortgage payment would be.
- Live off one income (preferably mine) so that the boyfriend can pay his whole student debt (~$60,000) and credit card debt (???!!!) in one year.
- Be able to move to part time work before 30 to have more time for things like potential kids, pets, rock climbing, painting hobby, etc.
Questions
Feel free to tackle any subset of the questions below:
- Diniiiiing! Some days after work and school, I just don't have the energy to cook, and the boyfriend is a huge enabler (pusher even) of eating out because "we deserve it". I know. So mentally speaking, how do I resist this? And how do I convince him in the heat of the moment that, no, we actually deserve to not stress about debt? Any go-to foods to keep around for when this situation strikes?
- Useless stuff. Treating my mom to [Edit]expensive dinner when she visited. Buying wedding presents. Cash (read: dining). Clothing. Most months I'm good, but other months I catch wussypants disease and make enough stupid decisions to more than make up for it. Sigh. Commence the face punches. Maybe shame will help.
- My employer's 401k is stupid. It's through some small company and there is no option to put it in an index fund which makes me want to face punch someone. What do I do with it?
- Speaking of retirement, how am I doing with that 401k? I have no point of reference for my age. I don't feel the need to retire early, but would love the flexibility of part-time.
- Are my goals reasonable given my income? Especially that house one...
- Does anyone have any good references for how to talk to significant others about debt and money?
- What else would you like to face punch me for in the table above? I suspect I know already and promise I will try not to turn into Mr. Complainypants, maker of excuses.
And for those of you that made it this far, I applaud and thank you in advance for your ability to focus on such a long and rambling post and for your generosity in giving me some of your time.
Do you not like your parents? I ask because I see you are willing to pay to eat out, and for a rock climbing gym, but not to travel to visit home.
It's an interesting set of priorities. It's something that I think about sometimes - I have a niece and a nephew who are now early 30's, and throughout their 20's, and even now, their mother buys their plane tickets home. I also have known 20-somethings on their parents' insurance (though they could get it through work), and on their parent's cell phone plan (though they could afford their own). While I think it's mustachian and understandable if you pay your parents for your portion of the cell phone bill (1/3 if there are 3 of you), and the same for insurance, I don't get the idea that something fun should come before insurance or trips to visit family. Just not my priorities. (Starting in my 30's, I paid to fly my mother out to visit, and now that she's gone, we pay for my MIL to come visit.)
On to other things. When I was 25, I was working full time and taking master's classes at night, and I ate out ALL THE TIME. Don't do that. I shudder to think of how much money I was blowing on eating out back then, because I was "too tired". My boyfriend at the time (now husband) cooked regularly, but then he moved away for grad school, and it got ugly. Of course I didn't really know how to cook then either.
Now I have a full time job and two children, and the ONLY way I make it work is through meal planning and packing ahead of time. So if I have a day where I have a full work day, followed by a meeting, I pack ahead of time. For example, last week I got called to jury duty unexpectedly, on a day when I had a 4:30 pm PTA meeting. I instructed my husband to feed the family leftover burritos from the freezer. What I did was:
1. Take veggies and hummus for an afternoon jury duty snack
2. Pack a salad for lunch, in a cooler bag, with an ice pack (with a fork, and a bottle of water)
3. Run home after jury duty, making me a little late for PTA, where I microwaved leftovers and a vegetable and took with me to the 3 hour PTA meeting.
You know the nights that you are going to have class. So, if Weds is that day, Tuesday night: 1. What am I having for breakfast? 2. What am I having for lunch? Leftover stir-fry? Pack it up already. Put a piece of fruit and some nuts on top. Do I have to run to class after? Make a turkey sandwich. Take ALL of it with you to work, use a cooler/ ice pack if you need it.
Once you get used to planning ahead, it's very easy. So even if there's a day that you wake up and haven't prepared, it won't take long at all to make a sandwich, or pack up cheese, nuts, and vegetables, or whatever.
Also, when you get into the habit, it's easier to cook than eat out. Beans and rice, burritos, crockpot chicken, spaghetti, soups. I cook 2-3 big meals on the weekend, freeze some, eat the rest until they are gone, defrost something for the rest of the week. It's better if you get used to eating the same stuff over and over (I eat salad for lunch EVERY DAY.) The answer, again, is plan ahead - KNOW what you are cooking. Seriously microwaved vegetables and some chicken on the George Foreman, or an already-roasted chicken from the grocery store - not the cheapest you could do, but better than eating out.
For 401k, just look at the options and figure out how to spread it out. Ours has "retirement date" options - I just use those.