Budgets are like pokémon. They are great tools to help us through our journey and reach our goals. This four-part series takes a look at my budgeting history and my journey to finding my current budget. In part one, I shared my experiences of how my budgeting developed over the decade before moving to New York City. In part two, I shared the challenging battles from my first year living in New York City and my wins and losses. In part three, I walk through my process of breeding a new budget with better stats. After a year of knowing nothing about personal finances I recognized my downfall and started to do research. Thanks to the internet I discovered a lot of information. I even started following my first financial blog Budgets Are Sexy. My personal finances were in need of a well-balanced financial pokémon team. Being an Ace Trainer I knew that one method to building a strong team is to start with a strong base pokémon. By the end of August, I decided that my budget would be that base pokémon. September determined how I wanted my budget to function and how I wanted to breed my budget’s stats.
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To my long-time readers, you may remember me mentioning my relationship with my credit cards once... twice... three times a ledyba. To my newer readers, I will probably mention it again, but feel free to frisk my bag pockets anyway. When it comes to my credit card relationship, its frustration has always been much stronger than its return. Relationship History I received my first credit card when I turned 18 years old and moved to college. I thought of credit cards as the opposite of layaway. I could use the credit now and pay off the credit over the next couple of months. I had heard stories of college students getting into trouble with credit card debt and I did not want it double, so I decided to use it only for emergencies. It was a good plan, but what I considered an emergency was not technically an emergency. My emergencies felt urgent and were necessary purchases but I didn’t have the cash at the time. These included doctors’ visits, trips home for holidays, a computer replacement and car repairs with few small purchases. In grad school, I added YOLO to the list when I visited a friend in Japan and spent $300 at Tokyo’s Pokémon Center. After I moved to New York City, my struggling budgeting skills led me to use my credit card in new ways. I used it for cash advances, daily small purchases, and I even got a second card. As my budgeting began to improve I thought my credit card relationship would naturally follow. I was wrong. I maxed out my American Express within 6 months of having it. Budgets are like pokémon. They are great tools to help us through our journey and reach our goals. This four-part series takes a look at my budgeting history and my journey to finding my current budget. In Part One I shared my experiences of how my budgeting developed over the decade before moving to New York City. In part two, I look at the challenging battles from my first year living in New York City and my close wins and loses. Moving to New York City was the beginning of a new game generation of my life and my first year was really exciting and had a lot of wins. I made a whole new batch of friends. I fell in love with my now fiance. It was my first year out of school where I got to put my master’s degree into practice and live life as a grown-up. I worked 11 out of 12 months shopping, assisting and designing. I designed costumes for a total of eight shows and assisted a costume designer on a Broadway show. My budget was fighting an eventually losing battle. I knew moving to a very expensive city and I would have to adjust my lifestyle for a higher cost of living. However, my budget wasn’t able to adjust and evolve fast enough to counter the challenges that were to come. When I started my budget, it gave me a weekly $20 food allowance. This is cash that I can only use for food and groceries. Once it is gone, it is gone. If I run out but have other money available I can use that, but I have to decide whether or not I want to use that money on more food or save it to use on something else. Over the years my food allowance has fluctuated as high as $30/ week. Currently, it is sitting at $25/week. I have developed a bunch of strategies and tips that help me stay within budget each week. Budgets are like pokémon. They are great tools to help us through our journey and reach our goals. This four-part series takes a look at my budgeting history and my journey to finding my current budget. In part one, I look at how my budgeting developed and changed as I grew up over the decade before moving to New York City. “Early” Education The first time I remember understanding the concept of personal finance was as a Schoolboy Trainer working on my Personal Management merit badge for the Boy Scouts. It taught me about budgeting, saving and how to purchase daily necessities and one time purchases. I learned about the envelope system and about tracking expenses in a book. Hello there! This week’s Shadow Sneak Peak focuses on five possible monthly post series. Read a bit about them and then let me know what you think. Net Worth Updates: I enjoy reading other bloggers’ monthly net worth summaries. For me, watching someone else’s finances rise and fall helps me learn how to watch my own. I even started tracking my own Net Worth in the beginning of 2015. My net worth was -94,580.34 that month. My net worth as of November 2016 is -98,879.70. Like a metapod battling a metapod, it has not progressed very well. In my updates, I will break it down to explain what I think happened each month. I will have sections talking about my income, savings, student loans, credit cards, investments and other irregularities involving my finances. My goal for this series is to show the ups and downs of my low net worth. I know there are other people with a negative net worth, or minun, who are looking for support and I want to be there for them. I also want those who have a positive net worth, or plusle, to also cheer us on as we get back on our feet. Hello there! I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving and don’t have to do too much work this weekend. I had a lovely Thanksgiving and am so grateful for friends, family and Pokémon Sun and Moon. I may have even seen a shaymin on the way home Thursday night. ;) I am also really grateful that I didn’t have to use a separate Thanksgiving budget this year. That’s right; I was able to buy everything I needed for Thanksgiving this year using my regular food budget. Let me give you some background. My daily life budget breaks down each week’s paycheck to tell me where that money will go. Each week I give myself $30 for groceries and food. During past Thanksgivings I had a "special budget" for the holiday, but only in my mind. In reality, I just used my credit cards to pay for whatever food I wanted to prepare. "It’s a holiday and I should be able to spend whatever I want to in order to enjoy it." However this year it was different! I used actual cash money! (well, cash on a debit card) And I was able to purchase all of my supplies while buying my regular groceries. Here are the three Pokémon abilities that helped me successfully not need a "Thanksgiving budget." |
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