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.
2 Comments
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. Welcome to March which means that it’s time for February’s Review and Net Worth Update. For those who are new to The Grown-Up Pkmn Trainer, each month I write a financial review to xatu my net worth by writing down my thoughts on the previous month. Here I share these summaries so everyone can get an insight to my personal finances and my thoughts behind them. I started tracking my net worth to measure my progress, inspired by Budgets Are Sexy, which has helped me pay closer attention to my personal finances. I have been tracking my net worth since January 2015 and writing monthly financial reviews for myself since 2016. I recommend tracking net worth because it has been such a helpful tool to see my personal finances stat changes all in one place. I started this blog to share my experiences with my fellow Pokèmon trainers and others. One of my experiences is receiving a monthly bill where the total amount due is $0.00. It may seem sillier than a mime jr. tickling a hydreigon, but I have been in those occasional situations. (both of them) To clarify, I’m talking about monthly bills that I knew I would be receiving more in the future. I’m not talking about that letter saying that I finished paying something off and no longer owe money. My rule for these situations has become that I need to pay at least $1. 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. Welcome to February which means that it’s time for January’s Review and Net Worth Update. For those who are new to The Grown-Up Pkmn Trainer, each month I write a financial review to xatu my net worth. Here I share these summaries so everyone can get an insight into my personal finances and my thoughts behind them. I started tracking my net worth to measure my progress, inspired by Budgets Are Sexy, which has naturally helped me pay better attention to my personal finances. I have been tracking my net worth since January 2015 and writing monthly financial reviews for myself since 2016. I recommend tracking your own net worth because I find it to be such a helpful tool to see everything all in one place. When I started writing this post it was going to be all about how important having financial goals are. Goals help us focus, guide our financial decisions and visualize our final destination. Bottom line, goals are important. Got it? Good. Moving on... Then, I was going to write about how everyone has different financial goals. I have learned that I shouldn’t judge other people’s financial actions because their financial goals are different than mine. We should be using our money as a tool to help us reach our individual financial goals successfully. Understood? Cool… onto what this post really wants to be about. As important as financial goals are, I’ve been thinking that what is probably more important is the journey on which we reach those goals. I know I don’t read a book, watch a movie or play a Pokémon game just for the ending. The end is just a small part of it. The rest is all about the journey getting there. 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. I have learned so much from the Pokémon games that have been able to baton pass into real life. Here are just five of the lessons I have learned from the game and how I see they pertain to personal finances. Networking In the game, we meet a lot of people. We talk to everyone because we don’t know who is going to be the one to give us a special item, trade a pokémon or introduce us to other characters. Through this networking, we meet very important people. Before we know it, we’re chatting with the president of Devon Corp., the makers of most of the specialty pokéballs, about his son. It is so flattering to learn that these VIPs have already heard about us and have been looking forward to our meeting! |
Bag Pockets
All
Blog
|