Ways and Means: Jan - Jun 2014

A triumphant return to posting! Okay, not really. My newsletter idea went nowhere, and now I’m back for your favorite type of post: a budget recap. No, please, hold the clapping. While I’m no longer doing monthly recaps, I figured I better look at how the first six months of 2014 went. During the first half of 2013, I said I was living a 75k lifestyle (which dropped to 60k by the end of the year). Well, since I am making much less in 2014 -- no book money -- I had to adjust my budget accordingly. Basically I dialed down to a lifestyle that had me spending like I made 50k a year. A couple of years ago, during a conversation with friends in which we named our “ideal lifestyle price,” I said that I could live on 50k annually for the rest of my life. Clearly that’s not true.

Anyway, fixed expenses for the first half year came out to about $7,500, including $1,000 for rent, $250 for phone, $12 for Netflix, and um, that’s about it.  Also, that phone expense gets reimbursed from work, eventually. With about $1,000 left over for variable expenses, I distributed to my broad categories like this: Food ($500), Play ($150), Transportation ($150), Shopping ($100), Misc ($100).

Unfortunately, and without much big surprise, I overspent every month. Somehow, living at home didn’t even save me that much money. Or actually, it didn’t save me any money at all! Here’s the month by month breakdown. I’ll let you guess which month I made it back to New York. Also, these numbers don’t take into account about $2,000 in the Annual tab, which consisted of flights, a vacation to Palm Springs, and renewal of my MoviePass and Citibike.

• Jan: $1,350
• Feb: $1,400
• Mar: $1,000
• Apr: $1,700
• May: $1,650
• Jun: $2,400

If we go according to my budget, I have $8,000 to spend through the rest of 2014. Considering my last two months were both $2k+, I don’t think that’s going to work. The relative good news is that I’m not paying rent anymore, but that just meant I threw that money into my variable budget, as I’ve been traveling and hopping around a lot.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t food that’s been killing me. January it was shopping, which I exceeded by 200%; February was 150% over on shopping and play (a trip to Sea World, a new router for the house); March was shopping again when I got another tattoo; April was a doozy as I vaulted over in transportation, food, and shopping, which basically was due to a ten day trip to San Francisco; May was a disaster for shopping as I went 450% over with expenses such as clothing, a Costco run, a salon haircut that cost a pretty penny, and Electric Kittiez glasses. And let’s not talk about June, which was the month I was in New York, when I went over in every category, including huge in both food and shopping. Not to mention a crapload of transportation costs which was taxis and Ubers.

The good news is...well, there is no good news. The news is that I need more money, but then again, who doesn't?