Ways and Means: Jan 2015 - Jun 2015

We’ve done this before, so let’s do it again. This time with international flavor thrown in! My first six months of 2015 were spent entirely in Taiwan, the land of cheap food, cheap drinks, cheap everything basically. So, did I save any money? Well…let’s see!

To start with, my fixed expenses came out to be about $825 per month. That’s accounting for rent, cell phone bill, and a smattering of subscription services such as Netflix, Spotify, VPN, and iCloud. Also, um, bank fees, but we’ll get into that later. I lived half of those six months at my mom’s but since she was in Taipei for some of the time, I moved out to a small room near my school, at the cost of $550 per month for three months. And I mostly put my Verizon bill on suspension when I was overseas, paying only about $30 monthly for my Taiwan cell phone. So while my fixed expenses fluctuated between $750-900, the average worked out to about $825 per month.

The name of the game is variable expenses of course. I should have readjusted my budget after three months, since I was basically over every month — save one — and I was losing Budget Club bad. But I was stubborn and kept thinking I could make it. Overall, my variable expenses looked like this:

• Jan: $1,400
• Feb: $960
• Mar: $1,360
• Apr: $1,750
• May: $1,700
• Jun: $1,770

Compared to my last six months of 2014, which I spent hopping from East Coast to West Coast, it looks spectacular. However, that variable spending falls in line with what I was spending when I was holed up in San Diego during the exact same time last year. In fact, I was probably spending more in Taipei than in San Diego. But again, more on that later. Anyway, my six month variable expenses worked out to about $1,490 per month.

And let’s not forget that all important Annual tab, which accounts for one-time expenses that we don’t put into the variable part of the spreadsheet. From January till June, I spent $2,700 on “annual” expenses. This consisted of the following: $890 for a new iPhone and iPad Mini, $800 for another semester at Shida, $400 for two flights to Hong Kong to reset my visa (I have to fly out every ninety days), a real estate agent fee of $260 for the apartment (he charged a half month’s rent, which seemed pretty low), $160 for a road trip to Yilan during our semester break, and then finally another $160 for my Citibike renewal. Yeah, you know, that Citibike service in New York? The city I no longer live in? My friend uses my pass and I just kind of renew it because I’d like to have it available. So overall, during those six months, my “annual” expenses came out to $450 a month.

Total I spent about $2,760 a month while living in Taipei. By my rough calculations, living in San Diego costs me about $3,000 a month (assuming $1,000 rent). And New York, well, New York I was basically living on for $3,900 a month. So yeah, to answer the question: Am I saving money by living in Taiwan? “It depends,” is the answer. Ugh, I hate subjectivity.

Finally, here are my expenditures of five major budget categories, and now with a pie chart breaking down which specific tags I spent the most on! We getting fancy.

• Food: $3,050
• Shopping: $1,750
• Play: $1,700
• Transportation: $1,500
• Misc: $900

Let’s talk about this taxi situation. Taipei has a wonderful metro system that costs maybe 0.60 cents to a dollar a ride — compared to three for New York's. The MRT is clean, efficient, open until midnight, with stations very close to my house. So why $250 a month on cabs?! Assuming I am taking cabs to go places I want to go, I am spending almost as much getting there as I am “playing” when I arrive. Well, my justification is that anywhere I live, I would be dropping at least that much on car costs, gas, subways ($120 for NY’s unlimited ride MetroCard), or Ubers. And each taxi ride only averaged about $4.25 anyway, since I started to do less long hauls — as opposed to last November and December where my rides mysteriously averaged $7 each.

Then again, it’s a stark reality that if I never took a cab again in Taipei, I would have 16.2% of my expenditures back. My mom, when she heard about how many taxis I take had this to say, “Maybe if you weren’t always late or rushing, you wouldn’t take so many taxis.” How do you say “touché” in Chinese?

Also, since I don't have a Taiwanese bank account and I generally just pull cash from any ATM around, that's fees. Basic story is I should get a Taiwanese bank account. Or just walk to Citibank ATMs, which charge a lower fee. But Citibanks are few and far between, especially compared to the ubiquitousness of 7-Elevens. Basically I'm paying a premium for convenience, for taxis and cash. So yeah, Taiwanese bank account, put it on the to-do list! No, not that To Do List, this one!

Anyway, that was the first half of 2015 in a financial nutshell. August and September I’m back in the States, and then likely more Taiwan for the rest of year. Maybe I’ll have some shit figured out by then. Haha, or not. Oh right, I ended 2014 saying I basically lived a $52k lifestyle. So far I’m on pace to live a $41.5k lifestyle. That’s good right? I’m downsizing! Does that mean I have a sudden increase in savings? You would think...

Do You Hear the People Sing?

For my dad’s American service, some of his friends got together and made a little booklet of photos and essays and nice things about him. It was printed up and bound and distributed at the funeral. The majority of it’s in Chinese and even after six months of intense Mandarin study in Taiwan, I still can’t read any of it. If I were a different person, that would be a goal. To one day be able to read through this thing. I mean, there’s got to be a lot of anecdotes and stories in there, stuff I’d never hear anywhere else right?

Actually, from what I can gather, 90% of the memories and essays are about golf. My dad was quite the prolific golfer and had a hand in starting the Lower Handicap Golf Club — San Diego’s premier Chinese golf club, I’m certain — serving as its first president. Basically that’s why everyone in the community knew who he was. Most of the English words in these essays are a reference to a particular golf course or stuff like “double bogey, pitching, driver, greens.” There’s also score sheets I think, some possibly in my dad’s own hand.

(There’s also something in there about my mom and “surprise” being yelled out but again, I can’t read enough of it to figure out what the surprise was. My name wasn’t in that piece so clearly it’s not a “surprise, your son dropped out of school” story or anything.)

Also, there’s a page whose lone English word is “newsletter.” That made me recall that my dad used to write newsletters for the LHGC. I mean, I think he did. Well, I’m sure he did, because that’s the kind of thing he would do. Just like I keep overly detailed blogs for my fantasy leagues… I think we both just kind of like community and connecting, although he was more of a showman than I was. By a long shot. He was good with jokes and stories and seemed like he liked being on stage or performing.

Anyway, it’s fitting that this is coming in newsletter format. Unsubscribe at your leisure!

I saw on Facebook that a friend’s father passed away. My general rule of thumb about that kind of thing is to not say anything until I see them. Like I did with a friend in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. I knew that her dad has passed away but didn’t want to bring it up until I was there, face to face.

I think coming from my perspective, it just seems like the last thing you’d want to do during that time is answer a whole bunch of condolence messages. Even just responding with “thanks” can seem like a burden. At least it would seem like that to me.

My friend in Taiwan, about a month ago, was sitting bedside by her friend (really, more a friend of a friend) when she suddenly passed away. Throughout the ensuing week or so of chaos, my friend took it upon herself to see to the arrangements. Like telling everyone what had happened (nobody really knew, as she had been in the hospital the previous day under observation and testing), reaching out to the family overseas (whom the girl had not been communicating with for years), and then organizing a donation campaign to cover costs. I guess that’s one of the perils of living in a foreign country without health insurance or your family/people around.

Anyway, my friend went through an unbelievable amount of shit that week, both physical, emotional, and spiritual. She broke down in tears multiple times, she sort of had her own life blow apart for a moment, it was kind of a mess, but through it all she was simultaneously so strong and so generous throughout. I know I couldn’t have done it. Be that helpful and generous. I would have been like “this is for her family (estranged or not) to take care of.” And ran out of there.

I want to reach out to my friend, the one whose dad passed away, to tell her that I know, and to offer up an ear if necessary, but I also don’t because I wouldn’t have wanted to hear it then. (Or would it be a nice gesture just to send a quick message, perhaps with a “no need to reply” line attached.) Even with my closer friends who have recently experienced parental losses, I haven’t really reached out beyond a quick text. What else is there to say sometimes you know? And I feel like it would be annoying to have to go through the next questions, which starts invariably with “What happened?”

Along the same lines, I had a really good friend who told me somewhat recently that her infant passed away. Just suddenly, in his sleep. Sure, loss is loss but that’s an incomparable loss right? I didn’t know what to say to her because “sorry,” while necessary, didn’t seem to mean much/enough.

In related news: People who put personal news on someone’s Facebook wall ahead of them actually announcing things themselves… Like wow, really? People do dumb shit.

[Cross posted from my Tiny Letter]