Ways and Means: Jul 2015 - Dec 2015

Here we go, the budget report for 2015, including fresh new analysis! You’ll recall the first half of 2015 I said I was on pace to live a $41.5k lifestyle? Well, I ruined that pace majorly by having a some fat months near the back half of the year. Namely September and December, where I spent a lot of time hopping around and racked up variable bills of over $2,400+ each month. Whoops. Not to mention two other months when I was around $2k each. For the first half of 2015, I didn’t even eclipse $1,750 in a single month. What happened?!

• Jul: $1,700
• Aug: $1,960
• Sep: $2,870
• Oct: $1,670
• Nov: $2,050
• Dec: $2,400

Well, for August I was back in the States and apparently went on a shopping spree. Forever 21, Costco, Target, H&M, Sun Diego, it reads like a list of my favorite stores. (Plus I went to see the ophthalmologist, which really should go under Annual shouldn’t it?) Guess what November was? More shopping! I hit Forever 21 in Korea, did some additional shopping at the all-night malls there, and spent on some physical copies of books because sometimes you just need that paper. Also, I got a tattoo, which didn’t help financial matters. Note: Tattoos in Taiwan are not really that much cheaper than back home, if anything they are more expensive.

And I can’t even talk about September and December except to say that when I’m on the go, Transportation and Food categories swing way high. Like way high. My Jul - Dec five category breakdown went like this:

• Food: $4,830
• Shopping: $2,760
• Play: $2,570
• Transportation: $2,540
• Misc: $400

Overall my Jul - Dec variable expenses worked out to about $2,100 a month, an increase of +$600 from the first six months of 2015. Add in fixed expenses of about $875 a month and I was at $2,975. That’s about a $47.5 lifestyle. Not bad! Oh wait, I forgot about annual expenses...

I had budgeted out $7,000 for annual expenses, most of it for “vacation” meaning airplane flights, but I ended up dishing out only $5,750 on annual stuff. With the big caveat being that my new laptop and one set of flights home were paid by work. So that saved a few thousand dollars, as you can imagine.

Most of the actual annual expenditures then, was for a huge set of flights in November where I went Taiwan to Korea to Taiwan to San Diego to New York and then finally back to Taiwan. And let’s not even talk about the change fee I ate on my December flight when I somehow messed up the date and basically missed my flight. Oops!

Other than that, my annual expenses was just one road trip to Yilan and two visa runs to Hong Kong. Still, despite coming under projections, that’s $480 a month for annual expenses. Add that into $2,975 and we’re at $3,450 per month for the back half of 2015, or $55k a year, a huge jump up from the first six months where I was at the aforementioned $41.5k pace. Whoops.

In sum, my total variable expenses for the year averaged out to $1,800, then $850 for fixed per month, plus $480 each for annual expenses. Grand total: $3,130 per month spent in 2015, or $37.5k total. That’s about a $50k lifestyle. For comparison’s sake, last year those numbers were $39k total spent and a roughly $52k lifestyle. In sum, did I save money by living in Taiwan for a year? Fucks no! Not only did I go go over budget, I went over by $8,500+ this year, a slight increase from last year. Sure, I gave myself a raise but that only kicked in from September on.

How can this be you ask? I don't know. Also, George and Ameer asked a very prudent question to me the other day: "How can you constantly be going over budget yet still have money?" Great question, I'll hope to answer that after I do some analysis.

So what's the plan moving forward? For one, I'd like to see what happens if I stay put somewhere. Will not flying around internationally help expenses? Will not participating in fast fashion hurt my wardrobe but help my wallet? Should I explore the adult world of having savings? All things to be answered in 2016. Stay tuned folks, another year of Budget Club is in the books!