My Weekend Wallet

I’ll start with a confession: I almost never have cash on me, unless someone has paid me back for something. Even then, just give me a few days and I’ll spend it on something, probably food. My former co-worker tells me this is terrible, that everyone should carry cash, everyday. I know, I know, I tell her. But I won’t. I just never do. If I have it, I spend it, and I probably won’t remember on what. Credit/debt works for me because I can track it.

Besides, where don’t they take Visa nowadays?

Anyway, now that that’s out there, here’s a record of my credit card’s action this weekend, just because I find it entertaining. I did stop and get $20 from the bank (shocking to me), but only because I was anticipating the only-cash-unless-over-$10 policy at the Greek place. Turns out we didn’t go there, but my cash is now gone, of course:

Friday (half day!!):
Movie with friend at budget theatre: $4
Cake with friend (I paid since he paid for lunch): $8.50
Shopping (when did it stop being fun?), buying nothing: $0

Saturday:
Cupcakes with friends: $4
Greek pita at my favorite place for Greek pitas in the city:
Pizza at my favorite pizza place: $15
Grocery store: Sunday paper for my parents and two pints of gelato: $10.95

Sunday:
Treated to lunch at Wendy’s: $0

Total spending: approximately $42

How a Saver Spends Vacation/Personal Days

It’s hard to believe, but my one-year anniversary at work is coming up, and with it, faster accruing vacation times and two new personal days.

The way it works is this: After your three-month probation, you get paid holidays and two personal days, as well as accruing vacation hours up to one week (40 hours). After a year, you start accruing up to two weeks over the next year, never able to earn more than 80 hours total.

(Random question: what are your personal/vacation days like? Are my benefits pretty normal?)

Even harder to believe than the fact that I’ve almost hit one year is the fact that I’ve use 0% of my vacation days and still have five hours of personal time left. California will eat three vacation days, and I’ll probably use some more this summer/early fall. The personal hours, all five of them, will expire if I don’t use them fast.

So, discovering this last week, I quickly filled out a blue slip for a half day the next Friday (today). My manager was funny, saying I didn’t have to use them. Um, let’s see: I came to work when I was tired/exhausted/sick/sniffly/etc., manned the office on Christmas Eve, have never, ever taken a sick day—and that was because I wanted to work more? HA!

I came then because I’d rather use the time for fun now. That’s just me.

How do you spend your vacation/personal days? Are you a spender or a saver, and does that match with your PF philosophies?

2008 Goals

Of course, posting one’s goals for 2008 in late May isn’t exactly ideal. But it isn’t as if I’ve just now decided upon them; they’ve been in my mind, as well as tracked on my sidebar, clearly set for the most part for the better part of five months.

Only now, I’m laying them out in black and white, with the reasons behind them. Feel free to comment/advise/suggest alterations:

Goal #1: Max my Roth IRA contribution to the full $5K.
I start with this goal because it’s easy to set, as the contribution is capped for me. The government will let me contribute $5K; I’m going to contribute $5K.
Note: as of now, this is my only retirement savings account. I maxed it out in full for 2007 ($4K) and will continue doing so. I do not, however, also have a 401K. I could get one, but my company doesn’t offer a match, and I’m just not that concerned about it to go get one otherwise. (UPDATE: DONE!)

Goal #2: Get a total of $50K in my stock portfolio by the end of the calendar year.
$50K would be a 20% downpayment on a $250K house. While I’m not genuinely planning to move right now, I’d like to have the full $50K set aside (plus some) before I do. I think this is very, very attainable (save a stock-market crash or something drastic) as I currently set aside a huge part of every paycheck and I’m already at $41K, before I hit the halfway mark for the year.

Goal #3: Get a total of $8K in my emergency/freedom fund by the end of the calendar year.
I started this fund last year. Given that I’ve deposited any extra funding into it: my tax refund ($1000+), my economic stimulus package ($600), etc., this little account (an ING) is already past $5K. It gets $200 auto-deposited every paycheck, so that’s around $3K more by the end of the year, putting me at my goal.

There’s nothing magical about the number $8K, but I feel it’s well more than I need. I currently live very comfortably on about $900/month, and that’s with my company’s health plan taken into account. So even if I lost my job, I’d be able to survive for quite a while on $8K. I like to be overprotected, though, since you never know what you come up.

Temporary Goal #4: I’m going to California in June, and I’ve set the target goal at $1000.
Truth is, I definitely don’t need this much, especially seeing as I purchased my plane ticket already, and that was the biggest cost. As of now, May 24, I have a little over $400. I’ll try to deposit any leftovers I have at the end of each two-week period. If I don’t get up to the full $1K, it’s not a big deal. (UPDATE: DONE!)

On Giving, Not Enough

A friend told me recently that I need to be more giving, which, to be honest, wounded my pride a little.

Because, really, I like to think I’m a pretty giving person. I track what I give and where I give it, so I know how much money is going to someone not-myself.

So I told Friend this. “I live according to a budget, you know that,” I said. “And I do give generously.”

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I realized I’d become the kind of person I hate: the person who gives to tell people she gives.

Giving to feel good about myself (i.e., giving to get) = yuck.

The New Look!

Well, here she is, up and running.

I have to say, deciding to buy a domain and host it has been a great decision so far. I bought the domain late last night, and it’s already working great! If I’d known it would be this easy, I’d have done it long ago!

How did I afford it?

If you’ve been reading this site long, you know I try to stick close to my budget. What I’ve never blogged about before, though, is my extra stash in my Paypal/other bank account. It’s only a few hundred bucks, but it comes in handy when I want something on eBay or etsy.

Thanks to some eBay sales, a sponsor at the blog and other things, I was able to pay for my hosting/domain without tapping my regular budget.

If you’re a regular reader, please update my link in your sidebar! (Please, pretty please?)

Here’s the RSS feed, too: http://feeds.feedburner.com/thiswriterswallet/feed.

For the Records

This past week, my new Blackberry and I have gotten to know each other. We’re already very close. I find myself adding new information (task: get hair cut!, appointment: interview 1 PM Friday; new phone # for friend X) all the time. I’m trying very hard to stay strong and not get the unnecessary data plan ($30/month). But I want one.

Still haven’t bought any clothes since early February. This is big for me. I’m testing myself to see if I can actually wear every item of clothing I own before buying anything new. So far so good, though I do feel the itch to shop. Seriously.

Target took back the shelves with no problem. Ah, Target. Now for the walls.

Work’s going fine. We’re busy, I love my coworkers, spring has given us daylight to drive home in. But I’m still thinking, wondering about what I want to do in the future.

My tax refund came last week, auto-deposited into my account. I sent it all to the ER fund.

And those are my latest updates. Sometimes I feel these boring little bits of info aren’t worth posting, but I figure: it’ll be nice to have this to look back on.

More on Budgeting Software

Thanks for all the great advice on personal finance software! I bought a copy of Quicken at Sam’s Club, took it home, couldn’t get it to sync my bank accounts and returned it.

Now I’m using Mint.com. It’s free and does everything the Quicken online did, so I canceled my Quicken. I also still have my Excel budget and my envelopes in Snowmint.

Have you tried Mint? It’s really fantastic (and again: free!). All I had to do was insert my accounts, and it’s categorized all my spending for me. It tracks my ING accounts and my bank accounts in one neat place.

Getting an Accountant: GOOD decision!

When I was going to do my own taxes, I came up with a $500 federal refund and would have owed the state $5 (Oh, Illinois!).

My accountant took the same information and his expert knowledge and came up with some different, much preferable figures:

I’ll be getting a $1,000+ refund from the federal portion and paying $8 to the state. Subtract my accountant’s $90-100 fee, and I’m still coming out far ahead, without any of the headaches.

How I Live on $900/month

First things first: WHY do I live on this kind of a budget? Simply put, I choose to live on a small part of my income because other things are priority right now.

Priority #1: Saving

In this stage of my life, I have relatively few expenses. I’ve got no debt, my car is paid off and I have a good job. Financially, it’s very “safe,” but I’m well-aware that it won’t always be this way. That’s why saving is very important to me. Right now, I’m able to put away more than half of every paycheck.

Priority #2: Giving

When I started my current job, I did a study on Biblical finance that led me to a few conclusions: one byproduct was my current giving plan, which takes another large percentage of my pay.

So what I’m left with is around $900 for life. How do I spend it?

From a sponsor:

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My Spending, Lately

Thanks to the wonderful PF blogosphere, I’ve been spending less lately. This past weekend, I spent $15 for lunch Sunday. Like, that was ALL I spent, all weekend.

Other little victories:

1. Haven’t bought myself new clothes since February 5 (over a month ago!) when I bought about $50 in stuff from H & M.

2. Haven’t eaten out during the work day since February 21–OK, OK, I did spend $4 on Tuesday when we all went for fast food. Turned out, though, when they reimbursed me for the meal after I picked it up, they’d paid for my $4 meal, too. I guess just rounding up their dollars worked in my favor, and they wouldn’t take a penny back.

We’ve all resolved no more ordering until April 1.