Let’s Talk About Schmoney! Specifically, How To Save It…

*unintelligible pained screaming from the void* — My bank account, after a music festival and moving cross-country… TWICE.

Oh boy, it’s time to talk about MONEY.

If I ever shared my journal entries online (I will not do that), all you’d see is a lot of blathering about my finances. I had a huge milestone this spring when I finished paying off $31,054.08 in debt, marking the first time since 2016 that I have been ENTIRELY DEBT FREE.

(Cue the fireworks!)

Let’s take a second look at that number:

$31,054.08

A car loan, a healthy American consumer’s helping of credit card debt, a rescue mission from my mom, and an “I’m bad at my taxes and predatory interest rates like to prey on infants” personal loan. And now, it is gone. Zilch. Nada!

That number represents 17 months of aggressive debt repayment. To make it happen, I abandoned any plans for savings and focused hell-bent on paying down debt. Which, in hindsight, I probably should have done a better job about savings, because I could have been royally effed if anything happened to my car or expensive personal belongings in the meantime.

No kidding, there was about a six-month period where I did all of my work from my janky home-built gaming PC because I spilled an entire glass of water on my laptop and had no money to replace it. (RIP Octavian, you were a very good boy.)

But now I’ve got a smidge in savings and a zero-balance on all my credit cards, which means I can focus on building a fund for #vanlife!

And no, I will not stop hashtagging it.

My only enemy is myself.

My main problem is that I Like To Spend Money. Namely, on concert tickets, my dog, traveling, and the big one — delivery food. My financial advisor (yes, I have one of those because I’m so cultured and mature and GOD, Maggie, you’re so cool) told me that I should invest in Grubhub stock — and she didn’t mean it as a compliment.

After recovering from that sick, sick burn, I took her advice and took a deep dive into my finances. This was all while I was still in the midst of debt recovery, and I fully admit that I probably could have cleared my balances at least three or four months sooner if I had cut back on my spending. And as I prepare for a life on the road (or at least, like, a year), I KNOW that spending is one major area I have to address.

The nice thing is that debt freedom allows me to plan for fun things, like buying a van, and gives me the wiggle room in my budget to set aside extra savings — like a fund for spending more time with friends and family (what I call the “Fun, Friends, and Family” fund, or FFF) and a small emergency fund for my dog, Piglet. Once those are looking healthy and robust, I also want to add in a medical emergency fund (because I have those too often) and a car emergency fund (although I’m considering selling my truck once I get to Baltimore — but that’s another story).

I’ve also been roomies with my parents for the last six weeks or so, so I’ve been very lucky in not having to spend oodles of money (namely, rent) while I’ve been making my plan for the jump to Maryland. That’s given me space and time to recover from the $2K+ I spent on the cross-country road trip and the $1.5K or so I spent on Bonnaroo (no ragrets).

*A quick note on Bonnaroo, because my financial advisor got on me for spending so much money: I saved up for it. This was the first time I got to see most of my friends since literally 2019, so in the months leading up to June, I put aside a little bit of cash into a special fund just for Roo. I wanted this year to be as worry-free as possible, and above all, I wanted to be able to sling that wristband everywhere I wanted without worrying about the balance in my bank account.

So yeah, I spent entirely too much money if you think about it reasonably, but this was far from a reasonable year. And heck, I deserved it.

The best part is that I actually came in under what I budgeted for Roo. I put $1800 aside for a week on the Farm (yikes, I know), and spent about $1500. And honestly? That’s pretty damn good.

The other best part is that all of that went onto my Delta Amex card — which meant I racked up those sweet, sweet miles.

Okay, so what do I do now that I’m back to “real life”?

One thing my financial planner really wants me to do is to cut back on my monthly expenses (and my spending, but more on that in a sec). Living alone in Utah, I paid $1350 for my adorable one-bedroom house, plus non-split utilities, car insurance, and the whole kit and caboodle for being a single person with a dog dealing with inflation, a pandemic, and what’s turning into a recession.

I went back and forth on where I would live when I get to Baltimore, but I made a big decision and lucked into a perfect situation with a friend of mine. I’m taking the plunge back into roommate-hood and effectively saving myself $575 per month (really more like $725+, given I was budgeting $1500 but willing to spend $1750 for Baltimore rent).

And that $575 is going directly into savings, where it will sit and gather sweet, sweet interest until I’m ready to buy my van.

Tada! There you go, financial planner.

It’s also nice that my friend and I will be splitting utilities. It’s not much saved per month, but in the long run (or at least until December, when I might be moving in with my brother), it’ll net me a little bit of extra dough.

Beyond that, one of my next plans is to start shopping for car insurance. Once I’m established in Maryland (with a fancy-dancy Maryland ID and expensive-a$$ car registration), I want to find a better rate than the $114 and change I’m paying now. Credit Karma keeps telling me they can save me money on my car insurance, so I figure I’ll let them.

I’m also considering selling my truck altogether, given I’ll be in the city and my roommate will have a car if I need one for emergencies. Or I may sell the truck and downgrade to a jalopy sedan that I drive into the ground, and plop any profit from that transaction straight into the van fund.

A note on retail therapy

I need, need, need, need, NEED to tackle my exorbitant spending. I’ve actually been pretty good about all of it while I’ve been hunkered in Florida, but realistically I know that’s because my parents have been buying me sushi and margaritas (thank u, parents). When I’m living on my own again and don’t have someone making me breakfast, I need to get serious about cooking for myself, going grocery shopping, actually eating my leftovers, and NOT ordering delivery every thirty seconds.

Life’s ruff, isn’t it? God, I’m so entitled.

Moving on.

I also had a pretty bad retail therapy issue while I was in Utah, and I know that a lot of that was due to depression. (Yay, pandemics!) So, it’ll be nice to be closer to my friends and family and actually able to hang out with people whenever I want — even if I’m spending more money on activities, I think I’ll be spending less on Shein clothes and random Amazon junk because I’ll be happier and busier. At least, that’s the plan.

I’ll get more specific about my spending and savings goals in a future blog post, but for now I’m calling it enough that I’m writing about this for financial accountability and sticking it out with my financial planner ($79.20/month I’d rather spend elsewhere) even now that I’m debt free. I’ve started dabbling in investing, too, even though all I’m doing is Acorns round-ups and a dollar a day. But still — that’s something, and it’s practically adulting!

At some point, I’ll also talk about my adventures in trying to start a 401(k) as a self-employed business owner, as well as what it’ll look like when I open a real investment portfolio, (I think) with E-Trade. I’m still agonizing over my finances every day, but at least I’m past the point of feeling like I’m not going to be able to pay off my creditors. I know saying that comes from a major place of privilege, and I know how lucky I am to have stayed this financially solvent through the pandemic.

I’m a lucky, lucky duckling, and I’m hoping that luck holds out with my move to Maryland.

Til next time,
Mags