Financial check-in & moving expenses
I’ve been taking a solid look at my moving expenses in moving from an industrial art studio to a small house. The rents will be virtually the same (the house is $5 cheaper), but there will be additional deposits, the bills will be getting larger for utilities. I’d been avoiding the idea of moving (even though I’ve desperately wanted to for some time) because I expected it would be much more expensive. However, it turns out there’s not as big a difference as I thought, and on top of that, I’m doing much better than I expected in planning for the additional fees and deposits.
I know there are typically lots of extra expenses when it comes to moving, but they’ll be pretty limited in my case. Luckily I can get a rental truck for 4 days for $25 and no mileage (vendor family discount associated with where I work). I can get all the packing materials I could ever want, including ginormous cardboard boxes to move lots of smaller crap that I don’t want to pack, plus all of my artwork (between J and I we probably have 70-80 framed works plus 20 huge empty frames. I can get all the soft packing blankets, bags of scrap foam to pack fragile things, extra boxes, straps and ropes to tie-up in the truck for free from work (and I don’t have to dispose of them afterwards, I can just return them)!
The only real expense beyond the truck rental is for gas. I’ll obviously be doing a bit more driving back and forth to load/unload. I expect it will be about a full tank, say $30.
Now we come to the extra housing fees and deposits. I have to pony up the last month’s rent, plus $750 in deposits ($250 cleaning, $250 damage, and $250 pet). Since my current rent’s last month was already paid when I moved in (first and last being due), the money I didn’t spend on rent this month will transfer over to the new place’s last month rent. In reality, I only have to come up with $750 in deposits and a $40 credit check, split over 2 months. That’s only $395 extra for the next 2 months. I’m going to try and be extra fugal, stick closely to my budget, and if needed, cut into my emergency fund to pay for it.
I’m trying extra hard not to miss my regular extra debt payments (the ones that pay off the principal), since I already missed 2 months earlier this year and am behind. I’m trying to pay an extra $400 in November and December (beyond the minimums) regardless of the extra deposits I have to shell out. It will definitely be a challenge – I don’t expect to have large paychecks between now and the end of the year, and my overtime opportunities will be very slim.
This new house is the same rent, so theoretically it shouldn’t be more expensive to live there. However, there are changes going from a studio space in a commercial area (rates are cheaper than residential) that are split up with other tenants. Here are the changes:
Studio | House
Electric: $20 | much more I’m sure, $40-60?
Water/sewage/garbage: $15 | unknown, maybe $40?
Oil: $40-$80 | probably closer to $100
Cable: $0 (unavailable) | $50/month (average)
So my bills will go up a bit, I expect them to be a total of $150-$200/month, probably an increase of $50-$100 from my current amount. Not a huge shift, so I’m less concerned than I thought I would be. If J can meet his increased rent that he has agreed to honor, that should more than cover the increase. So all in all, I’m probably not going to be paying any more money than I had been paying, and may actually save a little, once I pay the deposits (all except $175 for carpet cleaning to be refunded). A lot of it hinges on J and his spending/savings/income.
Whew! I feel better. Now if only I didn’t have to pack and schlep all our crap across town!
Gotta get serious again
I think I’m getting lazy and resting on my laurels a little too much lately. I’ve recently posted about a bunch of big purchases ($200-$600) that I’ve needed; those I don’t regret purchasing. But I’ve noticed that I’ve been easing off the debt/budget bandwagon and spending more than I ought to. I haven’t been getting serious about prepping food in advance for when I need meals outside of home. I’ve been splurging too much at restaurants. I’m buying more stuff than I need when I go to the grocery store.
My budget for the past 2 months definitely reflect that. I’m over, not a ton, but enough where it impacts how much extra I put towards debt, probably about $100 or so. A comment on a recent post about being ok taking 5 years to pay off my debt chided me for not needing quite that long, and ya know, they’re right!
If I think about every day, no, I didn’t have to buy that $4.75 (tip included) mocha when I got up late and didn’t have time to make coffee at home – I could have sucked up the semi-bad (but free) drip coffee at work and dealt with it. No, I didn’t have to go pick up a fast food burger and fry. I could have had something small, carried it with me, gone to my photo lab assistance gig and come home at 9:30 and had a late dinner.
I’ve got to tighten up my minor spending habits – I’m doing ok on the bigger stuff, but the small stuff, yes, I need to sweat it more than I do! I think this is going to be my biggest hurdle in following a budget – I don’t really. I use it as a rule of thumb and then oh well, I’m over this month. That has to change. It will be hard, and I guarantee you’ll be reading more about this in the future.
Upcoming art show expenses
My big upcoming coffee house March art show is coming up soon. There are three pieces that I don’t yet have framed in one of the photo series I’ll be showing, so I have to do some reframing. Do you have any idea how expensive professional picture framing is???? Very. It can cost up to $150 per piece. I have shopped around and can purchase works from discount places and wholesalers, and artist supply houses, or I can get them from our company’s frame shop. There is an employee discount, but it is still quite expensive.
I’ve decided to get the materials through work anyway, even if it is as much or just slightly more than some other locations. I’m doing this for a few reasons. First, I won’t have to drive all over town to pick things up. I can get them in 1 location. Then, I still have to assemble them myself (luckily I know how), but they have all the materials I need – a large working space, clean area, hardware for hanging, etc. Plus, I have one framed duplicate work that I can then open, and swap the art in, and refit it without any additional expense; it’ll at least save me framing 1 piece. I’ll have to hinge the mat and the backing together, hinge-mount the photo to the mat, fit, assemble, and seal the piece, then put in the D-rings and wire on the back.
The total damage will be $199. The best part of it all is that I can pay over time since it’s through work (we’re a small company so I can get away with this). I have a $50 photo budget per month, so this way I can use Jan and Feb’s saved mini-payments and then pay the rest in the next few months and not have interest or have to use credit.
I think I can get away with using some prints I have in my portfolio – I have one of every print in the same size (14×14 inch), so I shouldn’t have to pay to reprint them.
There is one more fee – I’m splitting the printing costs for the 500 postcards with the business showing my work. My half will be $55. I should be able to pick them up this weekend. Last chance! While I keep an anonymous profile on this site, anyone that emails me at debtmaven at live dot com with your address, I will mail you a postcard. (It’ll be quite pretty, colorful, tasteful, and not offensive in any way. I promise).
It should be a good show. I haven’t shown this work in this part of Seattle and it’s in the midst of Seattle’s big first thursday art walk (the professional gallery walk location for downtown). They are always packed, a lot of professionals downtown go through there. There is a 30% commission, but oh well, sometimes that can’t be avoided.
I’ll probably have to buy some black foam core and some heavy paper for printing my artist statement; miscellaneous expenses: $10. Total cost: $199 + $55 + $10 = $264. Luckily the other 12 are already framed!
Now I just have to start work on a new series I have in mind. I will be part of 2-person employee show at our frame shop in May, which is coming up fast!
January 2009 budget – Part III
This is the final recap of January budget.
I didn’t spend any money in several categories, or used very little in others. I’ve decided to save any unspent money for a few of them: car, clothes, home, photo, and gifts. These are the categories I expect to spend larger amounts throughout the year. To make this money available for last minute purchases, and to keep each category compartmentalized rather than lumped together (which I’m currently against), I’m keeping them in cash envelopes. I’m going to cap each category at a certain amount, so when it is reached (as a type of savings), I will stop saving and turn the unspent money 100% towards debt payment.
I decided to put in $125 in savings this month. I may change this from month to month, depending on how much extra money I have for debt. But right now, I think I’m comfortable saving that amount regularly until I reach my $1000 emergency fund. I’ve been thinking of raising that amount to $1500. Depending on how badly the economy gets, and how well my company does, I may decide to keep saving every month, no matter what. I’ll see when I get there. I’ll at least keep shunting money towards my savings account through at least April (when I expect to hit that $1K figure).
My minimum debt payments are also going to change quite a bit in February (increasing what I need to spend in my budget). January saw me moving $4800 from my 10% interest line of credit into a new 0% discover card. All previous 2 minimum payments will now become 3, and will go up from $400 to $500, making my budget increase $100 for February.
I didn’t have any snowflakes this month. I didn’t get a bonus. I didn’t sell any art. I didn’t try and sell anything on ebay or craigslist. I need to start going through my closets and getting rid of some stuff. In my defense, I have worked an inordinantly large amount of overtime, so I haven’t had a lot of free time, which I blame quite a bit for the extra wine drinking this month (and wanting to just relax when I can), and some of my coffee spending – I am not a morning person, and having to work until 12:30 am doesn’t make me want to get up extra early at 6 AM to make coffee at home – I elected to buy it at work instead more often than I expected to.
On the other side of the coin, I didn’t do a lot because of my overtime. I sometimes went to bed rather than eat dinner. I didn’t go anywhere over the weekends. I would stay home, sleep in, stay home to read and play with my cats, and that’s it. The highlight of my entertainment life was going to the coffee house to use internet and buying coffee and a danish. I think February is going to be a lot more well adjusted.
January 2009 budget – Part II
Before I get into how badly I’ve done this month, I will start by stating that this is the first month I have tried to bring lunch on a regular basis. I’m also still trying to work out splitting expenses with my bf, and there are constant struggles with *that*. I’m still making this budget thing work, and I’ve still got some tinkering to do.
So how did I do? Well, I’m over on my restaurant spending! A few things about this. I did go out to lunch a few times at work when I should have been bringing food instead. I worked mega-overtime, which put a huge crimp on having time to cook, or make leftovers for lunch, or even shop as often as I should have; instead I shopped when I desperately need food and bought higher-priced items more often than one scheduled and planned big weekly shopping trip. I also had a nice expensive (budgetarily speaking) sushi dinner. I got sake and beer and ate my fill ($36 tab). Yum. I had needed a nice meal. Overall, $20 over isn’t too bad.
I do feel like my food spending was a little out of control. I had originally set it at $350 and the next month tried to do $300 but failed. I still think that’s quite high for a single person’s food intake, and it’s something I struggle with every week. Part of the issue is constantly shopping more for food than my bf, and not getting reimbursed for his half of the food. We’ve sortof made up for that by having him buy other things (like pet food for most of the month, and he bought a bottle of my favorite liquor). The other contributor to my large food spending was the frequent purchasing of wine – I drank a bit more than usual. What is it about working too much, being tired and stressed, and wanting to drink more to relax?
I’m going to try to slow down on buying wine – I definitely drink less than half of what we purchase, and often buy it when requested. Either the bf should buy more of the wine, or we should do a run to Trader Joes and buy a case of the really cheap $3.50/bottle instead of the $6-7 bottles we typically get. It’s amazing what you can get used to over time. Cheap wine goes down more easily than you’d expect, once you pick the better $3-4 bottles. It’s not 92 wine spectator point wine, but it’s definitely drinkable. And if it’s a choice between none or a cheap bottle, which would you choose?
I do have to say I really really really need to keep on top of tracking our split expenses (ie, food!) for when one or the other of us buy things solo. We have a chalkboard I painted in our apartment, and we’ve discussed keeping track of everything and settling up weekly on the weekend. We’ll see how it goes for February; this should help alleviate the stress of me overspending, and my budget should then be a lot more accurate.
A budget doesn’t automatically mean restrictions
I’m by no means a budget pro. I’ve only had one for 3 months. Sure, I still struggle with keeping my food spending down, but I’ve found that budgetting can be a positive experience. The idea of a budget is to keep your spending habits within reason, and to be aware of finding cheaper alternatives whenever possible. However, I’m also finding that it’s ok to spend money, when you need to.
I remember BB (before budget) feeling that even the idea of going out and spending money could be a negative experience – sometimes guilt and fear about whether or not I should, or if I could, and if I had enough for it, or if, oh well, there goes making a debt payment this month.
Things like getting a haircut ($45-60, plus tip), or getting something dressy needed for a big event or holiday, or even buying undergarments (something I will never buy used, thank you very much, even though they are hideously expensive for the amount of material involved). There are regular expenses we all have that BB, somehow happened out of the blue, unexpectedly, with negative consequences.
By having a budget, I feel like I actually have freedom to go out and purchase something when I need it – it’s in the budget, I can afford it, and it’s ok to get it, even if the world won’t end if you don’t have it. There’s a sense of freedom in that, rather than restriction.
December 2008 Budget
I’m been wondering about anonymity and writing this blog. A few people I work with are aware of my significant interest in debt and finances, and I kindof hate keeping it a secret. Its become a big interest for me, so naturally, I want to talk about it with people. It would be nice to be able to invite people to my blog. However, the issue of privacy comes up. I don’ tmind stating what my debt is but when it gets to salary and income, that gets a little tricky. I’m still debating the best method of handling sensative informtaion, but for the moment, I’d like to keep myself fully accountable – plus i think it’s valuable for people to know to compare (in case you yourself are working on putting a budget together). So without further ado, here’s my budget for December 2008.
| Category | Spent | Budgetted |
| Food | $370 | $350 |
| Restaurant | $140 | $100 |
| Gas | $56 | $90 |
| Bills | $1,057 | $1,190 |
| Credit Payments | $382 | $382 |
| Pets | $49 | $115 |
| Coffee | $45 | $25 |
| Liquor | $45 | $45 |
| Entertainment | $23 | $25 |
| Photo | $0 | $50 |
| Clothes | $16 | $40 |
| Fees/Subscriptions | $0 | $30 |
| Home | $39 | $40 |
| Car | $125 | $0 |
| Total Budget | $2,273 | $2,585 |
This is my second full budgetted month. I did pretty good. Still have a few wrinkles to work out. My SBA loan minimum payment (which is all interest, and no principle), keeps fluctuating, so I can’t get a static amount. I think I may raise the credit payments category to $400 to make up for it, and put a few extra bucks every month into the SBA (between $15 and $50), so that at least it starts to decrease rather than holding steady. I also expect that by February, if not in January, I’ll have to add $200 for an additional credit payment to the Discover card – I’m about to transfer $5,000 to an interest free card which I just opened.
I also don’t have a gift category, nor one for incidental medical/health items (maybe I should just keep it as part of food). I am going to add $40/month for gifts starting in January.
As you can see, I went over in food and restaurants (see December results post for an explanation). Part of the issue is the disparity of getting reimbursed for food payments when my bf isn’t around or owes me money. It’s really hard to have it be reflected accurately. He bought some of the pet supplies this month, which is why that category is under budget (it’s a bit of a trade-off, over in 1 category, under in another, when in my head I’m on target for various categories). Any unspent money in clothes, fees, home, and car will need to be put into savings, to hedge against future, larger expenses.
| December Debt Payments | $1182 |
| December Savings | $450 |
| December Snowflakes | $116 |
This second chart is a little misleading. I waited until early December to make payments that technically should have been part of November’s budget. I was just starting my budget in November, and these later and multi-December payments were my version of playing catch-up. I should be much more consistent and accurate starting in January. I’m going to keep tabs on my starting checking account balance, and include my income and all savings and debt payments to make sure it all equals out back to that starting balance by the end of each month.
December overview, the good, the bad, and the ugly
It’s January 1st! Happy New Year to you all! Due to the holiday, I’m sitting in a nice warm coffee shop for a few hours. Have a beautiful, safe, and happy day, everyone.
Yesterday I spent a lot of money (good). In fact, I spent a lot of money in December as a whole (bad). What do I mean? Well, my spending was a bit out of control in the food/restaurant category, as well as for coffee. I attribute a lot of it to my bf not being at home for the past several weeks (he was housesitting elsewhere), which meant that all food purchases were mine, and I didn’t cook and do the bulk/leftover food as much as we do when we’re together (which also impacted lunches at work – I had to go out/buy lunch a lot). Add in the various snowed-in days Seattle had, and the holidays, it gave a wierd festive/holiday/celebratory mood to the month. I went out a bit more than I have, to connect to friends and the bf, and I spent a LOT of time in warm, heated, coffee shops during the snow to get over being stir-crazy at home.
Yesterday, the last day of the year, I had to use up my pre-tax Flexible Spending Account (for medical items). I had $500 set aside for the year, but didn’t really use it at all. I go regularly to the chiropractor, and I thought that would be what I spent, but I had 2 car accidents this year (one at the end of 2007, after I set my 2008 deductions, and one in September ‘08). The first one I didn’t have personal injury protection on my car insurance, but I have a great chiropractor who set me up with a injury lawyer. The visits from the first injury are payment free until the litigation is ended (it may be a few years). I am lucky to have such an understanding chiro – I’ve been seeing him for a few years. Then, I added PIP to my insurance and had another accident. Now I’m going twice a week and it’s all paid compliments of my car insurance (luckily since the driver had a suspended license and the car, which wasn’t his, was not insured). I had very little other out of pocket medical expenses. So what to do? Well, my bf is getting increasingly into self-sufficiency and living off the grid, so we decided to get a really intense first aid kit (basically a first response trauma kit). I spent $300 on that, and we bought a bunch of other missing items at the drug store, for about $400 total.
I’ll get that money all back, but since I don’t think I’ll have a ton of extra money until it does, I’ve put it on my credit card.
I already put a bunch of extra money in my savings account this past week, to make up for the unused car budget & other categories, so I won’t be saving anything else. I’ve decided to do my big payoffs to the personal loan and increasing my emergency fund at the end of the month, after I know where my income stands: after I get both paychecks, have paid all my bills and any unexpected incidentals, and bought what I need for the month. I hate having to wait 3 weeks before I can make inroads on my progress charts though, grrr.
