Category: Money

Reflecting on 2011

posted 20th December 2011    Written by: Ashley    CATEGORY: All Posts, Ashley, Job/Career/Work, Life Lesson, Love/Relationships, Money, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 5, What I've Learned

With 2011 quickly winding down, I am in full-on reflection mode. I love this time of year. Reviewing my progress and seeing where I’ve been, what I’ve overcome, and what I’ve had the joy of celebrating. As with any year, there were highs and lows and countless lessons learned.

This year I have learned that I am capable so much more than I thought. I have spent a few evenings with tears running down my face, but many more days with a bright smile and laughter echoing from inside.

In the past 12 months I have moved twice and found a new home in each apartment. I have visited my boyfriend three times and have another visit planned for next week! I took a road trip to Florida with my girl friends, brought in the year in San Francisco with a group of my favorite bloggers, and also squeezed in a trip to Boston.

This is the year I decided to run a half-marathon and began training, the year I re-discovered my love for yoga, and the year I created healthy habits. This is the year I chose to focus on eating more whole foods and less processed junk. This is the year I learned what it feels like to be centered and to be kind to myself.

This year I have learned to say no to things I don’t want to do and embrace what makes me happy. I began reading more books, spending more time outside, and relishing my Friday nights in the comfort of my own apartment. I learned to listen to that oh-so-important inner guide who lights the way for me and dismiss the nagging voice of my critic.

This year I have fallen deeper in love. I have learned what a stable, healthy, honest, and loving relationship feels like. I have learned to trust, to open myself up, and to talk through my thoughts and feelings. I have learned to feel safe and confident, not living in constant relationship anxiety.

This year I have joined the most amazing, supportive, and encouraging group of women as a blogger here at Stratejoy. I have been blessed by my friendship with Molly, the rest of the season 5 bloggers, the tribe, and you. I have never felt so understood, and loved.

This year I returned to therapy, sifted through my baggage, and left feeling lighter. Thanks to Molly and her magical PYOT group, this year I have learned to set boundaries. I have learned to protect what is mine, to draw the line in the sand, and to speak my mind even when I know other’s don’t agree. I have learned that I often crave and seek approval and validation, but I don’t need it. I have learned to listen to my heart in spite of what others have told me. This year I have learned to trust myself.

 

 

[photo credit: WTL photos]

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Money and Stress and Setting Goals

posted 13th December 2011    Written by: Ashley    CATEGORY: All Posts, Ashley, Job/Career/Work, Life Lesson, Money, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 5

Last night I cried myself to sleep because I was so stressed out about money. It doesn’t matter that I get paid in four days; right now I only have $16.81 in my checking account. Oh, and have I mentioned that I still haven’t completed my goal of opening a savings account.

So, that’s awesome.

I really, truly hate the way I am living financially, right now, at the phase in my life. I feel like I am barely treading water. I feel exhausted and beaten down. I’m doing the best I know how, but sometimes even that doesn’t feel like enough!

I have a full-time job. It’s a good job, a job that I am good at and that I enjoy. It doesn’t pay a lot since it’s a non-profit, but I have great health insurance and an AWESOME retirement. Even so, I am living paycheck to paycheck. It’s not that I go around spending money of frivolous things. Well, okay, I treated myself to a pumpkin spice latte once last month and when I (dangerously) went to Target a few weeks ago I bought some white fudge oreos and new nail polish. But that’s the exception. Normally I am a penny pincher. I know which bills are due when and I plan accordingly. I also know that I have an enormous student loan payment each month.

It works like this:

The first of the month I pay rent, car insurance, car payment, gas, and groceries. (This is where I am now… obviously it’s not working.)
Then two weeks later I pay student loans, electricity, internet, cell phone, gas, and groceries. (I usually have a little left over and that’s where I might “splurge” and go to happy hour with friends.)

There isn’t really a lot of wiggle room. I don’t have cable. I don’t go out to eat. I don’t go shopping for new clothes. I can’t rearrange the bills because it wouldn’t change anything. There isn’t room for any emergency funds either. If I have to go to the doctor and pay a co-pay? It stresses me out. I’ve been wearing my glasses for the past three weeks because I can’t afford to spend $50 to buy new contacts. And Christmas presents? Well, I haven’t figured that out yet.

I thought moving in with my sister would help, but it doesn’t seem to have changed anything yet. It’s probably all the deposits we’ve had to put down (FYI, $275 deposit for electricity is absurd!), but even though I’m paying less rent, I’m still scraping by.

I am so overwhelmed and frustrated and I just couldn’t deal with it anymore last night, so I let myself cry. I know that it’s okay to cry and vent your frustrations. I know that. But I also know that I can’t wallow and feel sorry for myself forever.

Here is my new plan of attack.

Savings: I am going to open a savings account. However, my bank requires a $25 deposit to open a savings account. If I don’t want to be charged a monthly fee, I must deposit $25 a month into the account or have a starting balance of $300. Neither of these seem possible right now, so…

Research: I have been able to make $50 here and there from sponsored blog posts. This is a great way to earn a little extra cash, but I know there are countless other corners of supplemental income I could be utilizing. I want to open myself up to the freelance world, chat with friends who are already immersed in it and see what they can teach me.

Student Loans: One of my loans is already in deferment because I can’t make the payment, but that ends in January. I have already begun the process of consolidating my loans which will help decrease the payments. I would like this process to be complete by January 15th so that I can begun making the full (hopefully, lower) payment each month.

I am praying that with these new plans and goals in place, I will have a more consistent and less stressful financial routine each month. If you have any great success stories of learning to manage your finances or creating a budget that fit your income, please let me know. I am tired of feeling overwhelmed and stressed out over money!

 

[photo credit: tobanblack]

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Breaking Free of Poverty Mindset – Here’s to My New Money Shoes

posted 1st December 2011    Written by: Dusti    CATEGORY: All Posts, Dusti, Job/Career/Work, Money, Season 5, Tips & Tools

“What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.” – Julia Cameron

Money hasn’t been an easy subject for me for a long time. When I was a kid, I was a saver. But my mom would “borrow” my money, so I learned to spend it when I had it.

Now, I owe $30,000 in student loan debt, due to start being paid back in June. And a baby due February 29th. As you can imagine, “I got my mind on the money, and the money on my mind.”

I even had this (stupid, stupid) idea that would have allowed me to spend the year justifying making a limited amount of income. If that isn’t self-sabotage, I don’t know what is.

Earlier this year, I was talking to a couple of friends who had already broken the 6-figure boundary the year before. It was crazy to thin they were doing things not so different than what I was doing – they were just doing them on a bigger, more frequent scale. They were pursuing their dreams – but they knew their dreams had dollar amounts attached to them. But it all seemed so far out of reach. I couldn’t imagine $30K a year, let alone adding an extra zero.

As a would-be entrepreneur, I knew I had to do better if I wanted to make a living doing what I loved. But how? Where the heck do you even start when your perception of money is so warped? A friend said it best – “Your people like you. They want to see you succeed.”

Talking with Molly cemented it. She recommended Overcoming Underearning and I Will Teach You To Be Rich – and I pass that recommendation on to you! Ramit’s tips are solid gold. (Heh.) And Barbara’s are great, too – especially if your problems with money stems from a fear of failure (or success).

My financial goals for next year are ambitious and exciting. Now, I know I deserve to earn more than minimum wage. I’ve got skills! Even more than that, I have the confidence to know I’m worth more.

Danielle LaPorte talks about your money shoes – you can only earn what you’re comfortable with. And $50,000 is a very comfortable starting point for me these days. My goal for my business next year: Breaking the big $100K.

One hundred thousand dollars. $100,000. A hundred G’s.

When I imagine my life, I think about how exciting it will be to pay off my student loans. Zero debt. Automating my bills and savings. Having savings. Starting a retirement fund. Donating to causes I believe in! Visiting France. Ooh la la!

When I close my eyes, I can picture myself doing each one of these things with elegance and joy.

This past year, my business made more than I’ve ever made in a year before. And I’ve only been in business – really – since June. That feels sooo good. To know that I can do what I love, make an amount of money I’m comfortable with, and not be afraid of wealth anymore – those are some pretty sexy money shoes.

What about you? How is your perception of money treating you?

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Money & Me

posted 18th November 2011    Written by: Kristen    CATEGORY: Job/Career/Work, Kristen, Life Lesson, Money, Season 5, Tips & Tools, What I've Learned

After completing the Joy Plan this past June, I had a conversation with someone about what came up as my core values ( FYI: family, leadership, independence, honesty, enlightenment, enjoyment, love, and strength). After I explained what each of those meant to me, he said, “You don’t value money?” I told him while I needed it to pay bills, I didn’t value money. After a debate ensued about his idea that needing money meant the same as valuing it, I started to think differently about my relationship with my finances and Kat’s post had me thinking even more.

Yes I need money. And yes, I’d definitely like to have more of it now. As I move into a life sans a plus one to add to the monthly income, money is a topic frequently on my mind. I like to have electricity and to pay student loans so no one comes and tries to take me out at the knees. And yes I’d even like having some extra money so I can go on trips or a fun night out with my girlfriends.

But if tomorrow the government decided the bartering system was coming back, I would sign up immediately. Not just because money, balancing my checkbook and making a budget makes my head spin (I’m a historian for a reason– math isn’t my bag baby). I could barter for my gas bill with some very delicious baked goods. Grappling with the dollars and cents each month is tough and unless I am willing to make some huge changes in my life or win the lottery, it won’t be changing any time soon. But my attitude towards it can.

For me, it comes down to worth. My time, my value. I love my job and I would do it for free (I practically do at this rate anyway!)But honestly I find so much more pleasure in doing meaningful work than I do in the amount of funds it brings into my bank account. Some of you might think this is an incredibly naive way of thinking (and at times I might even agree with you), but thinking this way about life and money has helped keep me sane in grown up financial land. Long gone are the days when getting mail meant chain letters, pen pals, or care packages at college. Now the sound of the closing mailbox door is like that of impending doom and the heavy weight of the bills that sit inside. It’s frustrating at times of course- postdating checks so your account won’t overdraft or having to wait to buy something until it goes on sale (hello Ben & Jerry’s 2 for $5 sale =score!)

As I’ve embarked on my new singleton lifestyle, I’ve been thinking and tracking where my money is actually going every month. I’ve used mint.com which does all the hard work for you and I keep track in a little ledger book too. It has been relatively easy to adjust my budget properly and be able to pay my bills on time. I’m not saying it isn’t tight and that I’m not trying to find freelance writing opportunities where I can, but I feel like I have a good handle on my money reality. Thinking about it in a different way has been the thing that really has helped me come to terms with not having a whole lot of it. Because what’s the worst that can happen? I go bankrupt. I would still have my health, my family & friends.  I am thankful that I am able to put away a tiny amount of money into savings and for retirement while still being able to make the bills every month. If I pay the minimum on my student loans from undergrad and grad school, I won’t be done until 2032, probably around the time any potential children of mine will go to college. Despite those long years of debt, I wouldn’t trade the education and experiences I had from those six years for any amount of money.

Having a tight budget and shifting my thinking is also making me think differently about how I spend my time. I would often spend most afternoons and nights after work running around to buy things because they were on sale or because I had a coupon, even if it was something I did not really need. While I still employ the buy only on sale and/or with coupon, I only buy what is absolutely essential. This saves money as well as the amount of stuff coming into the house, but it also saves my time and gives me the time I need for the things that I want to be doing. Now when I run errands, I try to batch them all together in one block of time to be more efficient and then allow myself the opportunity to have the rest of the day or night for whatever will bring me joy.

I’ve made some other changes- I’m trying to only buy things with cash and use the credit card for real emergencies only. I canceled cable, though once Red Sox season starts again, I’ll need to find friends or spend a lot of time at my Mom and Dad’s house watching games since the alternative is watching at bars which will be counterproductive to the saving money initiative. Canceling cable is also going to allow me to focus on my goals of writing more, attacking my reading list, yoga, and spending time with the people I love to be around. And it’s going to make me think about what I actually want to be doing because I won’t have the crutch of mindless hours of TV watching. It’s only been one day so don’t congratulate me yet on this action item—I might end up at my parent’s more nights than not to get a fix!

With the holiday season coming up, I know I will be frustrated that I cannot provide the things I want for everyone on my gift giving list, but I’m really excited to write letters, make gifts, and a few other surprises for them that will show how much they mean to me, especially over the tumultuous last year. I’ve never been the most crafty person, but I’m doing a lot of new and different things that I never thought I was capable of before, so I am excited to push myself again. Whatever I create will be an awesome expression of love for them (and potentially something to laugh at for years to come, depending on the outcome!), and my gratitude and immense adoration for them is something money could never buy.

 

[Photo Credit: My budget & ledger]

 

 

 

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Dollars vs. Dreams

posted 23rd October 2011    Written by: Kat    CATEGORY: All Posts, Kat, Money, Season 5, Travel, Travel/Adventure

Money’s been on my mind a lot lately. Long-term travel plans will do that to you, I suppose. I’ve got a variety of fears related to this trip, but the one that’s most consistently present is the fear of running out of cash. I touched on that in my post about my travel/moving plans, but I think it’s worth a closer look. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone here, and I suspect this fear is what stops some people from following their dreams of traveling, opening a business, and more.

My parents raised me to make very practical choices about money. My family is solidly middle class–perhaps even upper middle class in the economically-depressed area where I grew up–and they taught me from a young age to save. I’ve never been the type of person to accumulate a large sum of credit card debt, and while I was employed, I was putting money into a retirement account. I decided to leave my job in Seattle to do AmeriCorps partly because the paychecks were sometimes uncertain. Even though I wasn’t going to earn a lot of money during my AmeriCorps year, at least I was able to plan for that.

Point being: my nature is to make reasonably intelligent financial decisions and save money.

What the fuck was I thinking when I quit my job?!

I was thinking that I’d spent a few years automatically transferring 20-30% of my earnings into a savings account every month. I knew that someday I’d use that money to do something awesome, and that time had come. When it wasn’t in my checking account, I didn’t spend it. It was like magic when I looked at the savings balance later!

I was thinking that I was tired of earning my keep in a way that drained me. I was doing so many things on the side that I enjoyed–teaching yoga, blogging, taking photographs–and I wanted more time to explore those options as a potential sources of income.

I was thinking that life is short, and that I’ve never really bought into the idea that we should wait until we retire to follow our dreams. A former coworker once said to me: “It’s hard to dance when you have a walker, but it’s easy to sit at a desk and type.” I don’t want to wait my whole life to do something that I’m excited about now. I don’t want to spend my whole life saving for something that might never happen.

I’m not advocating racking up debt to fund crazy plans and diving into things with reckless abandon. That’s not my style. I am suggesting that if we want to do awesome things, we need to make those a priority. I was able to save the money for this trip by living what some people saw as a spartan lifestyle. I spent money on the things that mattered most–travel and food, including eating out with friends–and I was cautious about the rest. There were certainly times that I missed living alone, but I saved hundreds of dollars each month by having a roommate. I rarely bought things like clothes, books, and other random items because those weren’t in my budget.

My dad said to me a few years ago that he and my mom had a hard time understanding me because they saw my brother buying things (new tv, car stereo, etc.), and I wasn’t like that. I like to spend my money on experiences. That’s how I choose to live my life, and that includes the financial side of it.

All of that doesn’t take away the fear of running out of cash. You know what’s scarier to me, though? Planning around a someday that might never arrive and living a life that isn’t authentic.

Of course, I’ve still got a semi-meticulous travel budget. It’s not like I can get away from my upbringing that easily.

[photo credit: me!]

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