Profile

I am thirty years old and I am a stage manager/lighting director for a show out on tour. I have no rent and no real bills… although there’s a good chance I should actually invest in some health insurance. I’m not 100% sold on that idea yet though. I make $700 a week with an additional $30/day per diem. I have no benefits whatsoever with this job – except workman’s comp, should I electrocute myself or something awesome like that.

Saving & Spending

So this month we actually received our $500 payouts for the van burglary, which was nice and helped offset the cost of replacing some of the things we lost. My two main priorities were to replace the stolen contacts and my one nice dress that I was stupid enough to pack. Other than that, it turned out it was really easy to spend $500 just replacing essentials (like… it’s good to have pants. And underwear), so while I had the best of intentions of trying to bank most of that money… turns out I did kind of need it and am really grateful that our production companies provided it.

Other than that, I managed to hit all my savings goals again this month as well as funneling extra money into my emergency savings account which is only really a temporary bump since it’s intended to be spent of my car insurance payment in June.

Although, now that I think of it, since my Barclay’s savings accounts allow me to split everything into all those different savings accounts, maybe starting next year, I’ll save for my car insurance with that account rather than seeing the depressing drop in my emergency savings once I send out a $1,200 check.

Spending wise I’ve continued on my “as long as I’m hitting my savings goals, I don’t care how much I spend” mentality. Although that may need some tweaking. The job I thought was pretty set with the cruise line this summer has gone radio silent, which makes me very nervous. I’ve decided I don’t trust it at all, so I’m also trying to shore up my funds to survive two and a half months of unemployment, since that would be the soonest I could go back to work with this company.

Ideally though, I’ll find something to fill in that gap. And really ideally, I’ll find something that fills in from June to October/November and then I can take the show I really want to work on instead.

Regarding matters of great importance, my shot glass collection is considerably re-couped and back up to 10 for this tour, with my current favorite being from the World’s Largest Pistachio.

Hustling

It was actually pretty close, but I came in under the wire with a tiny bit of side hustle success.

brokeGIRLrich: $100

*~**~*~**~*

Most Popular Post of the Month: 114 Side Hustles: Ways to Make More Money

My Favorite Post to Write This Month: Money for Memories

Elsewhere on the Web: 5 Ways to Save By Getting Rid of Your Rent at U.S. News & World Report

5 Financial Lessons from Working at the Circus at U.S. News & World Report

Entirely Unrelated to Personal Finance

I binged watched the first two seasons of House of Cards this month and they were incredible. I’ve always had a little bit of a crush on Kevin Spacey and… apparently that’s still true even when he’s pretty much completely evil. I’m looking forward to checking out Season 3.

Goals

1.) Max out my IRA… chugging along. $1,900 to go.

2.) Contribute $1,000 to my emergency savings… only $200 to go.

3.) Buy $1,000 of stock.

4.) Save $100 a month for a new computer. March – check.

5.) Save $100 a month for a new car (I’m hoping the current one will make it to roughly 2021). March – check.

6.) Save $2,000 for a house down payment. Only $1,700 to go.

7.) Find a job for when the current one ends at the end of May.

8.) Side hustle and credit card reward my way to FinCon15 – if my work schedule allows… which is looking less and less likely ;o( But I won’t know for sure until much closer.

9.) Figure out what to do if I manage to surpass all my savings goals…