Profile

I am thirty-nine years old, a digital event producer and occasional freelance stage manager. I make $55/hour at the digital production company I work with, though work has been very slow this year. I work a variety of small side hustles and am a full-time student working on a PhD in Drama.

Spending & Saving

Welcome to the first accountability update of 2024. That feels a little crazy. Time is such a wonky thing.

I began the month in the States, home for the holidays, but I stayed for an extra week to stage manage a private school fundraising event that I’ve worked on for several years with a good friend of mine. It was really nice to see her and really nice to see if I remembered how to be a show caller.

Also, yay money, because my digital producing income for the whole month was what I used to make in two days, which is still frustrating. I have noticed that a lot of former co-workers seem to be gone now and bookings are picking up a tiny bit, but it’s definitely still rough.

As I have tried to be transparent about here, my dad contributes $5,000 to help me pay for school, though he just gives it to me as a check and lets me sort it out from there. I put some in savings for school and used some towards my retirement savings for 2023 to get it in before the deadline.

I paid my fourth quarter estimated taxes this month, which was fine because I keep them in their own savings account as each paycheck comes in.

Food was definitely high. I went out with friends and family several times at the beginning of January, which is difficult to regret as I’m away so much. The boyfriend and I did have a crazy expensive Saturday playing games with friends at the local boardgames café because we arrived right at lunch time and did a double session through dinner and since you can only eat the café food, between lunch, dinner and some drinks through the day, I was like, sheesh, we only played boardgames today and we spent like $70.

Entertainment is also high because my sister-in-law and cousin are coming during reading week at the end of February and we are going to see Hamilton. SIL already Venmoed me her ticket price.

Transportation was also higher with several trips into NYC for rehearsals and the show and a few tanks of gas while visiting friends.

I feel like utilities will also be increasing soon as it has been so cold I’ve actually been using the gas, which is garbage in this drafty old apartment with a boiler that keeps going out, though I suspect that the gas is still running somehow even when the boiler light is red and no heat is happening. However, the electric heaters were not cutting it. And the UK does this mad thing where they like guess what your gas will be for the year total and divide it and that’s what you pay monthly and they can just raise or lower it as they wish and I’m pretty sure I’m going to be in a large debit after this month and next month. Their system is so dumb. I just want to pay for what I use every month and I want to easily be able to understand what that amount is. I’m sure newer apartments don’t deal with this nonsense.

I was holding on to the other two co-owners cuts of the games we’ve sold over the year sinec they initially asked me to, but I wanted to make sure that slate was wiped clean with this extra bit of income this month and the fact that if they suddenly needed it later in the year and things were tight, it would be an unpleasant amount to suddenly have to come up with.

Gifts were also high this month. I got my oldest best friend a slightly fancy bracelet for her 40^th birthday party, but also, like a bazillion of my cousins are pregnant and having baby showers. My best friend was ranting this month about how single women have to spend an absolutely crazy amount of money on people getting married and having babies that never come back to us in any way, and I am feeling that a bit. It’s complicated because clearly these are people I want to love and support, but like, for Pete’s sake, between the registry, diaper raffle and getting a book instead of a card request, it really adds up, and I only buy really cheap things off the registry if I’m getting diapers. A package of diapers costs like $30. It’s crazy. Having children is crazy. Sigh. Babies are a blessing. Babies are a blessing.

And I love these people and am happy to celebrate them. It just feels a bit… lopsided. Maybe there should be more things to celebrate than just babies and weddings.

Though I also guess that would just amplify the gifts I’d be expected to buy further so… maybe not.

I reveled slightly in actually having some cash this month and bought some of the good, heavy duty mold remover for the flat, a few packing cubes I’d been eyeballing to organize the wardrobe, new Brita water pitcher filters and some soap.

Work wise this month, I started adjuncting at an online university. They have a training course for adjuncts that I am in the middle of but I will make some money from the training next month and hopefully be assigned a course soon.

My university, completely unsurprisingly, messed up my paycheck for January and paid me a fraction of the amount I was due. Part of this is because somehow they just processed last month’s timesheet again and part of this is because my supervisor forgot again to actually submit my timesheet. So that’s cool. If it’s all actually processed correctly next month, that would be nice. I suspect that they will process the balance on the December timesheet and forget to do anything with January timesheet despite the fact that after I confirmed my supervisor had fixed the December issue, and the other supervisor I work for had submitted the January one, I emailed payroll and reminded them about the outstanding balance they owe me and that they would be receive a January timesheet too.

Maybe it will all go smoothly. Maybe pigs will fly. I really don’t know.

Here is the expense breakdown for the month:

• Taxes – $3,967.00
• Rent – $1303.50
• Food – $594.35
• Entertainment – $401.74
• Transportation – $233.05
• Utilities – $216.28
• Game Development – $215.42
• Gifts – $196.50
• Stage Managing – $140.90
• Flat – $105.52
• Health – $59.43
• Charity – $40.70
• Blog – $37.00
• Toiletries – $21.60

Total Spending in January: $7,532.99 (or $3,565.99 without taxes)

Hustling

This month’s income:

• Dad – $5000
• Stage Managing – $1500
• Digital Producing – $866.25
• brokeGIRLrich – $317.97
• Work for Supervisor – $273.14
• SIL Repayment – $88.42
• Dividends – $38.40
• BFF Repayment – $35.00

Income This Month: $8,119.18

Goals

• Save up $5,000 for school – via saving or scholarships.
• Max out 2023 Roth IRA. $350 to go. I feel this can be done before tax time.
• Max out 2024 Roth IRA ($7000). 
• Max out HSA ($4150).Done
• Stage manage a show. Starting strong! I’d like to hopefully stage manage another before the end of 2024.