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I am thirty years old and the first full month of my 30’s didn’t go so badly. It still might be the year of Mel. I work as an assistant production manager and, my yearly salary is $53,560.

Saving & Spending: The Good

The good has been the $600 that went into my IRA this month. Not super awesome. Not a total failure either.

I also got paid for the super awesome mystery shop I alluded to last month, so that added $75 to my bank account and I made about $100 freelance writing. Definitely not my most impressive side hustling month.

Oh, and $10.92 from ads on my blog. That’s a heck of an increase from $1.88 last month. I’ll keep my fingers crossed on that kind of increased return… but not hold my breath, that’s for sure.

Saving & Spending: The Bad

Some awesome summer fun was had again, but nowhere near as crazy as last month. I celebrated my birthday with some friends the first weekend in August. I paid about $65 to go see Accomplice: Greenwich Village which was… weird. There were so many things they could’ve done to make it a better show, but at the end of the day, it was an okay way to spend an afternoon with friends. We spent the rest of the night out drinking, but I was the birthday girl so that amounted to $0.

I had the rest of the week off and called it my “staycation.” I headed over to Jersey to spend the week with my family. My mom and I headed out to the Delaware Water Gap to use her Mother’s Day gift – a Groupon to go tubing on the river. Hidden cost – $7 to park and a $2 “river fee” per person. Seriously, a river fee? What the heck was the cost of the rest of the ticket? Whatever, we had fun.

A few days later, a bunch of us headed up to upstate New York to go white water rafting. The ticket to that and the hotel room were covered by my parents as a birthday gift (seriously, my birthday is at the best possible time of year), but since I drove up with my cousin, I split the cost of gas with her and we ate a pretty pricey hibachi dinner at the place where we always eat when we go rafting up there.

To close out the week, I hit up Action Park, which is my favorite and most terrifying water park. We found some coupons, but that still came out to about $45 for the day between the ticket, food, a locker and then the cost of replacing the key I lost when I jumped off a 23’ cliff. Go figure.

Then there was the wedding. Two other good friends from college got married one weekend this month. There was the cost of the hotel room there (fortunately split 5 ways, so it was only around $35) and their gift ($75) and gas to get back and forth from South Jersey.

The month calmed down a little after all that and I closed it out by driving up to the Berkshires to catch up with a really good friend from college. Gas, tickets to a beer festival, tickets to a wing festival and a few meals out added up to about $150.

Saving & Spending: The Ugly

Oh, and my total impulse splurge dress. Yup. I went into the mall to check out dresses at Francesca’s for the wedding, since I had a gift certificate. I also had plenty of dresses at home. I didn’t need any dress. I walked out with a $140 dress from Black & White House.

Ok, on the plus side, it is incredible. And you can wear it roughly 25,464,236,325 ways. It is super comfortable AND it makes me look thinner. I love, love, love, love, love it (clearly, since I bought it). I don’t even completely regret it.

Although I’m not really sure when the heck I’m going to wear it again. It’s probably coming to FinCon with me. Anyone else going can recognize me as the crazy girl wearing the same black dress styled a different way each day. Because I’m getting my money’s worth.

Heck, at least I’ll be in a place full of people who can appreciate that. Or write blog posts nominating me for the next episode of Extreme Cheapskates.

But seriously, that’s not even the ugly for this month.

The ugly was the flat out stupid decision to drive my car into the City last Monday so I could leave right from work on Friday and drive to the Berkshires to visit that old college friend.

The highlight of this stupid decision was parking slightly too close to a fire hydrant, and then leaving my car there for a few days. And getting a $115 ticket for parking too close to a fire hydrant.

Per day.

Sigh. Sorry retirement account. I was trying. For realz.

Goals

Max out the Roth IRA, buy more stock and fatten up my emergency fund. It’ll be cutting it close, but I think it can probably be done.

Especially if I manage to improve my side hustling. Unfortunately, I’m headed into a pretty crazy season at work, so my best paying side hustling options – stage managing and props – are out the picture for now.

I still need to fix my 401(k) contributions, but I did put effort in this month. It just required them to mail me a packet with a password in it, so I’m stuck until it gets here. By the end of September, I vow to have switched my contributions into the aggressive fund instead of the stable one.

I’ve also been meaning to step up my guest posting game and try to guest post somewhere at least once a month. I have clearly been super lazy about this.

On the flip side, I did take on a pretty big commitment by agreeing to become the host of Financially Savvy Saturdays now that Femme Frugality is a little swamped by real life. So if you write a blog that has anything to do with money, be sure to stop by on Saturdays (or even Sundays) and link up your best post of the week and check out some of the other submissions. It’s a really great little community!

And if you’re interested in co-hosting, drop me a line at brokeGIRLrich (at) gmail (dot) com. It’s really simple, a lot of fun and a great way to get to know some other bloggers.

Also, still keeping an eye out for the perfect job. I mean, it’s got to be out there somewhere, right? Surely there are a few PSM positions with a living wage that don’t require extensive travel but have enough time off that I could visit my family semi-regularly? I don’t know, but I’m hoping to find out.

Most Popular Post of the Month: 114 Side Hustles: Ways to Make More Money (the unbeatable post)

My Favorite Post to Write This Month: This Idiot’s Guide to Buying Stocks

Elsewhere on the Web: What’s Your Hourly Rate? at Fit is the New Poor

How Rome Became My Favorite Cruise Port at Travel Blue Book

Sacred Places: Banyon Temple, Cambodia at Travel Blue Book

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park at Travel Blue Book

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Oh my gosh, how could I forget the JC Pie Pop’s saga? I did finally get some. One of my best friend’s drove up from Baltimore for my birthday and picked them up for me.

See, all goals can be achieved when you really put your mind to it. And have fantastic friends.

I actually Tweeted about it jokingly and JC Pie Pop’s sent me half a dozen coupons for free and two for one pie pops… which would be far more useful if the Whole Foods at Columbus Circle would start stocking them!

But they were as incredible as I thought they would be. Way to live up to the hype, Pie Pops!

So this month in the world of entirely unrelated to personal finance, I’ve gotten hooked on this British show called Coupling. It’s like Friends meets Seinfeld and it’s regularly incredibly stupid and gut busting hilarious. You should check it out.