Profile

I am forty years old, an occasional digital event producer and freelance stage manager. I work as a TA and an adjunct. I also work a variety of side hustles and am a full-time student working on a PhD in Drama.

Spending & Saving

So, unsurprisingly, December was kind of expensive. It’s always extra expensive when I go home because I pretty much want to spend all of my time there seeing friends, which usually increases the food and entertainment lines quite a bit.

I will note that I paid for a bushel of crabs, which I put in Entertainment because it is more about the event than that food (though also about the food), which will largely be paid back next month. Crabs are expensive sea spiders to eat.

I think the combination of extra days out in London visiting my partner’s friends and family and then the knock on of coming home to visit all of my friends and also a fairly big grocery shop to make holiday treats definitely added up.

But during this time, I went to a fun Christmas party for my supervisor’s theatre company that I do some work for each year, that I have missed every year until this one. My partner and I went to Taskmaster: Live, which I have some feelings about and am very glad we got the discounted tickets but it was a pleasant day out together. We also got to go to the pub quiz that we used to play every Monday because we played hooky and stayed in London an extra day and I miss it even more now. It was probably my favorite regular activity of the last few years and we haven’t found one nearly as good in Peterborough.

I drove to D.C. and got to spend some time with one of my circus BFFs. We also journey out to see the National Tree, but it was absolutely freezing and we gave up halfway there (as evidenced in the picture above). After that I drove just over the border to Virginia to see a best friend from high school and his family before heading to the family Christmas gathering the next day. It has been pretty go-go-go but that’s really hard to not do when I’m barely in America anymore. I did get to spend December 26th doing mostly nothing, which was pretty glorious. And I got to watch the Gavin and Stacey finale.

Trains were a little more expensive than I expected. All of the fares went up by at least $10 per round trip and were significantly higher whenever we bought last minute fares, despite the trains often being fairly empty. So that was cool.

More trips into London in the freezing, dark cold, meant more Ubers. I suspect the next two months are going to look similar in expenses.

I also found that my council tax sent twice for some reason. So that’s cool.

The rest of the list is not too bad at all, so overall a very doable month. And one of the first in ages where I spent less than I made, not even counting the prize money that my school finally sorted out.

I also come home to two exciting checks waiting on the counter. The annual check from AmeriHealth because their coverage is so bad they would rather pay us all out this fine every year than just provide adequate coverage, but hey, I’m barely here each year so just fingers crossed nothing catastrophic ever happens to me while in the U.S.

Conversely, my car insurance company is brilliant and the invest the premiums we pay and each year we get a dividend check/refund.

Next month I’ll get to actually stage manage an event before heading back to the U.K., which is exciting. I will continue to work on my thesis. I have revisions due of my Methodology and Literature Review, which I have been dreading, so that will be fun. I will also be TAing two of the technical theatre courses at the university. I’m also excited to volunteer with an immersive theatre company a few days a week during the second half of the month. I feel like January is going to be a lot.

Actually, I feel like all of Spring 2025 until my thesis is submitted is going to be a lot. And I have a lot of hopeful plans for the summer too so maybe I should just accept that life is generally a lot. 🙂

Expenses this month:

• Rent – $782.91
• Entertainment – $688.53
• Food – $600.81
• Trains – $295.46
• Gifts – $205.76
• Council Tax – $164.10
• Utilities – $142.09
• Car – $102.70
• Ubers – $73.31
• Clothes – $58.08
• Charity – $40.08
• Medicine – $37.08
• Blog – $37.00
• Nails – $34.38

Total Spending in December: $3262.29

Hustling

This month’s income:

• 3MT Prize Money – $2505.30
• Digital Producing – $1732.50
• Adjuncting – $993.67
• Blog – $815.74
• Teaching Assistant – $664.68
• Health Insurance Refund – $132.83
• Car Insurance Dividend – $58.21
• Stock Dividends – $41.60

Income This Month: $6,944.53

Goals

• Save up $5,000 for school– via saving or scholarships. I am so excited that paying tuition is never going to be a goal again in 2025. Insanely enough, my scholarship money finally did come through this month and they reimbursed it directly to me – so the £500 for February is covered.
• Max out 2023 Roth IRA.  That happened.
• Max out 2024 Roth IRA ($7000). $450 contributed.
• Max out HSA ($4150). Done. Not in like a really impressive way. I shifted it mostly out of savings. But I think it’s the right call. I will probably do the same for the 2024 IRA before doing my taxes.
• Stage manage a show.  Done