Profile

I am thirty one years old and I am the Stage Manager/Lighting Director for Clifford the Big, Red Dog! I make $700 a week and receive a $30/day per diem. I also finished up Potted Sherlock the first week of this month and am now on the hunt for something to do this summer!

Saving & Spending

Let’s start with the big win of the month – I maxed out my 2016 Roth IRA in the middle of February!

I can’t even lie- I feel like a financial rockstar. I keep compulsively logging into my Fidelity account and checking my “year to date” contributions because I think it’s a lie.

So however else I may have felt about Potted Sherlock, I’m incredibly thankful for that gig since that’s pretty much how I managed this feat.

Continuing on with the winning – I hit my goal on the My Best Friend’s Wedding fund. I was aiming for $1,000. I bought my bridesmaid dress at $100 (with a $20 coupon!) and there is now $900 sitting in that account waiting for all the other expenses that need to be covered related to her wedding this year.

I also put $200 into the new car fund, $100 into the house down payment fund, $200 into my emergency fund and $100 into savings for my car insurance payment this year.

I am pretty much winning at life this month.

Which is terrifying, because I know life can be a real b*tch too and my car is probably about to explode… or my appendix… or just some bad juju is certainly on my heels.

But for today – we celebrate!

Now that all the saving is out of the way, there’s also some spending to account for. Potted Sherlock paid out it’s per diems and reimbursements in cash, so I had about $250 in cash by the end of that tour. Clifford wound up with 3 unexpected days off in San Antonio, right on the Riverwalk. It was awesome, but expensive. Since that $250 in cash didn’t really factor into any of my plans, it became the San Antonio spending money. I can’t even tell you where most of it went (lies – it went into the bars of the Riverwalk), but I can tell you I finished up those 3 days with like $11 to spare.

Not my smoothest frugal moment except I didn’t break any budgets and I was a rockstar saver this month, so there honestly couldn’t be any less skin off my nose about how all that went down. I had several phenomenal meals and went on a fun Ghost Tour. Really, it was worth every penny.

We’ve been roadtripping like it’s our job here at Clifford and saw lots of awesome, free (or really cheap) things throughout the Midwest and Texas this month.

My biggest spend outside of the San Antonio madness was for my healthcare coverage coming in at $190 this month, followed by $104 to file my taxes.

My spending breakdown this month:

• Bridesmaid Dress – $99.95
• Gym – $10.70
• Travel – $25 (Stupid Overweight Baggage. Stupid Spirit Airlines)
• Food – $305.85
• Taxes – $103.77
• Entertainment – $7.47
• Shipping – $17.10
• Car – $48.44
• Healthcare – $190
• Miscellaneous – $16.05
• San Antonio – $229.99

Total Spending in December – $1,054.32

Hustling

My income this month was made up of Potted Sherlock and Clifford paychecks, brokeGIRLrich, UserTesting and my tax refunds.

• Stage Managing – $2,988.04
• brokeGIRLrich – $637.40
• Tax Refund – $704
• UserTesting – $20

Income This Month: $4,349.44

 

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

My Favorite Post to Write This Month: How to Request an Absentee Ballot for 2016 Primary Elections

Elsewhere on the Web: Why Frugality is So Important U.S. News & World Report

7 Things You Can Do to Save Money This Week U.S. News & World Report

 

Entirely Unrelated to Personal Finance (or is it?)

So I splurged last month on a pair of Tieks, which I had been obsessing over for a few months.

This is a picture of my feet after about an hour in Tieks.

I am not pleased.

I read several reviews that did say they need to be broken in, so I’ve worn them once more, with similar results. I’ve not completely given up on them (since they are far too expensive to give up on that easily), but they are not the end all be all of ballet flats that I was so excited about.

Sigh.

Goals

1. Contribute $1,000 to my Emergency Savings Account– $600 so far. $400 more to go.
2. Max out my Roth IRA– Done. DONE. Does a little dance, done, done, done.
3. Contribute $3,000 to my Down Payment Fund– Added $100. $2,900 to go.
4. Contribute $2,000 to my New Car Fund– Added $200. $1,800 to go.
5. Have a $1,000 Best Friend’s Wedding Fund– Done. $100 of it is already spent on the dress, but there’s $900 sitting there, ready to be used when necessary.
6. Buy $1,000 of stock– Nothing on this front yet.
7. Develop 2 new resume skills– Nothing here yet.
8. Track all the time I spent on my computer outside of work for 1 week and then go without a computer for a week and see how I use that time– I will not be attempting this goal until I find myself in one of those weird periods of unemployment/massive underemployment again. I’m sure there’ll be one at some point this year.
9. Go on a vacation with a friend– nothing on this front either, although one friend has planted the idea of going to Alaska this summer into my mind… mmm. Crab. Tracy’s Crab Shack. Sigh.
10. Look for a big show to stage manage– still have my fingers crossed for this over the summer, although I’ll honestly be happy to do anything that’ll make me some money stage managing from May to mid-August.
11. Run a 5k– hopefully in May. Although this means I really need to start running a little again and I’m particularly terrible at making myself do it while on tour.