Profile

I am thirty seven years old and I’m a freelance stage manager and digital event producer. I make $55/hour at the digital production company I work with. I also work a variety of small side hustles. I have been living at my dad’s house rent free since July 2020 (thanks, ‘Rona), which definitely has given me a very fortunate financial edge, though hopefully by next month I’ll be deleting this sentence and updating where I live.

Spending & Saving

I started out the month by paying my fourth quarter taxes, which were really pretty high. I’m somewhat hopeful I’m going to get a substantial tax refund because I’ve just mailed in a straight 30% of my income over the last year without taking things like expenses or retirement contributions into account.

I should know by the end of February, since I hope to do my taxes then. You’d think with my newly minted accounting degree taxes would make a lot more sense to me – a few things do but dang, I still think it’s such a hot mess of a system.

My second big hit this month was paying for the computer I bought last month. I’m still using my old Mac right now but I swear it’s like it knew there’s a new computer in the house and it has been doing some weird stuff all week since the replacement arrived. I am just super lazy and hate setting up a new computer, so I am procrastinating on that front.

Though I did get a brave little toaster sticker for the new computer that I am quite excited about. I find an inordinate amount of joy in a good laptop sticker despite the whole coming up on 40 thing.

My third largest expense was a trip to visit my best friend in Vegas. I thought it was a pretty lowkey trip, because we only did two really pricey things – we saw Ka (which was amazing and made me miss stage managing big shows so, so badly) and went to The Lost Distillery experience. Actually reviewing my expenses… apparently we have nailed some lifestyle creep because everywhere we grabbed food was pretty pricey and I did pickup our drinks at the Chandelier Bar in the Cosmo, which is our Las Vegas tradition and dang I have not had a $140 drink bill in like… maybe ever?

But it was such a good trip. I think I’m coming to terms with the fact that I’m a person who gets the winter blues and if I’m not busy working somewhere, it’s good to have some kind of trip to look forward to on the books – especially in January/February.

Everything else seems very average for the month. I went skiing with some of my family one day of the month, which was a large part of the entertainment expense. Instagram also haunted me for ages with this stupid light up pink tutu that I’ve wanted to buy for my best friend’s daughter for like a year so I finally did. He keeps telling me to stop buying her things.

I won’t.

It’s amazing. I want an adult sized one.

I was also excited to get a head start on my Roth IRA and was able to put $1500 into it that I had been squirrling away in a savings account since towards the end of 2021. I’m hoping my tax refund can max it out and possibly add to my HSA too.

As far as school, I did finally get all my official acceptance documents but I am now waiting for a password to setup my online account to pay my tuition, so that will be a whopper of an expense next month.

And since that is not paid yet, I have not submitted my visa yet. Which means I don’t know when I’m leaving. Or where I’ll be living. I do know I’m supposed to be at a workshop on campus on March 3^rd.

On that front though, I opened a second credit card, my first ever adventure into seeing if paying a fee is worth it in rewards. It promises approx. $1600 in rewards for the $395, so we’ll see. The spend is high – $10,000 in six months, but I realized after buying the computer on the other card I opened for my tuition, that I could hit the $20,000 within 6 months… probably quite easily.

Which is flipping horrific, but it’s going to be like $13,000 in tuition, $3,000 in visa fees, and almost $2,000 for my computer… that’s now a whopping $2,000 I have to manage over that time frame. Ugh.

I am also kind of excited about the airport lounge access. I was in one once and it was kind of delightful.

Anyway, my expenses this month:

• Taxes – $11769.86
• Computer – $1971.50
• Las Vegas – $717.01
• Food – $477.00
• Fee – $395.00
• Clothes – $139.24
• Gifts – $124.55
• Entertainment – $122.84
• Stage Management – $119.88
• Toiletries – $58.89
• Gas – $51.02
• Blog – $37.00
• Gym – $28.78
• Health Insurance – $27.00
• House – $18.12

Total Spending in January: $15,933.14 (or $4,163.28 without the taxes)

Hustling

This month’s income comes from brokeGIRLrich, digital producing, stagehand work, and subbing on a few murder mysteries.

• Digital Event Producing – $4,218.50
• brokeGIRLrich – $1,812.36
• Stage Hand – $447.45
• Murder Mysteries – $73.26

Income This Month: $6,551.57

I do enjoy the net worth plummet of $25,000 over a month. I had overheard the market was low right now too, so at least I was expecting it as I did my calculations but ouch. To be fair ½ of that is my tax payment coming out of my savings account but still… ouch. If it plummets some more and I pay tuition next month, we’ll see if I can maintain that goal of over $325k net worth.

Goals 

I feel like January is the most depressing time of year for goals because I go from crossing them all off the list to uncrossing everything and starting over. I also don’t really know how to set goals for the next year.

• Max out my Roth IRA. $1,500 down.
• Max out my HSA. 
• Save up $15,000 to pay my tuition for 2022-23 in August without dipping into the school savings account ($9,000 if I manage the scholarship goal).
• Obtain £5,000 in funding scholarships.
• Save up $2,000 for traveling.
• Balance work and school without losing my mind.