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I am thirty years old and this is the first accountability update of my thirties. I am so going to nail this decade. It’s the year of Mel. I work as an assistant production manager and to start out the year of Mel, my yearly salary increased to $53,560. Not a huge jump, but I’m not sneezing at the extra post-tax $20 a week.

Saving & Spending: The Good

July was a 5 paycheck month which has been super exciting. Along with my 3% yearly raise, I bumped up my 401(k) contributions to a whopping 3%. They were previously at 2% and, don’t get me wrong, I am all for always meeting your employer match, but my employer doesn’t have a match and the 2% contribution was required… that angered me a little. So I’d rather do my investing on my own.

I am also an idiot and can’t figure out how to log into my work 401(k) account and so my contributions are stuck in a default stable fund, which is the safest one with the least amount of growth. I prefer it be the other way around really, so one of my goals this month is to contact ING and get that fixed.

On the plus side, I did manage to put $1,200 into my Roth IRA, which puts me at $1,700 left to max it out for the year. Barring any unexpected madness, I should have it maxed out by October. Maybe even by the end of September if I pick up a few more side hustles.

This would put me on track to make my $1,000 stock purchase in November and then, fingers crossed, get my emergency savings up to $5,000 by the end December or the beginning of January at the latest.

…although when my financial plans start getting a little too on track, it’s usually proportionate with my restlessness in life and I start looking for a big upheaval. I’ve already got half an eye on either going back to work on cruise ships for a while or applying to grad school.

Either way, I’ve definitely come to the conclusion that New York is not for me for the long term… so we’ll see where I am come New Year’s Day 2015.

At least you can blog from anywhere ;o) I’ve also possibly got a really exciting opportunity brewing that I’ve wanted for years, so we’ll see if the time is finally right for that to come through.

My FinCon side hustling so far this month has been $171.88, bringing my grand total up to $1,016.24. However, since I already paid for my ticket in February and plan on using points from my United MileagePlus Explorer Visa card to fly there and my Barclay’s MasterCard for the hotel, hopefully I won’t tap into much of that at all. Still hoping to hit $1,500 altogether by September, but I’m not holding my breath. I actually got offered a stage management gig that definitely would’ve gotten me to that number, but it’s the same weekend as FinCon… kind of defeats the purpose.

This was a pretty good month for writing over at TravelBlueBook (which you should always check out for fun and interesting travel stories).

I received my first ever payment for ads on my site – $1.88, baby! Yeah, boy! I will probably never be that excited to see such a small amount turn up in my bank account, but I definitely giggled and did a little dance. It’s a payout from my VigLink plugin that I genuinely have no idea how it works…. pretty much it just seems to scan what I write and link to things that have websites (i.e. if I write about it eBay, it turns it into a link and I believe they are all pay per click. Don’t quote me on that though).

Furthermore in blog earnings, I got my first ever sponsored post for this nifty little app called Instant Rewards that brought in $40. I should receive that payout on the last day of the month.

Last month I was psyched to get a dividend payout from my Prudential stock and this month I raked in $6.20 from my 31 shares of Hillenbrand which reinvested itself right into being part of the future 32^nd share.

I also had a very productive day off of my 9-to-5 on Monday, July 7^th. I did my first excellent mystery shop where I evaluated the security officers at a building down by South Street Seaport. It took 25 minutes. I made $75 (granted, I won’t see that money until August). I then sat at the Starbucks next door and a tried out a chat app and chatted with the developer for another 25 minutes and made an additional $50. So that was a pretty awesome day for side hustling too.

Saving & Spending: The Bad

I did pretty well with hustling and saving this month, but I was also on the go a lot more than usual too.

I spent the weekend of the 4^th of July in D.C., visiting one of my best friends from the circus days. I had never been there and she lives there now, so we tore up the town… and our wallets. It definitely could’ve been worse. One of my friend’s from high school actually works at a restaurant in D.C. now, so since we ate there so I could say hi to him our bill was a lot less than it should’ve been.

I’m also still waiting for the other foot to drop on an incident that happened on the way down. I stopped at a rest stop in Maryland, went to open my door and a big gust of wind ripped the blasted thing right out of my hand and slammed right into the car next to me. Leaving a lovely gash and a good sized dent. I left my contact info for the people, hoping maybe they just wouldn’t care (yeah, right), but they contacted me and let me know they were going to get it fixed, but they were headed out on vacation right then.

So, since then, I’ve been waiting for them to get back to me with the quote of what it will take to fix. If it’s astronomical, I have insurance, but I suspect it will be in the $300-700 range, which is less than my deductible anyway.

Sigh. There goes July’s extra paycheck. I have my fingers crossed it might be a super easy fix and only like $150.

The following weekend a good friend came to New York and we spent Sunday at Coney Island. $70 later we had ridden a ton of rides and eaten a bunch of crap. It was a fun day though.

An old ship friend also came through town this month, so that was another night out to dinner and several drinks at a pretty cool piano bar called Don’t Tell Mama.

This past week, I had a random Wednesday off and two of my cousins decided they were going to show up in NYC for restaurant week. So we met up for lunch at The Red Cat (where the panna cotta dessert was actually to die for) and a few drinks. Then a few more drinks. And by the time I stumbled home with one of them around 10 PM, my wallet was about $120 lighter and we needed drunk pizza.

All around, not the end of the world at all… especially since I’m pretty careful with my money and generally a reclusive hermit. But still, it was a lot more than I usually spend.

It was pretty easy to balance out though since for about 2 weeks, I tried to actually eat all the reject food in my apartment instead of going out or even going grocery shopping. I was about 80% successful, so those were two inexpensive weeks.

Goals

Same old, same old. Max out the Roth IRA, buy more stock and fatten up my emergency fund.

Additionally, I really want to start keeping my eyes out for a job that I would really enjoy and be a really good fit for. The job I’m currently in, I took to make it home before my grandma passed away. The job before that, I just followed an ex-boyfriend (minus the whole ex aspect back then). It’s been a long time since I did something because it was what I really wanted and because it would further my career aspirations.

But, like I mentioned above, fingers crossed. AND it’s the year of Mel, so everything is going to be awesome.

 

Most Popular Post of the Month: 114 Side Hustles: Ways to Make More Money (I have no idea what to write to beat this post, but it’s one of my new goals)

My Favorite Post to Write This Month: Green Funeral Products: What Are They?

Elsewhere on the Web: Spending the Perfect Day in Sitka, Alaska at Travel Blue Book

Tracy’s King Crab Shack: Best Legs in Town at Travel Blue Book

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Finally, because my crazy best friend who lives in Las Vegas keeps sending me pictures of it, I have been hunting all over New York for this:

I just really want to eat it. Also, iBotta is even offering a coupon this week. And I can’t find it flipping anywhere. Sigh. #firstworldproblems

*Part of Financially Savvy Saturdays on Femme Frugality and A Disease Called Debt*