Profile

I am thirty three years old and I am a Stage Manager at Sleep No More in New York City. My contract just extended through January. I make $115/show and work 7-8 shows a week. I also work part time at The Ride – a ridiculous tourist trap bus in Times Square that’s actually pretty fun. I usually work one to two mornings a week there.

Saving & Spending

Life is finally a little more under control. I was pretty much unemployed for about three months this year, so I guess it makes sense it would take about three months to get things back together again.

While I haven’t recouped fully from the winter/spring of discontent, at least the feeling of money constantly hemorrhaging away has stopped.

I’ve also switched up my savings plans and instead of trying to make sure I hit all my annual goals by contributing equal amounts each month, I ranked them in order of priority and am attacking them one by one that way now. It makes me feel more in control and then at least instead of falling a little short on all of them, I’ll probably manage to hit most, if not all, of them and only have a little damage control to continue next year.

I didn’t really have any big expenses this month. My best friend came to hang out in NYC on one of my days off and we went on a walking tour and back to Tipsy Scoop again.

I finally renewed my library card. The librarian actually laughed when he saw how long it had been since I’d used it. I’m particularly excited that you can download audio books using it. At one of my jobs, there are a bunch of different tasks you might have to do on any given night and one of them is just to stand next to this hut for three hours and make sure nothing goes wrong. It’s miserable. But you can listen to an audio book or podcast in one ear and keep your work radio in the other ear, so that makes it a lot more tolerable.

Anyone got any good audio book recommendations? I’ve been listening to a Terry Pratchett book and have Ready Player One and Gumption on my hold list.

I did my first mystery shop in quite a while too. The Auntie Anne’s in Penn Station is often looking for shoppers and since I go through there nearly every day, why not get a free pretzel once in a while, amiright? I should get paid for it sometime in August.

That leads up to this months spending:

This month’s spending:

• Food – $617.36
• Healthcare – $188.00
• Taxis – $21.44
• Entertainment – $69.13
• Lifelock – $9.99
• Household Supplies – $25.02
• Laundry – $17.50
• Gas – $49.19
• Gifts – $6.39
• Miscellaneous – $14.55
• Rent & Utilities – $850.00

Total Spending in July: $1,868.57

Hustling

My income this month was from stage managing, working a part time job as an A/V Tech for The Ride, freelance writing, a large birthday gift, and brokeGIRLrich.

• Stage Managing – $2,392.29
• Part Time Job – $273.41
• brokeGIRLrich – $671.90
• Freelance Writing – $300.00
• Birthday – $200

Income This Month: $3,837.60

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

My Favorite Post to Write This Month: Why It’s So Important to Water Down Your Soap

Goals

• Max out my IRA. – $1,251 to go.
• Buy $1,000 in stock.
• Contribute $2,000 to my New Car Fund – $998 to go. I’ll work on this again after maxing out my IRA.
• Contribute $5,000 to my Down Payment Fund – Stalled at $2,498 to go. I think this is the least likely to happen.
• Contribute $200 to my cousin’s wedding fund. Added $100 this month! 
• Develop 2 new resume skills – One to go.
• Do something really fun with my brother.
• Write a journal or magazine article.
• Hike something.
• Master making macaroons.