Profile

I am thirty eight years old and I’m a digital event producer and very occasional freelance stage manager. I make $55/hour at the digital production company I work with. I work a variety of small side hustles and am also a full time student working on a PhD in Drama.

Spending & Saving

I am excited my spending is creeping toward quasi-reasonable again, though I also realize I need to invisibly add about $1,150 to that to make sure I’m creating a sustainable life over here – which is my approximate rent amount.

As you might recall, I paid the whole year upfront when I moved in. While I like the place well enough, I don’t want to be stuck here or have my lifestyle crumble next May when I have to start paying monthly again. If I want the freedom to move, I think it’s wisest to re-save up that money.

That being said – my goal is to be settled back into a more normal spending pattern by my September update. Only because I know this upcoming month will be a low income month (I keep saying that and then they work out fine for some reason or another – the unpredictable magic of freelance – but honestly this last month was the least I’ve worked for the digital producing job since I started, so we’ll see if the world throws me some magic income opportunities or if it’s genuinely an ugh month in August).

Some upcoming larger expenses that I foresee are contacts around October (though I’m excited to find out if they are, as I suspect, far cheaper in England), a plane ticket home for a wedding in October, and if I can talk the boyfriend into it and find cheap tickets, I would really like to go to Venice for a weekend in the fall. And that tuition bill, ugh, but it’s saved up and ready to go.

I spent the last week of this month and this first week of August essentially on a quasi-slightly working vacation. One of my best friends has wanted to visit England… pretty much her whole life… and I have continually thrown a wrench in this plan by either not wanting this to be the place we visit on our summer vacations or, the year I lived here for my MA, I went back to work a few weeks earlier and finished writing my dissertation while working on a cruise ship, which really messed up her plans since as a teacher she was planning to visit me during summer vacation.

All of that to say that she came to stay for two weeks and we went all in on the touristy stuff and even while trying to save some money – and working three of the days she was visiting – as you can see below it was the largest expense. I suspect by the time I finish running the numbers with my August update, I will have spent that $2,000 planned for travel essentially on a staycation and my June trip to York. However, we are going to Luxembourg for the weekend while she’s here and I am very excited about that.

It also hasn’t been the worst splurging more in London and seeing some touristy stuff with someone excited to see it. My boyfriend tolerates anything I ask him to go to with me, but he was born here and has like zero interest in doing the Tower Bridge Experience (a very underrated, cool thing) or the London Bridge Experience (absolutely terrible – do not recommend – stick to the London Dungeons for your kitschy, gory history needs).

So again, September is my goal to start funneling money towards my HSA goal and finish that, as well as prepping some money to hopefully max out my IRA next year too.

I am excited that market has rebounded a bit since last month and relieved my net worth is about $20,000 higher – pretty much just in time to pay that amount in tuition the end of next month or beginning of September. My fingers are crossed the exchange rate stays near where it is (or goes even lower?) because I’m currently set to pay about $2,000 less in tuition just because of that. I would be really, really happy if my net worth is still sitting above $300,000 after that payment.

Other spending – still spending on the flat but creeping towards reasonable spending quantities. A third of that was a foldaway bed for visitors, which actually got used twice this month! It’s also a good enough quality that I don’t think it’s going to wreck me if my dad ever visits since I feel like I should let him have the proper bed.

Entertainment wise I went to a music festival with the friend who visited at the beginning of the month one night, which fun but a bit pricey – especially when we ended the evening with drinks at Mr. Foggs, a really fun cocktail restaurant but the drinks are always expensive.

I also saw this great little play Hidden Figures that was an immersive show at a smaller venue about overlooked heroes of World War II. You are assigned one of them and go through an intake process that’s quite fun, play essentially an escape room as part of it, do some ethical problem solving and drink along the way. It’s a really good time and was quite affordable, if you happen to be in London.

I am also escorting the undergraduates to Edinburgh Fringe for a few days as the staff onsite later this month, so I get to go for free. I have some free time to see some shows while I’m there with them, so I bought tickets to four things happening while I’m there.

Clothes got a little out of hand because I don’t know if you’re all familiar with that record breaking heat wave that happened for two days in London but by day two, me and my unair conditioned flat were done and I spent about six hours wandering the local mall in an effort to keep my brain from boiling inside my head. I really should’ve just brough a book and sat somewhere, but I wasn’t that smart and spend about $120 as I wandered the blissfully cool mall. Well played, cool consumerism haven. I did get a real cute red dress.

Stage management expenses were the renewal of my US SMA membership and the cost to join the British SMA because they have one too and are willing to help me a bit with a pool of willing participants for my thesis research.

Which, speaking of, is going ok. I feel a little behind this month in part because of my quasi-vacation. I had tried to set aside time to get things done with my BFF here and I now realize that was a fools errand. The three days I had to set aside because I also had regular work scheduled, I did manage to do about 75% of my normal days work of school stuff, so that was good, but in reality, if she wants to come back next summer, I think I’m going to suggest a shorter visit and accept that I’m really using my vacation time too because balancing both has been really stressful and it’s hard to concentrate with her here.

On the plus side, I had worked ahead a bit as soon as she mentioned she was coming. I also have some more concrete writing goals than I’ve had up to this point. I need to rework Chapter 1 (Intro) by the end of the summer and ideally Chapter 2 (Lit Review) too. I find that a bit helpful. I also like that my notes on my first submission were that Chapter 1 is too dry and to add some personal stories which is like… I get to do that? I’m also aiming to get my ethics review submission in on the first deadline in the fall so I can finally start interviewing people.

Back to money though, the fall is when many scholarship applications open, so I’m hopeful to at least make a dent in that £5000 goal for my 2023-24 tuition bill. Though who knows. My savings plans include saving up the full amount for the next tuition payment either way.

On the plus side, I’m now up to working the full 20 hours a week in the UK that I can, pretty consistently, and have way more job offers than I expected considering my various visa limitations. It’s very different from when I was getting my MA and could barely find any work at all.

Here is the expense breakdown for the month:

• London Vacation – $903.64
• Food – $700.52
• Luxembourg – $590.93
• Flat – $392.56
• – $225.32
• Entertainment – $230.42
• Travel – $205.42
• Clothes – $166.17
• Utilities – $134.99
• Stage Management – $82.61
• Gifts – $69.34
• Toiletries – $55.37
• brokeGIRLrich – $37.00
• Charity – $34.09
• Health – $27.00
• Fees – $15.00

Total Spending in July: $3,870.38

Hustling

As usual, most of my income comes from digital event producing. The other income is two of my jobs in London – ushering and relationship management, brokeGIRLrich, and a tiny bit of backpay from the murder mysteries.

• Digital Event Producing – $3,245.00
• Ushering – $790.41
• brokeGIRLrich – $647.77
• Relationship Managing – $507.30
• Murder Mysteries – $55.44

Income This Month: $5,245.92

Goals 

I think this is a pretty good assessment of what I might be able to achieve this year. If I luck out and the blog has a really good year or something, I will aim to make a contribution to my SEP 401k too.

• Max out my Roth IRA.
• Max out my HSA. $1,000 contributed. 
• 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).I accidentally saved an extra $800.
• Obtain £5,000 in funding scholarships.
• Save up $2,000 for traveling. I am reducing this by the amount I’ve spent on traveling with year without touching my current travel savings – so since I’ve spent about $1,800 so far, I’d either like to save $200 more – or let’s be honest, go on a $300 trip this fall to somewhere in Europe for the weekend and call this goal good.  
• Balance work and school without losing my mind. I haven’t lost my mind but there was very little work to balance this month anyway. My life to school balance hasn’t been great this month either though it was skewed towards life – hopefully the rebalancing of this next month is not too painful.