Profile

I am thirty four years old and the Performance Director at Big Apple Circus. I make $70,000 a year and live in a show provided RV. I also have health insurance through this job that’s deducted straight from my paycheck, so I don’t really count it in my bills since it’s never money I see anyway (it’s roughly $200/month).

Saving & Spending

I stopped several times this month and wondered where all my money was going. I guess the benefit of tracking my expenses is that at least now I know.

Fun fact: Most of it went into savings! It was cause as soon as it hits my bank account, I transfer most of it out, so while I actually felt pretty poor with my low bank account balance and my eating out habits trying to destroy me, in reality, I was doing ok.

I started out the month planning to take a winter session college class, but with everything going on with my family and my job, I felt so stressed out that I stopped and thought, “why are you doing this?” So I’m just going to wait till spring semester and take a few courses. I paid the tuition for the winter course though, so that’ll be applied to my spring course expenses.

This was probably the worst food month I’ve ever had, which is like, extra stupid, since I have access to super cheap food in our cookhouse. I just can’t get myself on track with their food hours, especially for dinner. I also had my power go out and defrost and ruin all the food in my fridge twice (#yayrvliving). And a few of the bigger expenses were when I picked up the tab while out with friends two or three times.

Gifts weren’t so bad considering Christmas is coming and I’m nearly done shopping.

Fun is a little high. I bought a 3-ticket pass to the ski resort not far from my parents to use over the winter while I’m there since they were having a sale and I have this notion that I’m going to get reacquainted with old hobbies over this winter/spring. I also bought tickets to The Cauldron, which is this Harry Potter-esque bar several of us from work are going to go to in December. Three of the people still owe me for their tickets, so I’m counting it as an expense for now.

NJ Transit is so terrible, they’re giving people discounted fares now – so there’s that at least. I saved $3 per round trip to my folks over the last month. So we’re making, like… $3 per hour of our lives wasted. Still not impressive NJ Transit – looks like a future blog post to me.

Amazon Prime auto-renewed before I remembered to cancel it. I’m really not sure the cost is worth it, but I’m going to at least try to enjoy all the Prime Videos I can over the next year cause I’m pretty obsessed with The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and The Man in the High Castle is pretty darn fascinating too.

I bought some awesome flannel lined jeans so I didn’t freeze to death at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and some Bombas socks I’ve been eyeing for – oh…. three years? And there’s a hole in them already after one wear. I wasn’t very happy about it but their customer service was FANTASTIC and they sent me a free replacement pair and let me keep the others. So overall, I’m pretty happy about the purchase and they are super comfortable. If Facebook and Pinterest have also been targeting you, you can use my link and get 25% off your first purchase.

All in all, not so bad. A lot of what I made went into what I’m calling my “unemployment fund” so I can go places and do things over the next few months without panicking over money.

My expenses this month:

• Food – $1034.45
• Travel (Gas, NJ Transit, MTA) – $56.30
• Lifelock – $9.99
• brokeGIRLrich – $2.99
• Clothes – $63.38
• Prime – $126.88
• Shipping – $3.75
• Fun – $330.83
• Gifts – $206.90
• Tuition – $650.50

Total Spending in November: $2,535.96

Hustling

My income this month was from performance directing at Big Apple, my contact lens rebate from over the summer, a car insurance dividend check, a work reimbursement, eBates, and brokeGIRLrich.

• Stage Managing – $4,365.78
• brokeGIRLrich – $797.24
• Work Reimbursement – $2,400.00
• eBates – $188.23
• Contact Lens Rebate – $120.00
• Car Insurance Dividend – $64.25

Income This Month: $7,935.50 

Most Popular Post of the Month: 40+ Stores That Sell ModCloth Clothes for Less

My Favorite Post to Write This Month: How Much Do You Have to Make to Have a Sabbatical?

Goals

• Max out my IRA. – Done
• Max out my 401k. – On track to max out by end of year.
• Buy $5,000 in stock. – Done
• Contribute $3,000 to my New Car Fund – Done
• Contribute $5,000 to my Down Payment Fund.– Done
• Go on a family vacation. – Brigantine Beach 2018.
• Go on a best friend vacation. – Iceland 2018
• Develop 2 new resume skills.– OSHA 30 Training done. I’m counting starting an accounting degree as skill 2.
• Max out my Health Savings Account for the year.