Profile

I am thirty seven years old and I’m a freelance digital event producer. I make $50/hour at the main company I work with. I also worked part time for a theatre company doing a digital murder mystery/escape room for £15/hour five nights a week, have been working with a circus in preproduction for their show in November and stage managed at the New York Latino Film Festival.

Spending & Saving

I made a lot of money this month and largely felt like I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. So that wasn’t really so cool.

I finally gave notice at the murder mystery company and did my last shift in the middle of the month. I am honestly so grateful for my time at that job. It was never a ton of money but it was the most fun thing I did during the entire pandemic and it felt a bit like the end of an era. I couldn’t believe I had that same sad “end of a good show run” feeling, but I did. We were a strangely connected group despite only ever really spending time together on Slack.

My boss also is totally cool with me reaching out if I do wind up over in England to talk about working with them as a case study for my doctoral dissertation, so everything worked out pretty much exactly as I hoped.

I agreed to stay on the Slack as a sub if they need one once in a while, but so far I haven’t done any shifts since giving my notice, so I’d say that job is largely in the past now.

There is a circus I’ll be stage managing for the first few weeks of November that has been in preproduction since August. We got our first paychecks from that gig this month, which is the pretty substantial pay bump. It is currently the most stressful thing I do and I’m not sure taking the gig was the wisest decision, but here we are. It’ll all be over in about 7 weeks. I say that to myself a lot.

I also did my first in person event! Which was super exciting. I subbed in at the last minute as a stage manager at the New York Latino Film Festival for a few days. So that was some surprising extra income. And it turns out my Spanish is still incredibly bad. Muy malo.

The blog also had another banner month. I feel like I look at blog income so side-eyed because it’s totally unreliable, but it is like a magic extra boost this month.

As far as spending, my big spend was a trip to visit a friend in Nashville. Every time I’ve gone to visit him in the past, I just drove. And every time I’m in denial about how far apart New Jersey and Nashville are. So this time I flew, which was my first time on a plane since March 2020. I stupidly bought cheap tickets on Spirit, who cancelled our flight and largely just left us S.O.L. on the day we were supposed to leave. The trip got sort of crazy expensive because I decided, screw it, I’m still going, and bought a real expensive ticket for the next day on an airline I actually trusted, largely because of all the ridiculous income boosts this month. And I’m still waiting on the refund from the first failed flight.

Food was average for the month and included the meal kits. We finished up the Martha Stewart Marley Spoon (which was so good) and moved on to Gobble (which was pretty unimpressive and surprisingly expensive).

I also bought a lot of clothes but this was related to achieving my weight loss goal this month! I started working to lose some weight in May when the doctor told me to lose 10 pounds to fix my cholesterol, then I decided I could hit a healthy BMI, and then I decided I could achieve my college weight. And I told myself if I did, I could buy some new jeans… which as you can imagine turned into a low key shopping spree.

I bought some gifts for an assortment of things this month – housewarmings, babies, weddings.

Toiletries is crazy high because I stupidly went into Sephora for face cream, since I had a gift certificate, and they no longer stocked the one I intended to buy. I was dumb enough to express confusion to someone who worked there and walked out with a way more expensive face cream than I probably needed but I get so overwhelmed by that stuff and I just don’t want my face to itch from all the chlorine from swimming. At least the stuff seems to work.

And, of course, there were quarterly taxes, which I sock away in a separate savings account each time I get paid from a 1099 job, so ugh. But yay for making money? Sigh.

Speaking of savings, I finished all of my financial goals for 2021. I also started to sock away some money to put towards my self-employed Keough retirement fund at the end of the year, which I really didn’t think was going to be doable back in January. My new add to the goals is to be able to put my entire IRA contribution for 2022 in on January 1^st.

Also, the biggest money saver in my life, I am still at home with my dad. Brains are so weird because all I’ve thought about for a year is leaving but as I get close to actually leaving now, I feel pretty anxious, so that’s cool. Thanks, crazy brain.

My expenses this month:

• Taxes – $4383.26
• Nashville Trip – $1425.44
• Food – $381.99
• Clothes – $342.95
• Gifts – $233.78
• Toiletries – $150.87
• Entertainment – $132.22
• Gas – $95.20
• Healthcare – $94.26
• Candles – $58.66
• Stage Management – $56.09
• Miscellaneous – $50.23
• brokeGIRLrich – $37.00
• Gym – $28.78
• School – $21.27
• Postage – $12.77

Total Spending in September: $7,505.10 (or $3,121.84 without the taxes) 

Hustling

This month’s income comes from digital producing, stage managing, brokeGIRLrich, Honey cashback, eBay, and dividends.

• Stage Managing – $6747.99
• Digital Event Producing – $6087.50
• brokeGIRLrich – $2402.65
• Dividends – $36.80
• Honey Cashback – $20.00
• eBay – $15.01

Income This Month: $15,309.95

Goals

• Max out my Roth IRA. Done. New goal is to have the 2022 contribution fully ready to go on January 1^st.
• Max out my HSA. Done
• Invest $2,000. Done.
• Save up $3,000 for post-pandemic traveling. Done
• Add $1,000 to the emergency savings account. Done
• Add $2,000 to the new car savings account. Done
• Break $300,000 net worth. Updated to break $325,000.  I suspect that if I get into school, the expenses to get my visa and everything will jeopardize this – so we’re not going to consider it a success for sure until December.
• Do two things to build up my stage management skills. COVID compliance officer certificate and immersive theatre design class.