Profile

I am thirty nine 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, though work has been very slow this year. I work a variety of small side hustles and am a full time student working on a PhD in Drama.

Spending & Saving

What a month. At the beginning of the summer during a supervisor check in, I mentioned to my supervisor that I had been trying to do extra school work to make sure I was a little ahead because I felt like if things picked up it would be all at once.

That feels accurate for this month.

School had been about the same. I’ve been working towards my transfer this fall, which is a mini-viva and a 5000ish word report on my progress, as well as a bunch of administrative forms the school needs to transfer me. All students here enter as MPhil/PhD students so you’re not technically a PhD student till you pass the transfer portion.

It’s a pretty big step. It’s one of only two spots during the whole thing that are really, properly assessed. If I fail, I can repeat it once and if I don’t pass then, I can either drop out entirely or Master out and write a Master’s dissertation on the topic to receive an MPhil – which is pretty much a useless degree. The only reason I would even do that would be to qualify for a graduate visa if I decide I want to stay in the UK.

So there’s just a perpetual bit of stress there. I’m also working on fixing my literature review, which is a mess and I now realize doesn’t really focus on the right things at the moment. I’m still looking for immersive theatre companies willing to partner with me about their productions since my pilot study is pretty much done, which has been wildly difficult.

Besides school, this month the show I’ve been working at weekends since June 2022 closed, which was kind of sad. It was massive and I really thought it would be running the entire time I was in grad school. I didn’t really love being an usher, but I was really fond of the team there. They were pretty great people to work with. I was also super flexible. I just couldn’t take more than two weeks off without being removed from the group and every month, I submitted my availability for the next month, so if I wanted to make plans I just had to do it in advance and then I just wouldn’t sign up for a shift and it was fine. So now I should find another weekend job and I suspect it won’t be as flexible.

Digital producing picked up a bit this month. It was back to a normal slow month in the pre-wtf-is-happening days.

I interviewed for an online adjuncting job, so we’ll see how that goes. I think if I get that, I don’t have to worry about finding a weekend job too.

Most excitingly though, I spent the last week of this month and first few days of October working on the World Culture Festival, which was absolutely bananas but a lot of fun. I flew to Washington, DC to work on it and it was kind of nice to be a stage manager and not a PhD student for a week. Though the hours were super long and it was a really complicated production. I’ll get paid for that next month.

Here is the expense breakdown for the month:

• Tuition – $8,489.07
• Rent – $1249.13
• Taxes – $941.00
• Food – $438.56
• Entertainment – $271.55
• Gifts – $237.45
• Wedding – $201.15
• Apartment – $162.81
• Utilities – $146.32
• Gifts – $114.44
• Travel – $82.06
• Blog – $67.75
• Stage Managing – $61.54
• Switzerland – $54.99
• Job Applications – $40.47
• Charity – $39.00
• Health – $22.58

Total Spending in September: $12,619.87 (or $3189.80 without the tuition and taxes, which were paid out of savings)

Hustling

This month’s income:

• Ushering – $1116.46
• Missing Money Check – $1,000
• brokeGIRLrich – $833.45
• Digital Producing – $192.50
• Dividends – $80.00
• University Reimbursement – $70.79

Income This Month: $3,293.20

Goals

• Save up $10,000 for school.
• Save up £5100 for school. This has been a resounding failure, so all of this year’s tuition payment is coming out of savings. I will try again for next year.
• Max out Roth IRA ($6500). $1000 contributed so far.
• Max out HSA ($3850).
• Buy the pretty lamp. I really don’t think this is happening this year.
• Save $2000 for vacation with BFF over the summer.This just completely and totally failed. It all came out of savings and, I’m guessing by the time we get back from Switzerland next month will be close to $1,000 more than I planned to spend too. Not my best money moments but some really great life moments? Sigh. I hate grad school for every financial reason imaginable,
• Stage manage a show.