Living Paycheck to Paycheck

My Pantry Diet is still going, but it won’t last much longer.  I have approximately enough food to last into next week, but not much else.  My dad gave me two 2lb. bags of frozen ground venison (that he killed and butchered himself with my uncle and their pals); I used one bag with two boxes of Hamburger Helper and felt like I was committing sacrilege.  Venison is soooo good and I used it with Hamburger Helper.  I’m so ashamed.  So I’d rather save my other 2 lb. bag for something better, so I might not count it in with the rest of the pantry diet.

 My boyfriend is going to create a meal plan and exercise plan for me to start as soon as I’m off this crazy pantry diet even though he doesn’t want me to lose any weight.  He’s really into fitness, though we both suck at keeping to a healthy diet: me because I don’t know where to start and I’m bad at sticking to things, and him because it’s easier not to stick to it.  Translation: laziness.  I’m looking forward to what he puts together for me.

About once a week I’m going to try to post what I’ve spent…for everything.  This is for my second week.  I’m also going to include money I’ve received.

Income:

Paycheck:  $1204.98
Revolution Money Exchange Payout: $35
VA State Tax Refund: $165
TOTAL: $1404.98

Expenses:

Gas: (Two trips):  $102.51
Tolls: I’ll post this when the $35 is automatically taken from my account.

How does this look for my Bare Bones Budget Categories?

Category 1:  Rent/Utilities/Phone/Internet/Food — $107.43 / 1,345
Category 2:  Savings — $10.61 / 250
Category 3:  Loans — $262.72 / 262.72
Category 4:  Gas/Tolls/Car Insurance/Car Maintenance — $148.14 / 480
Category 5:  Entertainment/Gifts/Clothing/Donations/Miscellaneous — $- / 70

NET EFFECT: $528.90 / 1404.98

I was able to avoid shelling out money for Mother’s Day by using a gift card I’d received at Christmas, so I was pretty happy about that.

Today was one of those worse-than-usual traffic days in Washington.  I left my house on time for once and was happy NOT to hear about any of my usual roadways on the traffic report.  It wasn’t until I hit the GW Memorial Parkway that I heard on the radio that it was “closed” at 123 due to an overturned vehicle.

The GW Parkway is one of my favorite things in Washington—maybe because I actually dislike the D.C. Metro area quite a bit.  It’s not usually as trafficy and it gives a gorgeous view of the river.  As I sat in my car, practically parked on the parkway, I thought about my options.  First, I could wait it out because they had to clear the accident eventually; second, I could try to get off at 123 and try to find my way to work from there (this would have been slightly tricky, but doable); third, I could drive over the grass that divides the two sides of the parkway and backtrack to 495.  The grass that serves as a median strip is about 2-3 inches above the road; it’s where cops park when setting up speed traps, where disabled vehicles move, and where speeders pull off when caught by said cops.  It was also quite muddy by this time.

Nervously, I waited until I HAD to make a decision; I approached a spot where I couldn’t drive in the grass.  So, right before it, I made sure things were clear on the other side of the parkway and did it.  I drove over the grass, made it to 495, and it took extra time (and 16 freaking extra miles), but I made it to work less than an hour late.

Thank God for my SUV; I think a smaller car would have gotten stuck in the mud.  I felt myself stick a little, but I knew that I could use my 4-wheel drive, if necessary.  What’s funny, though, is if I’d taken the Greenway this morning, I would have missed the accident, been to work early, and not wasted as much gas.  That would have been worth the $3.00.

Living where I do, I have to take the Dulles Toll Road commuting each day, 50 cents getting on and 75 cents getting off, for a one-way total of $1.25.  I drive about 3 1/2 miles to get to Route 28, then take 28 to the toll road.  On most days.

Twice this week I’ve been late enough leaving my apartment to have to take the Dulles Greenway which turns into the toll road.  Before I moved out to Ashburn, I had no idea what the Greenway was, or how it was different from the toll road; I quickly learned.  The Dulles Greenway is a privately-owned toll road, where a one-way trip costs $4.25, so I avoid it whenever possible, even though it is much faster.  If I leave at 6:45am, I’ll only save about eight minutes by taking the 65mph Greenway;  if I leave at 6:55, I generally save about 15 minutes, which is the difference between being late and not.

I noticed, though, that I got much better gas mileage this week.  Normally I average between 17-19 mpg commuting, and have gotten as good as 22 mpg highway (I know it’s horrible and I’d do better without an SUV, but I HATE driving small cars).  By the time I get gas this afternoon, I’ll have driven about 280 miles instead of about 225 (my gas tank is rather small; I usually don’t fill up past 14 gallons).  I think that this is due in large part to my two Greenway excursions (totalling an extra $6), and one afternoon that I met up with a friend for a few hours and drove home without any traffic.

Anyway, I just saved about 3 gallons of gas at $3.59/gallon near my apartment.  So, I’ve saved about $5.  This wouldn’t work every week;  in no way do I think that if I took the Greenway five mornings a week, I’d save five gallons of gas.  Maybe I could save about 3 gallons.  So if gas really skyrockets, it might become cost-effective, after all.

About once a week I’m going to try to post what I’ve spent…for everything.  So, so far for May:

Student Loans: $174.01
Car Loan: $88.71
Cell Phone: $47.79
Loudoun County Car Tax: $64.39
Electric Bill: $45.85
Groceries:  $13.79 (Milk, eggs, allergy medicine)
Gas: $36.??
Tolls: I’ll post this when the $35 is automatically taken from my account.

How does this look for my Bare Bones Budget Categories?

Category 1:  Rent/Utilities/Phone/Internet/Food — $107.43 / 1,345
Category 2:  Savings — $-64.39 / 250
Category 3:  Loans — $262.72 / 262.72
Category 4:  Gas/Tolls/Car Insurance/Car Maintenance — $36.?? / 480
Category 5:  Entertainment/Gifts/Clothing/Donations/Miscellaneous — $70

My take-home pay each month is $2,409.97.  Knowing that I have not been living within my means, I decided to make a “Bare Bones Budget”.  What always screws me up when keeping a budget is budgeting per expense, instead of grouping things together.  Each month when I pay my rent, I have to pay mandatory fees and my water bill together with it.  So that always varies between $1032-37.  I could choose a number within that range, but why not add my other utilities in?  And if I’m adding necessary utilities, why don’t I add in the unnecessary ones like cell phone and internet?

So I’ve broken my budget into a few categories:

Category 1:  Rent/Utilities/Phone/Internet/Food — $1345
Category 2:  Savings — $250
Category 3:  Loans — $262.72
Category 4:  Gas/Tolls/Car Insurance/Car Maintenance — $480
Category 5:  Entertainment/Gifts/Clothing/Donations/Miscellaneous — $70

The only problem with a bare bones budget is that it doesn’t leave room for surprises (unless you count Category 5’s “miscellaneous” option.  Already this month I paid my county car tax for $64.39…technically, that could go in either Category 4 or 5…or 2, “Savings”.  With my $250/month, I want to put $200 into the savings for paying my car loan, $25 into an “Emergency Fund” which I don’t really have yet, and another $25 into a Gift Fund.  It seems like every month, I have another gift to buy, and sometimes more than one.  In July, I have two weddings and my grandmother’s birthday.  I want to start putting money aside specifically for that.

To do that, I’m going to start splitting up my bank accounts.  I have two checking accounts, two savings accounts, and one Money Market account.  The Money Market has the most money in it and is the savings for paying off my car.  My most often used checking account will stay the same pretty much; it’ll be used for Categories 1, 3, and 4.  One savings account will be the Emergency fund, one will be the Gift fund, and the lesser used checking account will just hold whatever money is leftover at the end.

If this is too hard, I may I have to fiddle with the numbers as I go.  For example, $250 is more than 10% of my take home income, and I already have 3% of my salary before taxes going into a 401K (with 50% match), so it might be best to put more into travel as this summer approaches and gas gets higher.

In other news, this weekend my boyfriend went grocery shopping for Saturday night’s dinner so that he could cook for me.  I told him that I didn’t want him to buy food so that I could stick to the pantry diet, but apparently he disapproves and didn’t want to stick to it himself.  So he bought me a package of lunch meat and bread for this week’s lunch while he was there.  I’m so used to not having that kind of food that I cooked lunch and came to work before remembering.  That’s the best part of this diet-that’s-not-really-a-diet:  I’m finally learning how quick cooking can really be.  This gives me hope that in the future, when I’m a parent, my children won’t starve to death.

Last night I dreamt that I was at some sort of office supply store with a shopping cart, just kind of throwing things in.  I started thinking about whether I needed any of those things because I was becoming horrified–I’m not supposed to be spending any money on things I don’t need right now.  So I put all but maybe two things away.  I woke up wondering how I could be so stupid for even buying THOSE things when I realized it was a dream.

I can’t decide whether this is supposed to tell me that I need to relax on the no spending thing, or that I need to beef up my resolve.

I realized the other day that I really have to start earmarking money for some upcoming expenses.  I am way past due to have my oil changed, for example.  I’m saving money by not taking it in, but I’m running the risk of much more costly expenses if I don’t, so I’ll use the $5 off coupon to Jiffy Lube from their website (instead of the $4 off coupon I received in the mail) this week or next.  I realize that it’s probably much cheaper to change my oil myself, but I honestly don’t know how to do that, and I like going to Jiffy Lube and knowing that they’re looking at more than just my oil.

Along with cars, I’m going to have to pay for my car insurance in July or so.  I pay the six-month lump sum up front so that I’m not charged an extra $4 a month.  Last time, this total was around $371, but I’m expecting that to go up because of my accident.

I’m also planning some beach trips this summer.  I’ll have one week in North Carolina at the end of July and one week in Ocean City, MD at the end of August.  Both times I will have free lodging because they are family vacations; I’ll only have to pay for gas.  I’d like to do a couple of day-trips, as well, where I’ll once again have to pay for gas, but not much else.  I’d like to buy a couple of beach chairs, an umbrella, and a cooler, but I can borrow all of these from my parents, so I most likely won’t.  Either way, the gas itself will be expensive, despite the 5% back I’ll be getting from it from my credit card.

The other major expense looming on my horizon depends on whether I move or not.  That I won’t know until July, though.

I may start putting aside some money each month into my ING Direct Savings account to earmark all these travel expenses.  The rest of my savings will continue to go in my Vanguard Prime Money Market account.

I’ve updated my Net Worth since it’s the first of the month.  For some reason, it won’t show up as a picture on my side bar, so I have a link to my page under the blogroll.  I may end up moving it to a more prominent spot.  Right now you can access it here.  My net worth has risen $1,978 in the last month to -$9,406.  This is for a few reasons:

1.  Last month I didn’t take into account my 401K from my current employer.  At this point, I’m only contributing 3% of my salary (they match 50% up to that point), so it’s less than $800, but it’s still something.

2.  I contributed $1000 to a traditional IRA and it’s already gained more than $20 in interest.

3.  I changed my car loan agreement with my dad, lowering my interest rate to 6% and extending the length of the loan.  My car loan total is a little misleading because I have down the entire balance plus the interest I’ll be paying, assuming I pay exactly $88.71/month (until November 2010), $5000 November 2008, and $500 November 2010.  So my balance is lower than indicated, but I don’t keep my amortization schedule sheet on hand to determine exactly what my balance is each month.  I might start doing that in November after I pay the big lump sum.  My student loan balance is calculated for me, so that is correct.

Soon I should be receiving my $600 tax rebate and my over $1600 tax refund, which will be nice.  I’ve thought about changing my withholding, but I haven’t yet worked a full January-December year yet, so I think that I’ll wait until next year to look at that.

This month I’m also going to track what I spend, which I’m looking forward to and dreading all at once.

I’m loving what I call my Pantry Diet.  In the last 2 1/2 weeks I’ve probably only lost a pound or so, but that’s not the real goal anyway.  The goal is to use up everything usable in my pantry / refridgerator.  I’m still doing well.

I signed up for the May Grocery Challenge at Give Me Back My Five Bucks and made my goal $100.  Since I usually spend MUCH more than that, I figured that it was a good goal.  Also, when I run out of food, I’m going to have to go to the grocery store and stock up on everything I’m missing which I’m guessing will be around the middle of May.  And since I’m still letting myself buy milk, eggs, and vegetable oil, I’ll definitely  have to shop before the week is out.

I considered myself to be “out of food” two and a half weeks ago when I decided to go on the Pantry Diet, but I still have plenty to last me.  How often do we let things sit around because we’re not in the mood to eat it, and then go drop $150 at the grocery store getting more appetizing things that are gone before we know it?

I have one bag of potato chips (given to me by my parents / left over from my party) and one or two bags of kettle corn left as ready made snack food.  Everything else in my pantry is stuff that needs to be cooked or baked or something else that takes more steps than just opening a bag.  I’m not eating as much because I’m often too lazy to cook something.  Yesterday, I baked some gingersnaps with a box mix I had (also from my parents) and ate a few (delicious).  I didn’t feel like cooking a real meal, so I had ramen noodles.  This morning before work I cooked up spaghetti, half of which I brought to work with me and the other half I refridgerated for tonight or tomorrow’s lunch.  And I have TONS more spaghetti where that came from.  I’m counting on being well under my $100 goal, and I hope to keep it under that limit for the foreseeable future as well.