Living Paycheck to Paycheck

One of the new big gas-savers I’ve been reading about is hypermiling.  For those of you not in the know, hypermiling entails driving in certain ways to save gas.  For example, trying not to use your break, accelerating slowly, driving the speed limit, coasting, etc.  I decided that it wouldn’t hurt much to try it out a little.

Except I couldn’t do it.  At least not significantly enough to save much gas.  Most of the driving that I do is during high traffic times, so unless I want to leave a space long enough for a semi to cut in front of me, I have to use my breaks constantly.  I can coast a little bit, and I do try to accelerate slowly.  My dad recently inflated my tires to the appropriate pressure which will also save a little on gas.

Aggressive driving is a no-no for hypermiling and I am an aggressive driver.  In the DC Metro area, I have to be.  A person can’t be afraid to change lanes quickly to get out from behind some douchebag driving too slow in the LEFT LANE.  God save me from idiot drivers!  I have no problem with people who want to drive right at the speed limit, whether it’s for law-abiding reasons or gas-saving ones, but for the love of God, get out of the fast lane!  Slow drivers balk and complain about aggressive drivers tailgating them when they’re just going the speed limit, but do they ever add that they were in the right lane and the guy should have gone around them?  Not often.  What I see are people that want to control how fast the people behind them are driving, so they match speeds with those in the right lanes making it impossible for the faster drivers to get around them.  This is what leads to tailgating and road rage.

I’ve found that hypermiling just pisses me off.  When I do it, cars get in front of me because I’m not going fast enough and then they slow me down.  When other cars do it in my lane, they annoy the heck out of me.  So aside from the little things I’ve started, I’m not going to bother with it.  The money I don’t save is what I’ll pay for less stress.

And all you hypermilers out there, good luck, I hope you save money, and stay out of the left lane (especially the left non-HOV lane) if you live in the DC area…that’s where I’ll be.

I’m still thinking about whether my friend J and I should live together in the fall.  It would save a bunch of money that will end up going to gas, groceries, and everything else with rising costs, so I’d probably come out close to even.

On the other hand, I should be getting a raise in the fall.  I’ll slowly be taking on more responsibilities this summer, including a job that one of my managers has been doing single-handedly for twenty years.  Another manager spoke to me about asking for a raise around October after I’ve successfully done the job on my own in September.  Added responsibilities = added money.  I’m looking forward to taking on these tasks; I’m glad that my bosses could see that I’m able to do something more challenging than what I’m already doing.

So things may be a little tight until I get the raise, but I don’t mind tight.  Also, J sort of annoys me.  This will sound absolutely horrible, but have you ever had a friend that admired you TOO much?  Thinks you’re the best thing since sliced bread and lets you know that you’re cooler than her/him?  I feel like I’m up on a pedestal and this is bad for a few reasons:

1.)  The annoyance.  I like to be on equal footing with my friends.  I may be better at some things, they might be better at others, but it all kind of meshes together.  With my real friends, I don’t spend my time telling them how great they are unless they’ve just done something great.  With J I’m told I’m great constantly for things that I don’t think deserve credit.  I’m great for my apartment, my car, my boyfriend; once she met B she started complimenting us as a couple a lot. 

2.) It is part of my nature to find the weak and tread upon them.  Wow, that sounds horrible, too.  What I mean, is that if someone will let me walk all over them, then I will do it.  If she and I lived together, I would be The Boss.  The Bitch is probably more accurate.  I’d be that evil roommate everyone hears about, controlling the TV, ordering others to use coasters, getting ticked off if the roommate asked ME to clean my dishes.  I would do it (unintentionally, despite how this sounds; it would be a gradual process) because I don’t think that she would stand up to me and stop me.  This leads me to

3.) Resentment.  She would resent me (rightly) for being a bitch, and I would resent her (unjustly) for standing up for herself against me.  Actually, if she stood up to me, I’d probably do my best to manipulate her back into my power (gosh, I’m really sounding evil!) before I’d start resenting her.

This would happen because she would let me make it happen.  When my best friend R and I lived together, we had none of this craziness because we’re on equal footing.  If anything, she was more of the boss than me, but we were both too lazy to do much about it:

R: Let’s clean.
Me:  Let’s drink.
R: Let’s do both.
Me:  Okay.

Win-Win.  I’ve also been on the receiving end of a psycho roommate who was the controller.  In that case, I let her be the controller because a., her parents owned the house and I paid them cheap rent, and b., she was crazy as hell and I didn’t want to mess with her (true story: my boyfriend was part of a fraternal order whose council banned her from their house because she was so nuts).

As long as I’m not The Boss (or The Bitch) in the apartment, I’m a delightful roommate who doesn’t get many complaints.  B stayed with me for a few weeks before moving in to his apartment and we got along just fine (except for the one day we tried commuting together–it was the first time we’d raised our voices to each other in probably three years).

I think this post has sort of answered the question of whether I should get a roommate or not.

When shopping for gifts, I go overboard.  I always start out with a budget in mind, like, say, $25.00.  Then I’ll find something for less than that and I’m thrilled…yet, I continue looking for add-ons to the gift since I don’t want to appear cheap or like I don’t value the person who will receive it.

My father’s birthday was at the end of February; I went to Target and browsed through the available CDs, finding a perfect one for (guessing here) maybe $12 or $13.  Then I looked through the DVDs and found an old western that I knew he’d also like.  I could have stopped right there; I mean, $22, $23 was right within my budget.  I saw another DVD, though, and thought that my gift NOW seemed complete.  A CD and a couple DVDs?  Nothing to complain about there.

Then I went to the card section and picked one out and then to the gift wrap section.  Since B and I were together and driving straight to my parents’ house, I bought a bag and tissue paper to wrap everything up quickly in the car.  The final price was probably around $40 instead of $25.  B paid for half so the gift was from us both, but it was unnecessary to spend so much!

So I was happy this time around, for Father’s Day.  I called Dad and asked if there was anything he wanted in particular.  He wanted time to think and said he’d call back in a couple days.  Instead I received a call a few hours later; he knew just the thing.  He grills a LOT during the summer (and spring and fall…heck, he’s been known to fire up the grill with snow on the ground all around him) and a year and a half ago he broke the dual thermometer (measures meat temp and heat temp) that came with the gas grill, so he wanted a new one.  While we spoke, I went to weber.com, got information I needed from him and proceeded to order a new thermometer.  My final cost for it, the tax, and the shipping, was $19.99.  Sweet.

If I decide to give dad a card, I have tons of little blank ones that I can use, and I have a crate full of wrapping paper, tissue paper, bags, boxes, and bows that I save throughout the year, from Christmas and my birthday, so I don’t have to spend more on those extras.  By planning ahead, I would rarely have to buy those things.  For Dad’s birthday, I already had a bag and tissue paper, but I didn’t know what I was getting him and didn’t want to lug my gift wrap crate, so I bought new stuff.  Ridiculous.

I already went over my $30 June Dining Out Challenge limit–ALREADY!  I dropped $40.77 at Pub Dog in Severn, MD this weekend for a pal’s birthday shindig.  That covered tip, a pizza split between B and I, and 14 8 oz. mugs of beer, also split between us.  Even though I went over, B is going to pay for my oil change this weekend which will make up for his share of that plus the gas we used by driving my car to freaking Severn, MD and around for the rest of the weekend.  On Sunday morning, he drove ten miles to meet up with a few people, and went in their car to a restaurant only to find that it was less than a mile from my apartment…he could have even walked there, but the idiot “friends” who KNOW where I live didn’t suggest that…nor did they invite me to brunch, implying to B that it was a guys’ thing.  It wasn’t.  To be honest, I wouldn’t have wanted to go, anyway (for financial reasons), and B only went to see a friend that he hadn’t seen in over a year. 

I digress.  Anyway, Pub Dog has this weird “deal,” I guess, on beer.  If I order one drink, they’ll give two small mugs for $4 total.  If B or I order TWO drinks (but they have to be the same beer) they’ll give four small mugs for $4 total.  It seems rather silly…but financially pretty good.  We drank Blond Ales all evening before we went back to our buddy’s house where we played beer pong and drank Bud Lights.  I met a guy I’ve heard about for years from the birthday boy and another good friend of mine, so we bonded over our mutual friends, libertarianism, and beer pong where we won four in a row (beating birthday boy and B who doesn’t like being my partner because I always lose—hahaha!!) until I had to go home.  Sigh!  I love winning!

Two days ago I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a gallon of milk–only milk.  I was not going to walk down any other aisles.  Giant Foods is pretty smart, though, or at least the one by my apartment is; they have the clearance bins right by the dairy.  I happened to glance down and see the brand of hair dye that I normally use, Clariol Hydrience.

My best friend dyed my hair last week and I had to go with a different, cheaper brand because my brand wasn’t there.  The time she dyed my hair before that, back in February, I think, the dye I got was “discontinued”, but I thought that they meant only that color, since it was the only one marked down.  So when I went last week and didn’t see Hydrience, I figured that they must have discontinued it all.

Apparently they have, but there were still boxes leftover in the clearance bin.  Since college, I have alternated between three shades (all dark brown) mostly to cover gray (yep, 25 years old and already going gray) and to keep my hair shining.  None of those shades were there, but several boxes of a shade just a little bit lighter were, so I picked up three boxes for $2.30/each.  Three boxes will only get me through one hair dyeing experience (my hair is VERY thick and fairly long), but it’s better than spending between $10-$25 every few months.

So I now have the three boxes waiting for later this summer.  I may scope out the local drugstores to see if they have any deals, too.

Thanks in large part to my tax refunds/rebate, my net worth went up a fair amount!  Yay!  You can access my page here.

Last month’s net worth: -$9,406
This month’s net worth: -$6,293

For a difference of: $3,113

Reasons for this:

Even though money is only being added to my 401K currently (about $78 each paycheck), the money in all three retirement accounts has grown a little.

Tax refunds+rebate= $2294

$100 owed to me was paid back.

$35 from Revolution Money Exchange.

Didn’t spend too much last month while budgeting.

I switched from Sprint to Verizon in August 2006 and I’m pretty content to stay with Verizon now that it’s coming to the end of my two-year contract in a couple months.  The service is quite reliable (except at my best friend’s house) and nearly everyone on my dad’s side of the family has the same service which gives us all “In” minutes.  I’ve not gone over my talk minutes since before my parents got their cell phones last fall (I do text rarely, which costs .15 or .20 a text.  This is mostly from people texting ME, but I still stay below the $5.00 range to keep my bill under $50.

My brother used to have the same phone as me, but got a new one when his started screwing up.  He gave me his extra battery, extra wall phone charger, and car charger.  I keep the extra wall charger in my duffle bag for when I go away for longer than a night, and the extra battery and car charger in my glove compartment.  I never would have bought those for myself, but I like having them on hand.

With that thought in mind, I began looking for a new phone that could use all those chargers.  I’m up for the “New Every Two Years” plan, so I could get a phone for free if I chose a cheap enough one; but I don’t want to buy extra chargers when I have a ton few that work great.

Upon searching the Verizon Wireless website, I found that none of the advertised phones were compatible with those chargers.  I suppose that I shouldn’t have  been surprised– after all, how else will they make money?–but I was disappointed.

So how anal am I being about saving money?  I could get a used car charger for the LG-VX5400 for less than $2, not including shipping; I saw it on Amazon.com.  I could even get a fairly cheap bluetooth headset (my current phone doesn’t have the capability) used somewhere.  Maybe I should just suck it up, pay the less-than-$10, and just get a new phone and darn the consequences.

Edit: I found out that I can get 50% off a purchase from Verizon Wireless through my company’s employee discount center.  This won’t help me with my free phone, but it might convince me to buy a bluetooth headset from them.  The one I liked was on sale for $29.99, which would make it the same as the cheapest I saw it off the website, $14.99.

Final Tally! 

Income (from beginning of May):

Paychecks: $2409.97
VA State Tax Refund: $165
Revolution Money Exchange Pay-Out: $35
Federal Tax Refund: $1529
Money Paid Back to Me: $100
Federal Rebate: $600

Total: 4838.97

Expenses (for this week):

Gas (three trips): $144.82
Tolls: $35.00
Entertainment: 17.65
Rent/Water/Fees: 1033.66
Groceries: $158.69 (Got a lot of June’s groceries, hair dye, and allergy medicine)
Other:  $9.00 Service Charge on my bank account…I had less than $750 in my checking at one point, I guess.

How does this look for my Bare Bones Budget Categories?

Category 1:  Rent/Utilities/Phone/Internet/Food — $1467.78 / 1,345
Category 2:  Savings — $50 / 250*
Category 3:  Loans — $262.72 / 262.72
Category 4:  Gas/Tolls/Car Insurance/Car Maintenance — $460.26 / 480
Category 5:  Entertainment/Gifts/Clothing/Donations/Miscellaneous — $121.04 / 70

TOTAL: $2361.80 / 2409.97 from the original budget, with $48.17 going into savings (*along with “extra” tax money and things).

This also goes to $2361.80 / 2610.80 (the ACTUAL amount I have per month because of the two extra paychecks per year) for a difference of $249.00.  So this isn’t so bad, especially since my June groceries won’t be so expensive.

My savings will be allotted thusly:

$25 into Gift fund
$25 into Emergency fund
$1500 into Car Lump Sum (due NOV 2008!) account
$83.17 into Revolving Savings — this account is for when I go under or over on a given month and to fund “wants” periodically.

Other ”extra” money will stay in my checking for now.  My car insurance lump sum will be coming up this summer and I can’t even guess how much it will be.

Also:  Anyone closely following the blog might note that I’ve switched things from different categories and removed some expenses (like the Target bill payment).  I switched the Loudoun car tax to Misc., and I removed the bill payment because the point of this was to show what I spent vs. earned in May, not what I’m paying for now because of April or March.

I’m glad that I did this, but in the future I might just put down my Bare Bones Budget categories instead, since this turned into a lot of searching online for my online banking totals and credit card “recent activities”.

I hung out with my potential roommate last night and I’m thinking that it can work out.  Even though she would leave fairly soon after me in the morning, she wouldn’t be home until at least a couple hours later than me in the evenings, so I’ll get some alone time.  She’s also studying for her GRE, so many of her evenings she will be holed up in her room while I watch TV or something.  She likes my boyfriend and doesn’t care if he’s over a lot on the weekends which is pretty important.  B and I can switch back and forth between out places, but his house kind of sucks and at least one of his roommates is always trying to get us to go out places with him (so he can mack on chicks even though he sort of has a girlfriend–he’s only “dating” her for the sex, I believe, and wants to trade her in for a hotter, less slutty model–drama, drama, drama!) and tries to make us feel bad if we don’t want to go spend money or we just want to be by ourselves.  Also, I won’t cook for B at his place and he does like his free food.

So J and I might make good roommates.  My concern is her salary and how much she can afford for rent; right now she makes slightly less than $30K/year, though she’s due for a salary increase in August.  Right now about 38-40% of my take home pay goes to rent and I know that it should be between 25-35%.  With a roommate, I can definitely get it within that range without a problem, but I’m concerned that J won’t be able to pay enough rent to get a reasonable place.  She’s pretty well fine with living at my complex in Loudoun because she likes the slightly country atmosphere, and my complex does have some awesome apartments for less than one would find closer into the city.  J plans to take a Loudoun Connector Bus, either all the way to D.C. or to a Metro, which will cost a fair amount.  I’ve also offered to take the bigger bedroom/adjoining bathroom and pay extra per month, but I’m not sure how much that should be.  I was thinking adding $50 to my rent and subtracting the same from hers for a $100 difference, but I’ll ask B what he thinks–he had this same problem with his roommates, but he’s the one getting screwed by the guy with the biggest room (also, the same guy who’s trying to trade in his girlfriend.  Hmm).

So those are some new concerns, but I still think that it can work.  Luckily, I still have time to consider things.

This weekend I found out that an old friend of mine wants to move out of her parents’ house soon and that she was looking in my area (because she wouldn’t be able to afford something closer to where she works in D.C.).  My first thought was, “Come live at my complex!” which led to my second thought, “We could live together!!!”

She and I won’t have to decide this for a while; my lease is up in September, after all.  But it got me thinking about what I’m looking for in a roommate, and wondering whether she fits the description.

We’ve known each other since we were four and were “best friends” from eighth grade through high school, despite going to different schools.  After that, we went to different colleges and drifted apart so that we only talked or saw each other a few times a year.  Our interests changed and it got to a point where I didn’t mind terribly that we weren’t as close because we had less to talk about.

So now I wonder if she’d be a good roommate.  My last roommate was my current best friend, and she and I got on extremely well together.  If she came to my room wanting to hang out, I didn’t mind stopping whatever I was doing or resent the interruption– I was all too happy to hang out.  By nature, though, I like my privacy.  Despite the financial issues of living alone, I’ve loved every second of it.  It’ll be quite an adjustment from leaving pots soaking in the sink or sitting on the stove to making sure things are always cleaned up.  I’m also terribly messy, but once I get in a cleaning mode I hate when others don’t clean up in the main areas.   

If we lived together at my current complex, I could save almost $3000/year on rent, and even more on utilities.  If we got a place closer to where we work, I could save money on gas, too.  I’m not sure how worth it that will be, though, to move away from Loudoun.  I love where I live and don’t want to leave unless I have to.

Welp.  Stay tuned.