June Spending

Gosh. The months are flying by. I don't have much to show for June. By not doing anything, I was able to save $500 more than my monthly $600 to long term. Prior to my salary cut, I was saving about $700 a month or so, so I'm pretty proud of that $500. I did cheat the last two days of the month, though--I moved the stuff I bought on June 29 and 30 to July. I'll make up for it the last half of the month--I'll be in Asia for the last two weeks of the month. Work will pay for everything during one of those weeks, and I've already saved up money to spend during the second.

Category	Spent	Budgeted Amount
Rent	$840.00	$840.00
Groceries	$431.73	$400.00
Internet	$80.49	$60.00
Electricity	$94.00	$75.00
Eating Out	$36.90	$125.00
Charity	$0.00	$25.00
Cell phone	$19.00	$50.00
Medical	$39.99	$100.00
Misc	$173.89	$275.00
Savings	$600.00	$600.00
Total	$2,316.00	$2,550.00

Income: $2,816.54

Leftover to save: $500.54

Rent: Good and steady at $840 per month on two rent check months!

Groceries: About $32 over. It's cool--my eating out is way down so I must be making up for it by spending lots on groceries.

Internet: WHOA. A direct consequence of having no life is that I spend more time on the internet; my form of entertainment instead. $20 over is OK for a whole month of entertainment.

Electricity: $20 over. It's winter. The heat is on!

Eating Out: Wow! I'm about $88 underbudget on this one. Crazy. I guess that habit is fully broken.

Charity: Oops. Missed it this month. Next month, I'll double it.

Cell phone: $19 for my monthly plan.

Medical: $39.99. For my physio appt. and cold meds for my stupid head cold I got this month. Stupid winter.

Misc: $173.89, about a hundred bucks under budget. You guys, when I say that I'm not doing anything...I'm REALLY not doing anything. I spent: 

$0 on alcohol

 $0 on entertainment

$0 on exercise

$0 on fees

$40 on my dad's father's day gift

$88.89 on goods and wants: 

--saline for my hard contacts

--eye drops for hard contacts

--body wash

--replaced my watch battery

--bought a book for my flight to Asia. 

The only thing on that list that was a bit frivolous was the book purchase, but it was by an author that I really like, and a sequel to a story that I loved: Devil Wears Prada! Looking forward to reading it.

$45 on transportation. I borrowed the cityhop car 3 times this month, each time for one hour. Normally I spend $75 every week on cityhop.

Non social month is OVER!!! I caved and had drinks with friends last Friday  (I always did before the cut). I only bought one drink, though, and nursed it for about 4 hours! Haha. Such a cheapskate. I also had tea with my friends today (I downgraded them from lunch to tea). I feel like such a cheapo, but needs must.

I've already spent about $250 that will go on July expenses, but (as I mentioned earlier) that's totally OK. I have two weeks to spend what I normally spend in a month. August will be similar--I leave for the States about 2/3 of the way through the month, and I've saved up for my expenses while at home. September will be fine because I'll be home all month, too! REALLY looking forward to that. I have so many plans! See best friend #1, who lives about 4 hours away. While there, I'll meet with a potential PhD supervisor/collaborator. Spend a week with my extended family (the good side) for a week at my fave east coast beach (about 3 hours away). Hopefully, I'll spend time with my high school friends, and with my grad school friends somewhere in there, too.

$250 to Farewell Travel fund

$250 to Sanity fund (haven't had to tap it yet)

$250 to Taxable retirement account

$175 to House DP, Europe Travel funds

$1100 NZD saved. Whew.

The most excitement I've had this month

Rabobank is offering premium savings accounts for people who can add $50 to their balance each month! The monthly interest rate offered is 4.25% pa, a full 1.10% higher than my high-interest rate savings account which is offered by the same bank.

Since so many of my funds are to be spent in the next few months to year or so, I'll just transfer my long-term funds and EF to the premium saver fund, and contribute my monthly $350 long-term moneys to it...or continue putting it into the regular savings and just transfer the $50/mo minimum to make sure I get the higher interest rate.

Sadly, this is my life. This is the most interesting thing that's happened to me this month.

I was offered a side-job through the course of my regular job, but I just don't have the time or motivation to take it. My hands are totally full (overflowing) with my normal job, even though I'm supposed to be at 32 hrs/week. Most of it is my fault--I started a new social media endeavor in my "free time" to further the cause of my work project, and my career. That is going so well, though, that I no longer have any free time. On top of that, my normal workload is high right now because of some changes going on. Major deadlines have caused the work to pile up now, only to (hopefully?) slow down later. In my experience, though, that slow down never happens. It's a treadmill of insanity, ramping up forevermore.

I've found myself taking a step back from my optional duties at work lately. I just can't handle it all. For whatever reason--maybe the onset of winter, maybe the thought of being stuck in NZ--I'm a little depressed lately. Can't get out of bed, getting sick easily, general lack of motivation. I am just sort of numb to everything, going through the motions. Though my job is still amazing, the thought of being stuck here in NZ is tarnishing the lustre of it quite a bit. With the recent effort to contact someone in my field back home pretty much failing, I think I'm in a downward spiral. It's weird because I know that if I ever voluntarily left, I'd regret leaving my career behind that way. I'm in a bad place, in limbo-land. Darned if I do, darned if I don't. Need to get un-stuck!!

Setting things in motion

Well, I finally did it. I got my CV together, along with a letter, and sent it all to the leader of an investigation going on in my home state in my preferred field. Basically, I was begging for a job. Everything they want to do, as described in their grant abstract that got funded, is what I do now. If they had money and an open position to help with the project, I would have gotten the job. I know it.

I am avidly looking for a position like the one I have now, just within driving distance of my family. This one would be about 4 hours driving, if it existed.

But the response just proves that I'm always one step behind, and that jobs like mine don't exist anywhere else, and especially not in the US. The only open position with the project he had funding for had been filled last year, and it was for a PhD. The initial response indicated a willingness to meet with me when I visited a friend who lives near the place that this guy works when I'm in the US this August/Sept. In the meantime, he said, let's collaborate. Great! I said. It turns out he knows people that I work with now, which should make the initial small talk much easier.

But then came another email with not collaboration ideas, but the idea for me to get a PhD with his program (but I'd have to find my own funding, of course) and collaborating with the people I work with now.

GUYS. Can I just tell you how sick I am of everyone asking me to do a PhD?! It is the last thing I want to do. A) you get stuck studying one tiny little facet of science, and I am a broad strokes/diverse sort of person,  and B) you are paid less than minimum wage for 5+ years, and I like money. :)

It is one of those things that just seems like a last resort. Somehow I stumbled into my job, which allows me to do exactly what I want for (nearly) a full time salary. How on earth could I settle for less? It would be going backwards, and the only good reason, as far as I can tell, to get a PhD is to move UP. I would want to do exactly what I am doing now post-PhD, and that just doesn't happen. You don't go backwards after a PhD!

So I'm in the same boat as before, but at least have another contact in my home state who studies what I love. Come July and the conference, I'm going to make it a point to meet more of these kinds of people. Maybe one day it will all come together to make my dreams come true*.

*I am close to giving up finding the job before I quit NZ, though. More than anything, I just want to be home.

Same Old, Same Old

Things are ticking along...I'm able to make my budget each week now, but that's only if I don't do anything.  I literally haven't done anything social in weeks. I am going to go crazy soon, I can feel it!

I think I'm making up for the non-social boredom by eating. Not a good thing. My grocery bill is over half spent already, and I have 3 more Saturdays (my grocery shopping days) to go!

Oh well. I do have a little kitty in my Kiwibank savings if I need to go too nuts. I should be OK after June: half of July will be spent in Japan, and I'll be in the US for one week of August and all of Sept, so there should be some leeway for those months as I've already saved up my planned spending for those trips. No telling what'll happen after that, though.

Living on a lower salary, even if you can afford to do so, is hard. But we all knew that. :)

Net Worthiness

Since I don't seem to be doing much else right in my life these days, I rely on my financial saving prowess and budgeting to keep my ego inflated. Looking at my numbers makes me happy, and it seems to be the only area where I have anything under control. Gotta take the successes where they come.

The good: I have close to $40K NZD saved now. I couldn't have done it if I'd said "I'm going to save $40K in the next 5 years." Instead, that $40K is divided into little funds here and there:

$10K in my Emergency Fund
$3K Supplemental Move to the US Fund
$3K 2013 US Trip
$3K 2014 US Trip
$3K to go to my taxable investment account (aka retirement) with Vanguard. Hoping to eventually get it up to $10K USD to take advantage of Admiral Shares
$4655 in my Europe Trip fund...over a third of the way there! $13K goal
$4655 in my House Down Payment fund...almost 10% of the way there! $50K goal
$4370.05 in my Slush Fund, to be spent on whatever big wants I have on my personal goals list (coming soon!)
$703.99 in my Japan fund. Was $1200 or so. Spent $146.01 on hotels already, and have transferred another $350 to use to buy a Japan rail pass soon. That $700 has to pay for food, entries, souvenirs, for about 5 days. Doable? I hope so!
$726.28 for Insurances, to renew my life and disability insurance for another year in July.
$250 for my taxable investment account (yet another fund). This one's goal is $2K by December. Do-able, if I'm still around by then.
$800.05 in my Post-NZ travel fund, hoping to get it to $3K so I can go to Sydney, Perth, Cambodia, Hawaii, and San Diego to see friends on my way home (the long way, obviously). I'd probably go to Perth then Cambodia, then return to NZ before heading home through Hawaii and San Diego. Or visit Perth and/or Cambodia on a trip before I completely leave NZ for good. I have some airmiles I can use to get from Sydney to Australia, and work is sending me to Sydney in August, so hopefully I'll be visiting Perth then.

It's easy to save when you have small, concrete goals like the above. Of course, I am planning to spend most of that $40K in the next few years or so, which is where those taxable investment accounts come in--they are all for retirement. I don't expect to get to Europe before I'm 40, either, so that is a long-term goal, as well as the house downpayment. I plan on buying when I'm about 65! That $175/mo I'm saving for the house will take a heck of a long time to add up to anything substantial, but I figure that once I get serious about buying a house, I will save a LOT more each month for a few years (and I'll hopefully have a second income--I mean husband--to help with that endeavor. Who knows? Maybe my future guy already has a house and we can use my fund to trade up! That'd help a lot.

Anyway, in addition to those short and long-term goal funds, I have a retirement account in NZ. I now contribute 3% of my salary, and my employer does the same, for a total of 6% of my salary saved (added to the $250/mo I save on my own, and that adds up to the required 15%). It is growing faster now, it's up to nearly $13K after 5 years. :) Hope the market keeps this up!

So, all in all, I have a net worth of about $51K in New Zealand Dollars. Not bad for 5 years! That certainly beats everything I saved in the 30 years I spent in the US! ...Let's get into that now.

I used up most of my savings moving to NZ. I've transferred some $$ back over in USD since moving here, so I've actually done quite well here in New Zealand, considering the high prices and low wages.

I have $9.2K saved in my savings account in the US. $5K is allotted for my first year's Roth IRA contribution once I move back. The rest (about $4200) is to be used for set up costs once I move back: new-to-me car, first and last month's rent, security deposit, furnishings, temporary health insurance before getting a job, etc. I don't expect that $4200 to cover EVERYTHING--which is what my $3K NZD Supplemental Move back to US fund is for, described above.

I also have my taxable investment account so I can save for retirement in USD (not allowed to contribute to a Roth or other IRA here in NZ...hrmph). I contributed $3K USD to that, it's now worth $3.3K.

My Roth is worth $4.8K or so. My contributions were way more than that pre-2008, so I've definitely taken a huge hit from the market crash.

My traditional IRA is worth about $7.7K now. Again, it was worth about 1.5 times that much pre-2008, so these US accounts are a total useless wash to me. I keep the money in there, but don't expect much out of them. They are both with Vanguard and totally balanced and tailored to my risk profile, so there's not much more I can do there. :/

Anyway, my US Net Worth is about $25K. $4K of that is to be spent.

In terms of long-term balances across countries, I have about $33K if you count NZD the same as USD. Short term, about $42K in addition to that.

Not bad. My goal was to have $50K in retirement by the age of 35. I'll save another $2K in my investment account for retirement savings, so I'll meet that goal. Next? I want $100K by age 40, if I don't get a PhD, that is.

The first of many fraught monthly spending reports!

So. May. The first month of downsizing my budget, and it SUCKED. Not really spending-wise--we'll get to that later--but what the idea of a lowered income did to me, psychologically.

I think with winter coming and all the dark and cold and rainy days, I got a little depressed! Sleeping all day, lack of motivation, wondering what all my previous hard work was for, etc. All that work and my salary goes lower? I just want to be back in the US, my default when things get tough here in NZ. And of course there was the thought that I couldn't spend as I was used to. Having to watch every penny made me reluctant to do anything. So I didn't go out with friends much this month, either. Several friends left NZ for good, as well. That didn't help. Lack of a social life, sunshine, and money is my kryptonite. I surrender.

On to the spending!

	May 2013 Budget
Category	Spent	Budgeted Amount	Balance
Rent	$1,260.00	$1,260.00	$0.00
Groceries	$365.24	$400.00	$34.76
Internet	$57.49	$60.00	$2.51
Electricity	$68.46	$75.00	$6.54
Eating Out	$104.30	$125.00	$20.70
Charity	$30.54	$25.00	-$5.54
Cell phone	$0.00	$50.00	$50.00
Medical	$18.00	$100.00	$82.00
Misc	$130.96	$275.00	$144.04
Savings	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Total	$2,034.99	$2,370.00	$335.01

Income: $2927.57 

Leftover: $892.58

As you can see, I didn't make my $1K savings goal for the month. Takeout and groceries in the last few days killed me. 

Rent: Three rent check month, UGH!! Should be better for the next couple of months. :)

Groceries: It felt like I was depriving myself something fierce, yet I only had about $35 leftover. Wow. Lesson learned again: groceries are INSANE here, & I've gotten food spending about as low as it can go.

Internet: on budget. next month is going to be a blow out, though--I've been using it as my sole source of entertainment this month.

Electricity: on budget. again, next month is going to be crazy, as I stayed home most of the month AND used my heater and electric blanket like crazy.

Eating out: I did OK here. I deprived myself a little bit earlier on, then didn't restrict myself so much towards the end of the month. 

Charity: over budget. but that's OK. I donated $25 USD to THIS charity. It makes me cry a little bit, both in sadness that it is necessary, and joy that they reached their goal. 

Cell phone: nada. have to top up next month, though!

Medical: one visit to the physio. $18. Have another few visits left, I'm still not healed properly.

Misc: under budget by about $140. I REALLY REALLY restricted myself in this area. No alcohol whatsoever, no cityhop rentals. I spent $17 on entertainment (a movie), $27.68 on a friend's birthday gift, $17.30 on necessary toiletries, and $25 on gas for a friend's car when I borrowed it. 

And that's it! I didn't do anything this month! I mean, it felt pretty horrible. The good news is that I did manage to have about $900 leftover at the end. $175 will go to my House Down payment fund, $175 to Europe Trip fund, $250 to retirement, and $292.58 to split between my post-NZ travel and "Sanity" funds. I decided to revise my original plan and split the remainder up. The sanity fund will be something I can dip into during the times when I feel deprived in June, as my normal monthly budgets don't allow a lot of wiggle room for fun.  

Also added to the post-NZ travel fund is the overage from April, $374.70. Turns out I didn't need it in May.

Other good news is that I earn about $80 in interest each month in my NZ accounts now. I figure it's my reward for saving so much, and I'll add it to my Sanity fund. :) I'm also going to try to sell stuff on Trademe in order to have a little bit extra to play with for fun each month!