Category Archives: Saving

Working On Not Spending (or Trying To Not Get Sucked Into Sales)

Posted on July 20, 2018 | Comments Off on Working On Not Spending (or Trying To Not Get Sucked Into Sales)

It seems like for the last month, everyone was talking about how excited they were for Amazon Prime Day. I know that you can get some amazing deals on Prime Day and there have been deals in the past that I really regretted not taking advantage of. I use my Amazon Prime membership quite a bit (I probably order too much from there, but it’s just so easy), but I’ve never really done Prime Day shopping. So this year, I decided to check it out and see if there was anything that was worth it.

I did look a bit at a few posts talking about what to be on the lookout for on Prime Day, but there were just too many different lists of things to look for and what has been on sale in the past. So I figured I would just browse Amazon during the sale and see if there is anything that caught my eye and was a good deal.

I clearly wasn’t prepared. I know that the site went down and that was a big problem for searching, but there were just too many things on sale to try to make sense of it all. I was trying to sort through different categories since there were some things I knew I wasn’t interested in, but it just seemed like endless lists of things on sale. I started to open new tabs with things that seemed good to me, but then that got out of control and I probably had 60 different tabs open.

I took a step back and it almost felt like I broke a trance. It can be hypnotic to look at how cheap things can get. I do that all the time when looking at other discount sites online. I usually find a ton of things that I can’t believe how cheap they are on sale and debate about getting them. I usually will add things to a cart and then if I still want it later I’ll come back and finish the purchase. I rarely end up finishing a purchase.

I am big on finding deals where I can. I’ve become pretty great at stacking coupons at CVS so things are pretty cheap. Between their coupons they send in the mail, the coupons on the receipts, the Extra Bucks you get, and looking at coupons online; I usually save at least 50% on what it would cost with no coupons. I have had times where technically I made money because the amount I got in Extra Bucks after my purchase was more than what I spent out-of-pocket. I’m not a crazy coupon person, but this only takes a few minutes before I go to CVS and it’s easily worth it.

But at the same time, if you are saving money on something you don’t need you really aren’t saving money. Even with my CVS trips I try to only get the things I know I need. Sometimes I will stock up on things like toothpaste that I don’t need at the moment but will need later because of the sale, but I try not to make that many impulse purchases. And online shopping is really a lot about impulse purchasing. You see one thing and realize it’s a good deal and before you know it it’s in your cart with the things you need and it’s at your door in a day or two. I’m guilty of this habit and I know I need to break it.

After doing some reflection, I rethought my Amazon Prime Day plan. I decided that first I was going to look at things on sale that I already use and would be purchasing again in the future. I found the body wash I use on sale for half off so that was worth it to me. Of all the tabs I had open, the body wash was the only thing I really needed. Then I decided to look through the tabs and see if there was anything that I really wanted and wasn’t too expensive. The only things I got were some new coasters (my current ones don’t absorb any water and in this heat my water glasses are always sweating) and a set of mini glass vases which were similar to something I was looking at in another store but was much cheaper. I want to add some flowers (possibly fake ones) around my house to make things seem nicer and these vases will be perfect.

And that’s all I got. I know there are people who were sharing online how they got something for 90% off or that it was so cheap that it was almost free. But unless it was something I really needed, I really couldn’t afford to buy it. Money is getting very tight and I’m working on finding more work somewhere, but I also know that these shopping trips are probably things that I could be cutting back even more even if I believe that I’m only buying essentials. I’m going to be working on some reevaluating on what essentials I use so I can try to get better at either finding them cheaper or using what I have until my money situation gets better.

It’s not easy for me not to spend. I want to have nice things and I don’t think that I get anything too outrageous, but I also know that I am buying stuff because I think I need it. I don’t need to have the best of everything and I need to get better and using what I already have and repurposing things that I may have forgotten about.

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Default ThumbnailLearning To Coupon (or Trying To Save Since I’m Not Earning Much Now) Default ThumbnailBuilding Upon My Monthly Challenge (or Continuing To Work On Shopping) Default ThumbnailSaving Money and Trying To Be Green (or Revamping Some Things) Default ThumbnailWorking on Budgeting (or Spending Money To Save Money) Default ThumbnailWorking On Money Priorities (or What’s Worth The Splurge) Default ThumbnailLooking Forward To Some Big Spending (or Needing New Technology)

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Posted in Saving, Shopping

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Finding Ways To Treat Myself (or I Wish Money Wasn’t An Issue)

Posted on June 29, 2018 | Comments Off on Finding Ways To Treat Myself (or I Wish Money Wasn’t An Issue)

This post is similar to what I’ll be writing when I do my recap of how my monthly challenge went, but it’s a bit different. I’ve been working on reconnecting to myself and doing things that make me happy. And as I’ve been working on that, I’ve discovered one area where I’ve been not really able to work on things. And that is doing things that feel special to me or treating myself.

It may seem like I treat myself a lot because I do fun things. But most of those things are something I’ve saved up for to do (like my Pantages tickets or my Disneyland pass) or things that I get to do for free or at a discount because either I review them on here (and I will always disclose when I get a discount or free item for a review) or because I have a connection with someone who can help me out (like when I got to go to the friends and family day at Face Haus). But beyond the things that have been planned for a while or that I have a connection to, I really don’t seem to go outside of the set things I spend money on.

Of course, a lot of this has to do with lack of funding. If I had unlimited money (or significantly more money), I would not hesitate to spend on things I wanted to do. I’ve been wanting to get my house professionally cleaned recently. I don’t need a weekly or even monthly cleaning person, but I’d love to do a deep clean from someone who knows what they are doing once or twice a year. This doesn’t have to be expensive, but it’s not in my budget right now. I’d also love to either buy fresh flowers or have a delivery of fresh flowers on a regular basis. I have some friends who do this and it always seems so nice to have flowers in your home. Plus, flowers always seem to put a smile on your face, even when you ordered them for yourself. And then there are all the fun monthly/quarterly subscription boxes that so many people do and love. I have a list of ones I’d want to try if I could afford it.

All of those things are more of luxury splurges because I could be fine without any of them. But then there are the more basic splurges that I’ve been not doing either. I don’t get pedicures regularly, but I try to do it a few times a year (I have issues with my toenails sometimes and a pedicure is cheaper than an appointment with a podiatrist). I’ve been saying for almost 3 months that I was going to set aside time to go get a pedicure but I haven’t done it yet. Money is a small part of why I’ve been putting it off, but I also just don’t feel at times that I deserve it or should do it. It’s the same with buying clothes. I would love to buy the rare nicer piece of clothing that doesn’t feel as much as throwaway clothing. I’ve got some things picked out that I’d like to get and I haven’t purchased them. This one is a bit about money but also a bit about wanting to wait until I’m a different size to buy stuff. Either way, I’m delaying doing something that I’d like to do.

Obviously I can’t just go out and buy all the things I want and do all the things on my list. I do need to budget and find where the money is in my budget to spend. And some of these things may need to be something I save a few dollars a month for and then later this year I can do it. But I’m also looking at adding another job to what I’m doing. I’ve got one job that should be very part-time and won’t pay a ton of money, but I think it will cover at least my cable and power bills each month. It should be starting in the next month or two and I’m excited about it. And I’m meeting with someone soon who knows me through the podcast I work for and wanted to see if there is something that they can hire me to do. They don’t have a specific job for me to apply for, but they wanted to see if we could work together.

If I have these new jobs, they will probably fit into my schedule with my current ones. And I plan on doing them all if possible. I could use all the additional income toward my debt and then once that is eventually paid off I could reevaluate things. The priority is to pay off my debt as soon as possible, but I also know I need to allow some flexibility to have some fun money. But until I have that extra income, I think my list for how I want to spend the fun money is going to have to just stay a list for now.

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Default ThumbnailSpreading Some Holiday Cheer (or Finding Cheaper Ways To Make People Smile) Default ThumbnailWorking On Money Priorities (or What’s Worth The Splurge) Default ThumbnailGoing Back To An Old Habit (or Finding Control With Budgeting) Default ThumbnailFinding New Money Issues (or Looking At Doing A Fresh Budget) Default ThumbnailWorking on Budgeting (or Spending Money To Save Money) Default ThumbnailWorking On Money (or A Prosperous Heart Update)

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Posted in Beauty, Fun Stuff, Saving, Shopping, Tough Stuff

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Food And Budgeting (or Combining The Two Things I Often Struggle With)

Posted on April 10, 2018 | Comments Off on Food And Budgeting (or Combining The Two Things I Often Struggle With)

I’ve written several posts about my struggles with food. And I’ve also written a lot about issues with working on a budget that is manageable and will help me pay down my debt. Both of these things are things that I struggle with a lot and it seems like whenever I get a handle on things, something changes and I have to start from the beginning again. I know there is a connection between addiction/eating disorders and debt, but the connection for me is just starting to register.

Since food is something I will always need to buy, I have to budget for it. But things change week to week on what I need so I’m much more flexible with my budget in that category. I try to stay within a budget that I set for each week, but if I have to buy food and I’ve already hit what I wanted to spend that week I still have to get food. I know that some of this extra spending is due to lack of planning, and I’m working on that. I also have realized that I’ve been letting food go to waste if I forget to eat it and that adds to my expenses. So I’ve been working on fixing both of these problems at once.

Recently my dermatologist put me on an antibiotic that I took twice a day for 2 weeks. I had to take the medication with food and I couldn’t take it at the same time as my morning medications because of issues with the antibiotic and a multivitamin. So I planned on taking it at lunchtime and dinnertime each day since that would work with taking it with food. At that same time I started working out at the Culver City Orangetheory location, which meant lots of early morning workouts. And I can’t really eat too much before a morning workout, but at the same time I can’t work out on an empty stomach. So I had to start experimenting with what I eat and when I eat.

This can totally change (because like I said, things always change when I think I finally have a handle on it), but right now it’s been working to drink a little bit of chocolate milk before my workout and then having a meal around 11am (brunch?) and then dinner. While I know that I should be eating 3 meals a day at least, this plan has been working for a bit for both my weight loss and my budget. When I only have to think about 2 meals a day, somehow it’s easier for me to meal plan. And it’s almost more like 1 meal a day because I eat pretty much the same thing each day as my mid-day meal.

I know that for some people this is a no-brainer. Eating the same thing every day is a weight loss strategy that works for many people. Having a lack of variety does work for some people, but it’s never really worked for me before. The only exception to this was when I was doing the UCLA diet when there was no variety as I had the same thing 6 times a day. But when I could choose from whatever I wanted, having a lack of variety would lead to me doing last-minute grocery store runs to get something else to eat because I was bored with the plan I had.

I don’t know if it is timing or doing the morning workouts, but the lack of variety is working for me. The number on my scale is slowly going down and I’ve been able to limit how often I need to go to the grocery store. I still have some wasted food, but it’s significantly less than it was before. And I know that if I work on planning things out a bit better, I can improve on the budgeting even more.

Even though I’ve known that my food budget was a bit out of control, things just finally clicked with me recently that I needed to work on this. It’s one of the few areas in my budget that has flexibility and I know that it is possible to eat what I need to while spending less money. Hopefully having this plan will not only keep my budget in a better place but will continue to limit how often I have to confront what I want to eat. If I don’t have to think about it, I can avoid grocery stores when I know that I am just looking for junk food to eat.

Just like every other time I think I have things worked out, I am hopeful that this may work but I am also realistic that this could just be something that is working temporarily. But I hope that whatever skills and tricks I learn while this is working are things that I can keep using even if I can’t keep up the current plan.

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Default ThumbnailTime For Some Planning (or Trying A Challenge Again This Month) Default ThumbnailRoutine Time Again (or Getting Back On Track) Default ThumbnailBudgeting and Spending (or Sharing YNAB With A Cashier) Default ThumbnailFood Scheduling (or Trying Out New Things) Default ThumbnailGetting Back To Better Food (or Finding My Own Balance) Default ThumbnailStill Figuring Out Meal Planning (or Will Food Ever Be Easy For Me?)

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Posted in Food, Saving, Tough Stuff

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Tax Time Again! (or It’s A Taxes Miracle!)

Posted on February 27, 2018 | Comments Off on Tax Time Again! (or It’s A Taxes Miracle!)

I’ve been getting my taxes done by Daphne at Sloan and Associates for a few years now. First of all, if you are in any creative field or have any type of nontraditional work life, I highly recommend going to Daphne or anyone else at the office for your taxes. The way she understands how to help me organize my taxes is amazing and I have learned so much from watching her work that has made me better at tracking my deductions.

Even though Daphne has been amazing with my taxes each year, I do still get nervous before going in because I never want to owe more than what I saved. And while I am pretty good with keeping track of expenses, somehow in 2017 things didn’t go exactly how I planned. I knew I screwed up a bit with my tracking of medical expenses in the beginning of the year. That’s because I was expecting to have surgery and I figured that I would hit my out-of-pocket maximum and that would be what I deducted on my taxes. But when I didn’t need surgery, I realized I didn’t track all my medical tests and things. Also, somehow I lost several receipts for meals I had that were business related. Even though those don’t add up to a ton, I like to be as perfect as possible.

So when I went to my appointment with Daphne last week, I was a bit scared that these little mistakes would cause me to owe a lot. I still felt confident that I would owe less than I saved, especially since I paid all my estimated taxes, but it’s always nice to have extra money to help with expenses (like my Pantages tickets which I just renewed). I had spent a few days before the appointment getting extra organized and making sure I had all my forms filled out to the best of my ability. Doing that makes Daphne’s job easier and that gives her time to see if there are any things I missed out on that I should be aware of for the next year. I always err on the side of caution, but because so much of doing taxes is being aware of what deductions I’m eligible for and making sure I do things right, I feel like it’s a game.

When I got to my appointment, I was pretty excited to see Daphne. She’s awesome and we always have fun, even when she’s doing my taxes. And I know she likes how organized I am and it always makes her happy that her job is easier. And just like she had the past few times, she showed me the worst-case scenario first before she put in my deductions so I could breathe a little easier knowing things would be ok. Although this year was the first year that the worst-case was actually higher than what I saved! But I knew it would be going down a lot. I had a lot of work expenses like liability insurance that I had to buy and my home office (which is usually a risky deduction, but in my work contracts it states my office is at my home).

While Daphne was entering in all my deductions and income, we also had fun chatting. She recently got a Disney pass so we were talking about how we want to have a Disney day once tax season is over. I know she’ll need some fun after doing everyone’s taxes! She’s also a musical person and I was telling her about the shows coming up. She can’t do season tickets, but she might join us for a show either this season or next.

It seemed like this year it was much quicker for Daphne to enter everything into the system for my taxes. I didn’t know if that was because I had fewer deductions than I did in the past or that things were just easier now. It did make me have a few moments of minor panic that I didn’t do a good enough job. But when she was done, she told me to look at the screen at what she was about to click on.

She was clicking on the button to say how I wanted my refund sent to me! I couldn’t believe I was getting a refund! I thought she was kidding at first and thought it was a joke, but she was totally serious! Between my estimated payments, my deductions, and the money I get back for overpaying my health insurance (my subsidy wasn’t at the right amount for my income level), I actually was getting a small refund! It was unbelievable but also proof that if I listened to what Daphne taught me each time that I could make sure that I don’t owe much (or anything) at tax time. Everyone is fearful of working 1099 jobs because you owe money at tax time, but if you do everything you are supposed to do it doesn’t have to be that way.

After everything for state and federal was done, I do technically owe a little bit. I owe $30 more in my state taxes than I am getting back in my federal refund. But even owing $30 is nothing compared to what I’ve owed in the past or what I was prepared to owe this time. I know a lot of it was because my estimated tax payments were so high, but paying it throughout the year is so much better than paying it all at once. And it saved me from owing a penalty on federal taxes as well! My estimated payments for 2018 are about what I paid in 2017, so I’m hopeful that I should be able to keep my tax bill at tax time next year low again. I don’t know if I’ll get it down so much that I get a refund (I probably won’t get the money back from healthcare as my subsidy was corrected and I shouldn’t have as much in healthcare expenses), but I am more confident in my ability to track the expenses for work so that what I save for tax time doesn’t all have to go to taxes.

I’m so happy that I do have some extra money that I wasn’t planning on. Some of it needs to go to things I have already gotten (like paying back for my Pantages tickets) and I will use some for bills and toward my credit card debt. But I do want to see if there is something else that is small but fun that I want. I’m not going to use a lot of that money, but maybe getting a purse I’ve been wanting that is not cheap or doing a fun spa day could be a nice reward for the hard work. But I might just put it all toward my debt because that is the more responsible thing to do and I want to get that number to 0 sooner rather than later.

But whatever I end up doing with the money that I have leftover from saving for taxes, I am just so glad that my hard work paid off and that I am understanding how to manage my taxes so much better now. I feel in control with taxes and understand so much more than I ever did. I know what I need to track and what expenses to be aware of. And I have Daphne to thank for that because she really took the time to make sure that when I leave each time that I don’t have any questions or confusion about why my taxes were the way they were. I know she was giving credit to me for working hard and doing all the right things last year on my taxes, but I give her the credit because she is the one who taught me how to do that.

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Default ThumbnailA Fresh Budget (or Starting Over With YNAB) Default ThumbnailFinding New Money Issues (or Looking At Doing A Fresh Budget) Default ThumbnailTax Time (or Happy To Owe The Government Some Money) Default ThumbnailIt’s Taxes Time (or Seeing My Hard Work Pay Off) Default ThumbnailNot Quite Winning At Taxes This Year (or Owing Money And Seeing Car Accidents) Default ThumbnailIt’s Tax Time (or Seeing My Tracking And Organizing Pay Off)

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Saving, Work

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Finding New Money Issues (or Looking At Doing A Fresh Budget)

Posted on February 23, 2018 | Comments Off on Finding New Money Issues (or Looking At Doing A Fresh Budget)

I’ve written about using YNAB to do my budgeting on here before. And I’ve written about doing a fresh start in the app when I felt like things weren’t moving the way I was hoping they would be. It’s been a while since I did that fresh start and things were getting much better and I was feeling so much more confident about money. My credit card debt was going down, I was saving money for annual expenses so they weren’t as overwhelming, and I felt like I was finally getting on top of things.

Unfortunately, that feeling has left me lately. I’m at a point right now where I have less in my bank account after paying my rent for next month than I’m used to. I think it’s lower than it’s been since I started using YNAB and that’s not a good feeling. I was trying to tell myself that this could be that I’m getting paid weekly instead of twice a week so I didn’t have a big paycheck recently. And I’m still waiting on a check from one job. Also, one of my day jobs recently cut back my hours by 2/3rds. They are hoping to find some other work that I can do to make up some extra hours, but there is no guarantee that I could do that.

Because I’ve been budgeting for a while now, I’m on a bit of autopilot. That can be a good thing because I don’t have to think about adding transactions to the app anymore. I just do it automatically as I spend the money. But because I’m on autopilot, I don’t think I’ve adjusted to my new income level and I have been spending the way I was when I was still working more hours. It’s a difference of about $800 a month which is a significant amount. I am looking at ways to make up that money, but so far I haven’t found another job to add to my collection.

I could just start adjusting my budget in the app to start reflecting the amounts that I should be spending in each category. I know that I could be better about meal planning so I spend less on groceries and I don’t buy as many frozen or pre-made meals (which are more expensive than just buying ingredients). And I know that I need to go through my monthly recurring charges to find what I can either cut back or eliminate completely. I can’t keep living as if I was making the same as I was before because it will put me into a really horrible financial spot.

But even though I could just be adjusting my current budget, I’m looking at doing another fresh start now too. In some ways, it would be nice to have a clean break from how my spending was before to what my spending should be like now. But on the other hand, it would be good to learn the skills I should have to adjust my budget when necessary. Money fluctuations will probably always be a part of my life and I need to be better about planning when things aren’t stable. You can’t always start over so I should know how to adjust and be flexible.

As I’m writing this, I’m about to have my taxes done (when this goes up, it will be the day after my taxes are figured out). I think that once that is done and I know how much money I will have left from my savings for taxes (hopefully I will owe less than I saved!) I can make a more educated plan on what I want to do with my budget. It may be the perfect time to have a fresh start because then I will know what my money situation will be like with what I have to spend. It is a bit tough to budget when I have one bank account that I can’t really touch except for budgeting for my taxes, so I’m thinking about eliminating that bank account from my budgeting plan. I think maybe it was misleading because I felt like I had more money than I do.

I know that budgeting needs to be a big focus of mine right now. I need to get back on the track that I was on and I can’t just believe that somehow things will work out. That’s how I got into the financial situation that I’m in right now. I was trying to believe that everything would be ok and that I didn’t have to worry about it. I was wrong. I should have worried and I regret not worrying back then. But now I am so much smarter about how I need to be in control of my money and how I am spending it and hopefully I can fix this problem quickly before it takes away the hard work that I have been doing for a while.

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Posted in Saving, Tough Stuff

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Reflecting Back On 2017 (Kind Of Reaching My Goals)

Posted on December 29, 2017 | Comments Off on Reflecting Back On 2017 (Kind Of Reaching My Goals)

I can’t believe this is my last blog post of 2017! It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that I was writing my goals for the year. This year definitely wasn’t what I expected it to be, but that was mostly for the best. But because of things not being the way I thought they would, some of my goals didn’t end up happening the way I thought. For some goals I totally surpassed what I expected and for others they didn’t happen. But even with the non-successes (I don’t consider them failures), I learned a lot.

My first goal I had for 2017 was 181 workouts. When I set that goal, I expected to be out for a little while when I had surgery so I thought it might be a bit of a stretch. I tried to make up for the time I thought I would be missing by doing more weeks of 4 workouts a week. That ended up being my new normal which was pretty exciting. And then I didn’t have surgery so I didn’t have to take the time away that I thought I would. But that didn’t slow me down and as long as the last few days this month go as planned I will be ending the year with 196 workouts!

I was pretty shocked when I looked at my total and saw how far over my goal I had gone. I knew I was going to be doing more than I thought, but I didn’t think I’d be 15 workouts ahead of my goal. That’s pretty amazing and even if every workout wasn’t the best one, consistency is so important and I think I’ve proved to myself that I have that.

My next goal I had for the year was to get through my liver surgery as easily as possible. I’ve got a history of having an easy time with surgeries, but this was going to be the first time I would have to stay overnight at the hospital and it was a much more extreme surgery than any I’ve had before. Well, as you all probably know from all of my posts about it, I didn’t have surgery. So technically there was no way for me to accomplish this goal. But I reframed it in my mind to be more about getting through this entire situation about my liver with less stress. And I think I did accomplish that. I think that I will always be a little nervous before going in for an MRI because I don’t want the tumors to grow, but beyond that time I really don’t think about my tumors that much at all. I do think about them once a day when I do visualization, but after that I try to not focus on it.

Next was to work on my recovery and hopefully reduce my binge episodes. I’m torn on how I did on this goal. I think that I have made some big strides in my recovery and there was some time where my binges were the most infrequent they have ever been, but that didn’t last. I don’t know what I need to do to keep that momentum, but my awareness is higher than ever and I consider that a win. I think this past year I’ve also become more aware of how long this recovery journey may take and that even if it doesn’t feel like I’m taking steps forward I am. I wish that some of my progress was more obvious and the results could be seen, but I think I’ll just have to wait a bit on that. But it’s a good thing that there isn’t a deadline to be recovered.

Next was a money related goal. I wanted to reduce my debt to be at a number that I had in my head. That reduction would have been about 25% of the debt I have and would have been amazing. I didn’t quite make it to that number, but I did get my debt down about 19% which is better than I have done before. This is also after getting a major reduction in my hours at one of my jobs. I went from 12-15 hours a week to 4 which cut my income down a lot. So to be able to reduce my debt that much and re-budget my life with the reduced money coming in is a big step. I wish I could have done more, but I also know that the circumstances weren’t easy and to reduce the debt at all took a lot of work.

I also set a goal to have a new PR in my 5K race. That worked out pretty well for me since I had a new PR at the one 5K I did this year. I had that PR on the course with the hills which usually slows me down. But because I had my running intervals longer that made up for any decrease in speed I had on my hills. To PR is awesome and I’m so happy that I was able to do that. But I was sad that I only had 1 race this year and that I didn’t have another chance to try to improve on that PR. Next year will be weird because neither of the 5Ks I usually do will be happening, but at least I know that I hit my 2017 goal for my races!

And my final goal for this year was to have more fun. I think I totally succeeded in this! I had so many Disney and Universal adventures with friends. I went to a lot of fun parties and just tried to have a lot of fun with the random things of life. And even though dating can be crazy and stressful at times, I’ve been having fun with that too. It does help that I’ve been turning all the bad stories into stories for my book so whenever I have a bad date I think about how funny it will be when someone else reads it. I haven’t gotten serious about anyone yet, but to have fun with dating is something that hasn’t really been in my past before and I’m glad that’s kind of my experience now.

Overall, I think I had more wins than non-successes with my goals. I might not have achieved everything I wanted, but that’s not really what goals are about. If they were all easy to reach then I didn’t set them high enough. I need to be striving for things and not reaching my goals does motivate me to do better. Look at my workouts as an example. I missed my goal in 2016 but far surpassed it in 2017. Missing that goal last year motivated me to do even better this year.

My next few posts will all be about what I’ve got in mind for 2018. I’ve got some big goals again that I’m thinking about and I’m excited to share them next week. But for now, I guess that’s a wrap on posts for 2017! It was a great year for me and I’m so grateful for you all following me on my journey! Have an awesome NYE (and please don’t drink and drive!) and hopefully we all have an incredible start to 2018!

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Default ThumbnailRecapping My 2016 (or Almost Doing All That I Wanted To) Default ThumbnailMy 2018 Goals (or Pushing Myself And Being Gentle With Myself) Default ThumbnailMy 2017 Goals (or I Know This Year Will Be Amazing!) Default ThumbnailReflecting Back On 2014 (or How I Did With My Goals) Default ThumbnailReaching New Goals (or Time To Go All Out) Default ThumbnailAn Almost End Of The Year Review (or Looking Back At My Goals)

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Posted in Celebrations, Dating, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Saving

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Working On Money (or A Prosperous Heart Update)

Posted on August 17, 2017 | Comments Off on Working On Money (or A Prosperous Heart Update)

I wrote before about how the podcast I work for was going to do the 12 week journey in “The Prosperous Heart”. We just got to the end of the 12 weeks and I figured it was time to do an update.

I’ll admit that I did not follow the 12 weeks as strictly as I did with “The Artist’s Way”. The main thing I did do was the morning pages. I struggled with the morning pages when I did “The Artist’s Way” and I really didn’t enjoy them. They became something that annoyed me at the end of that journey and I really was not enjoying having my mornings start off on such a negative note. So I decided that for me, doing the morning pages wasn’t going to benefit me the way that it should so I didn’t do them.

I know that some people will argue that I didn’t really do the 12 week journey this time if I left out doing the morning pages, but that’s ok with me. I have to do what is right for me and I would rather try to do the journey the best that I can instead of not doing it at all. I did do the weekly reading and the questions at the end of the chapters, so I feel like I did a majority of the journey.

The biggest thing about this 12 week journey is to track every single penny that you spend. Since I already do that with YNAB, I figured it would be pretty easy for me to keep doing it. And fortunately it was pretty easy for me. The only annoying this was with credit card spending. I track it in YNAB and it was a bit weird to have to track it in a second location as well (for “The Prosperous Heart”, I tracked everything in a little notebook). I didn’t like having to do everything twice, but it was a minor issue.

But while I track all my credit card spending, tracking cash was a new thing for me. I was looking forward to seeing how being extra aware of my cash spending would help me out. And for the most part, I got much better about being more cautious on what I was buying. There were a few times I forgot to track my cash spending (mainly laundry money or parking meters), but I would say I tracked all but maybe 10 times I used cash. It’s not perfect, but I’m pretty happy with being close to perfect.

I think that many people in our group weren’t as into this 12 week journey as they were with the other one. Some of us felt like the book didn’t speak to us the same way. Some people felt that the chapters were repetitive and a bit disconnected. It was not easy for us to admit that we didn’t enjoy this journey as much as the other one since we all felt so great after finishing “The Artist’s Way”. But it’s important to admit to yourself when you don’t feel like you are getting what you want out of a book/class/lecture.

We tried to encourage each other to stay on top of the weekly chapters and the lessons, but this time the group online wasn’t as active and sometimes it felt like we were each on our own journeys instead of doing it as a group. It’s not bad to do it alone, but it was different. And I don’t know if I preferred the group version or being a bit more on my own. Each journey was so different because of what was in it, so it’s not easy to compare them to each other.

Now that this is done, I’m going to keep some of the lessons and challenges going but I’m not going to keep all of them. I might continue to track cash spending, but I think just having the extra awareness I have now will be helping me so much. And for credit card spending, I already track that and I have noticed that I haven’t been charging as much stuff as I did before. So it’s nice to know that I did learn something and that I’m not spending as much as I did before. I’m not saving as much as I’d like, but it’s baby steps toward that.

Overall, I’m glad that I took this journey. Even if I didn’t do everything that was supposed to be done, I feel like I have made a change and I’ve learned new things about myself. I’m hoping that I can continue to spend less and focus less on things that cost money and look for things that are free that I like to do. I know that I need to get my credit card debt paid off and I really want to get it done soon. I just need to buckle down and work harder toward that. And hopefully the lessons I learned from “The Prosperous Heart” will help me over the next weeks and months to accomplish that.

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Work Begets Work (Old Bosses Possible New Jobs)

Posted on July 21, 2017 | 1 comment

Work has been pretty busy for me lately. Busy can be good sometimes though. For my research job, I just finished working on the big database update we do each year and doing that job means I get to make more money (it’s on a different contract than my main job). And extra money does always help out with things. My main box office job is the same as always, although we are getting back into the busy season again so things have been a bit crazier. And I’m still doing my occasional in person box office job and might be working a few shifts this fall.

I’m in a pretty stable place with my day jobs right now and that’s something that has been hard to get to. But of course, nothing ever stays stable with work but this time it seems like the change might be all positive.

With my research position, there is a chance there will be a job opening that I would be right for. It would be a full-time position so I’m assuming I’d be making more money. It would still be a remote position so I could work from home. And depending on what the pay would be like, there is the potential that it could be the only main day job I would need. I don’t plan on quitting my main box office job any time soon (I wouldn’t do that until I have paid my credit card off completely), but it would be nice to have the potential to only have one main day job.

I don’t know when this job would become available or if I would get it. But it is nice to know that my boss knows that I am always looking for better opportunities for myself and thought of me. But even if I don’t get that new position, I’m very happy in the job I have now and the flexibility I have with it. It’s a luxury that I appreciate so much.

And there are more potential changes with other work. My occasional box office job is a job I got through my old boss at my telesales job (that’s the job I was working when I started this blog). I rarely see him since I work the job when he can’t be at the venue for the shows, but we still stay in touch pretty often. And he let me know about a job possibility that is actually at the old company I used to work for.

This job would be a temporary telesales position for the next month or so. I would be able to work from home and it would pay only commission (no hourly pay). But the commission would be much higher than any job I’ve had and the potential is there to make a pretty decent amount of money in a short period of time. I do miss commission jobs a bit since it was always nice to have a paycheck that was double or triple what I had the paycheck before. It always felt like a nice present!

My old/current boss is passing my information on to the people who are running this telesales campaign and they are supposed to get in touch with me soon. But from what I understand, it’s looking very likely that they will hire me to work this gig because they remember how much I was able to raise when I worked the old telesales job.

It’s good that this job would be temporary because if I do it I’ll be getting close to working 80 hours a week. That’s a lot, but since most of my jobs can overlap it’s not really 80 hours a week. But I don’t think I could maintain that sort of schedule, pace, or balance for more than a month or two. So hopefully I can make a lot of sales in that job and then when it’s done I’ll be able to relax and know that I made a nice amount of money.

If I do get that telesales job, I would love to put all the money I make from it toward my credit card. If I could cut my credit card debt in half, that would be incredible and I would be so happy! And there is a chance that this job would actually allow me to do that! I know that I’m not just working as hard as I do right now to pay off debt, but to have that weight off my shoulders would be so nice and is a goal that I’ve been working toward for a very long time.

As of right now, both of these new work possibilities are only maybes. Hopefully in the next week or month I’ll have a better idea of what might be coming up. But I have to say that I’m feeling really optimistic about work stuff right now and it’s been a while since I’ve felt that way. It’s nice and I’m really feeling like things are turning around for me in this aspect of my life. It gives me hope that more things will change for the better for me soon.

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Another Monthly Challenge Down (or The Prosperous Heart)

Posted on June 1, 2017 | 2 comments

A new month brings the end to one monthly challenge and the start to a new one! I’ll admit that last month’s challenge was much more challenging than I thought it would be, but I’m glad that I got through it.

I originally wanted to do the plank challenge to help connect myself to my body again. It’s been weird feeling so disconnected and I had high hopes that this would help bring things back to normal. And this challenge didn’t do that at all. Sometimes, it almost made things worse because I was comparing myself to how I could do planks 10 years ago and the lack of core strength that I have now.

But even with this challenge not doing that, I finally do feel more connected to my body again. It had nothing to do with the challenge, but through just getting back to life I feel more like me again. I think I needed this challenge to force me to work on connecting with my body again, it just wasn’t the thing that did it. But having something push me to work on it was good. I might try another one of the fitness challenges in the app, but I’m not as concerned about doing them as I was before. But I’m glad that I tried and that I made it through.

And for this month’s challenge, I’m actually going to do something that I started earlier this week. The membership of the Inside Acting Podcast has done some fun book club type things this year. At the beginning of the year we did the 12 week process of “The Artist’s Way”. I’m glad that I did it with the support of the membership because I’ve never been able to complete the entire 12 week journey before on my own. I didn’t love the entire process, but I learned a lot and I’m seeing changes in my life because of it.

And this past Sunday, we started our next book within the podcast membership. This time, we are doing another book by Julia Cameron, “The Prosperous Heart”.

There are a lot of the same concepts in both books, including the Morning Pages. I didn’t enjoy the Morning Pages before and I’m not going to stress myself out doing them this time. But this book is much more focused on money and financial things.

I’ve been tracking my budget for a while now using YNAB. Using a budgeting app has been really great for me. Even though I’m still struggling a bit financially, I feel much more in control of things and understand how to pay down my credit card debt now without feeling overwhelmed.

Part of this book is to track every single expense you have. This will be pretty simple for me since I’m already doing it, but I’m going more detailed now and that’s what my monthly challenge will be. I’m not only going to track what I do bank transfers for or when I use my credit card. I’m going to track every single penny that is spent.

A lot of times, I’ll get cash at the beginning of the week and plan on using that for random things. But before I know it the cash is gone and I don’t know where I spent it. Or I don’t know where all the quarters I got for laundry went when it seems like I just went to the bank to get a roll. Some people don’t spend as much when they use cash, but for me using cash has become mindless since I don’t track it in YNAB. I need to stop this because I want to track my money better. And using this as my monthly challenge is a great way for me to get into this habit.

More often than not, my monthly challenges become something I do all the time. So if I take this month to work on tracking my money better, I have a feeling that I will be able to continue to do this and hopefully it will only help me in my money management skills. I know that I’ve been doing a lot of great work with money, especially in the past year or so, but I need to do more and this might be the perfect thing for me to do.

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Default ThumbnailA New/Old Challenge (or Using An Idea From Therapy This Month) Default ThumbnailStruggling To Figure Out A Monthly Challenge (or Finding Myself Again) Default ThumbnailMonthly Challenge Update Time (or One More For 2017) Default ThumbnailAnother Monthly Challenge Down (or July and August Challenges) Default ThumbnailNot Sure How I Did With My Last Monthly Challenge (or Another Attempt At NaNoWriMo) Default ThumbnailWorking On Money (or A Prosperous Heart Update)

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It’s Taxes Time (or Seeing My Hard Work Pay Off)

Posted on March 7, 2017 | 1 comment

I don’t think that anyone is excited to do their taxes and owe money. Because of my jobs, I know I will owe money each year. None of my jobs take my taxes out for me, and even though I do my estimated payments like I need to they are usually not enough to cover what I owe. I know this is the situation I’m in so I am as prepared as possible for tax time. I save all my work related receipts (and there are a ton of them) and I save money out of every paycheck to use at tax time. But even with that, I’m always nervous that the news is going to be bad when I get my taxes done.

I went to Daphne at Chuck Sloan and Associates again and I’m so glad I did! First of all, everyone at Chuck Sloan understands actor and creative type taxes and the unique situations we are all in. They aren’t scared by dozens of jobs and the forms and all the weird deductions we need to do. And they understand how stressful tax time can be for us all. But I’m so happy that I have Daphne doing my taxes because she’s extra awesome! We bonded the last time she did my taxes over Disneyland and since I was going to Disneyland after doing my taxes with her I knew we’d talk about that.

Last year, Daphne showed me the worst case scenario with my taxes before she put in all my deductions so that I would feel better about how much I had saved up. I had asked her to do that for me again and once again it was less than what I had saved for my taxes. That’s always a huge relief because I know that no matter what I will have enough money to pay what I owe. But since now I’m feeling more comfortable with that, it was all about how well I tracked my work spending and tracked my deductions.

I like to think that I’m a pretty organized person and that I did a good job tracking expenses in 2016. Since I had my taxes done by Daphne once already, I knew what I should be aware of and what can be deducted. There are so many accountants that let you deduct things that aren’t totally on the up and up, so I’m glad Daphne is very careful in her work and tells me when things look weird (like how I accidentally tracked buying my new computer twice). I’m sure that there is more that I can deduct, but I’m still learning how to do the best that I can.

And even though I thought I had done all my tracking without missing things, there were a few things that I totally forgot about and I’m so glad we went over any other expenses I might have had in the year. I forgot that I got a new phone (which I do have to use for acting and my research job) and for some reason I never tracked the money that I spent to produce “Single Parent Date Night”. This is another reason I love having Daphne do my taxes. She knew to ask about these sort of things just in case I didn’t remember to track them on my paperwork (I’m sure anyone at Chuck Sloan would do the same since they know to look for these things).

In the end, I owed less than half of what I had saved for my taxes. This is so much better than I ever could have imagined! The money left over is going to be saved for another trip to New York that my sister-in-law and I are hoping to take next year. I still have more time to save more money, but I think what I have left over from my taxes savings should be able to cover pretty much the entire trip! I was only hoping that I would have about half of what I needed for that trip leftover so having this much is a big surprise to me and it making me relax a bit about how I will be able to afford that trip.

I’ve already written my checks to the IRS and sent them off so I’m now totally done with doing my 2016 taxes. It’s nice to get them done early enough so there isn’t a huge rush to do them at the last minute. And I’ve already started planning on what I can do this year to make the taxes easier next year. I will be paying more in estimated taxes, so that will help how much I owe. But I also now will be tracking my expenses even better because I learned where I was slacking last year that caused me to miss out on some potential deductions.

While it was nice in the past to be very uninvolved in my taxes, that’s not a luxury I can afford anymore. I know that with my current jobs that I will always owe money at the end of the year and I like being able to sit down with Daphne and go over everything so I understand why I owe what I do. I can see what deductions took off what and where I could have done better. I guess being more involved with all of this is just something that is required when you want to be more responsible and acting more like an adult.

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