Tag Archives: money

Going Back To An Old Habit (or Finding Control With Budgeting)

Posted on March 22, 2019 | 1 comment

A while ago, I started working hard on budgeting. I had tried so many different budgeting apps and sites over the years and I never felt like they worked for me. I always knew how important it was to budget, but I just couldn’t do it. This changed when I started using YNAB and I figured out how to use it (the first time I used it I was making mistakes that made it difficult for me to understand things).

For a long time, I was using YNAB religiously. I was able to properly budget for the first time in my life and I was so aware of my financial situation. This was so much more than I ever thought I could have and I was so happy. While my money situation isn’t the best, I felt better knowing exactly what it was. There were no surprises about where I would find the money to pay for certain things and I was using my credit card mindfully. While I wasn’t perfect, I knew I wasn’t perfect and I felt better about any mistakes I might have had.

Toward the end of last year, my financial situation got into a really bad place. There was one month I didn’t have money to pay my rent. I am so grateful that my parents were able to help me out, but it was still a very embarrassing time for me and I am ashamed that I had to do it. And when this was all happening, I stopped budgeting.

There was no point in me budgeting when it was just going to show that I was over-budgeted every month. I hated seeing all the red numbers on the budget knowing that I wasn’t really able to change it. I wasn’t budgeting categories like food or fun things. My bills and rent were making me in the red. While I loved having control, this was making me feel more out of control and I was starting to panic. So for my mental health, I had to stop budgeting for a bit.

I’m in a slightly better spot now with money. This is a temporary fix because my contract with my old job is only for a few more months. But the fact that this contract is temporary is the exact reason why I need to get back to my old habit of budgeting.

There is the possibility that the money I make in these few months could cover me for a good portion of the year. The only way to make that happen is to budget and to make sure that I am using my money properly. So I need to get back to doing just that and being just as serious as I was before.

Because I took a break from budgeting, I will have to start things over. It will be too complicated for me to go back to my old budget and update things since I would have to find a way to zero things out. And I can use this opportunity to reevaluate what categories I have for my budget and where I want to make sure my money is going or saved for. Plus, I think starting over will eliminate the potential panic I could feel if I tried to go back to the old budget that caused me some mental distress.

I’m trying to get this set up quickly, but I’m also trying to not rush through it. I want to take my time with getting everything the way I want it to be and to make sure I’m not missing anything. I want to have things as clear as I can for me so that I can see the full financial picture that I currently have and will have. And I also want to take the time to review the best practices for using YNAB so I don’t make any silly mistakes or worry about how to do something.

My goal is to have this up and running by next week for sure. I’ve been trying to get the budget part set up for the past day and I keep looking at it to make sure that it’s how I want it to look. There are adjustments that I’ve been making to make sure I don’t forget anything that I will need. I also have been trying to simplify things since I think that having too many categories can be an issue too.

It’s nice to be getting back on track with my money and budgeting. I can’t control that many things in my life, but this does bring me a small sense of control over what really is a bit of an out of control situation. And maybe I’ll be able to prevent the issues that I had at the end of last year by being more aware about things. I know that there were things that I probably did wrong that made my money situation worse than it needed to be.

Ideally, I will find a new job this year (yes, I’m still searching and applying for jobs almost every day) and that will help my financial situation to get to a place where I don’t have to worry about money as much. But having more money doesn’t mean I won’t budget things. I will just be able to budget for things that are more fun than bills and paying off my credit card. I would love to save for a trip or buying some things I want to have. And ultimately I’d like to find a way to start budgeting for buying a condo one day.

But for now, I just want to get back into a habit of budgeting so that when I’m ready to budget for fun things I already have the skills I need to do that.

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It’s Tax Time (or Seeing My Tracking And Organizing Pay Off)

Posted on March 6, 2019 | Comments Off on It’s Tax Time (or Seeing My Tracking And Organizing Pay Off)

I don’t think anybody looks forward to doing their taxes. It can be scary and overwhelming and a lot of the time you have no clue if you are going to owe money or get money back. I think this year is even crazier because there are so many new laws that affect taxes and people have no idea how it will affect things for them. The stories I have been seeing online all talk about how tax refunds are much lower than they usually are or people who normally get money back are owing for the first time.

I know that my situation is a bit different from many others. First, all of my income is 1099 or independent contractor work. I don’t have any taxes taken out of my paychecks and I have to make sure I save money. I also pay estimated taxes 4 times a year to cover what is assumed to be my tax bill for the year. I have only been doing this for a few years, but I am very careful about this and make sure I stay on top of it all. And it has been working out well for me the past few years. If I owe money, it’s less than what I saved up to cover my taxes. And last year, I actually got money back!

I had a pretty good feeling that I would be getting a little money back this time. My estimated taxes were based on the money that I made in 2017, and I made less money in 2018. So my estimated payments actually had me overpaying my taxes. I also knew my health insurance is always a weird thing with my subsidy not being the correct amount. I felt pretty certain that I was paying more than I should for it, but I wasn’t totally sure because again there are so many new rules this time.

Before I had my appointment to get my taxes done, I got a call regarding my appointment. The person who does my taxes had an appointment come up the afternoon I was going to come in and I was given 2 options. First, I could pick another date and I would still be charged the February rate (which is the cheapest rate). Or, I could email in the worksheets we do before the appointment so a majority of the information would be already in the system before I arrived. I picked emailing in my worksheet since I already had done all the work. My appointment was only going to be 30 minutes short (usually they are 90 minutes) and I knew getting all of that information already in the system would easily cut the appointment down by 30 minutes or more.

There was still some work that we had to work on together when I went in for my appointment. There were a few things I wasn’t totally sure I did right and there were a few sections that needed a bit more information. I brought everything in with me and I had everything we needed, I just didn’t do it ahead of time since usually it’s all done at the appointment.

And while everything was getting figured out, I did learn that the new tax rules weren’t going to affect me like they affect a majority of people who get their taxes done. Since I am a sole proprietor/independent contractor, I can still write off my business expenses. If you are an employee, the costs of doing business cannot be deducted (for example, teachers can no longer write off buying supplies as a deduction). But for me, all of my expenses can still be written off like they have in the past. That’s a good thing since I have to pay a decent amount of money in cyber security insurance (required by my job since I take credit card information and put it into our secure online server) and I pay for things like a separate phone line just for work. I didn’t have as many deductions as I have had in the past, but it was still a lot of them.

Every year that I get my taxes done, I learn new things about how to organize and track things. I finally have it down to a system that I am extremely happy with and it made me doing my worksheet much easier this year compared to before. And I know that my tax preparer appreciates all the work I do and knows that I have everything ready for her if she needs to see it. She also mentioned she only allowed me to email in my worksheet ahead of time and have a reduced appointment time because she knew how on top of things and organized I am.

While it’s nice to have my organization appreciated by my tax preparer, it’s even better to see that work pay off. And as I expected, I am getting money back this year! And it’s actually a lot more money than I was expecting. A good chunk of that money is from overpaying for healthcare and that’s only because I tracked my business deductions so well. My taxable income gets reduced by those expenses and my financial responsibility for my insurance is based on taxable income and not the full income I have. That is a difference between being an employee and an independent contractor and I didn’t know that. I assumed it was based on my pre-tax income and that’s why I had my income set the way I did last year. I don’t know if I’ll adjust it for this year since I’d rather overpay and have that money go toward anything I owe in taxes than to underpay and owe a lot of money.

I was so relieved to see that the work I put into tracking and organizing was worth it. It does take time to file everything properly so I have it ready at tax time, but the money I got back easily paid for the time I took to do that. And it will be nice to get a refund this year. I really need the money and a lot of it will be going toward bills. I will also use it to pay off my Disneyland pass since I had to set it to be monthly payments this time. I’d rather just have it paid and not have to have it taken out of my credit card each month. I don’t know if I’ll use it for anything else fun since I should be responsible and put it toward bills, but I’ll see how things go.

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Feeling A Bit More Luck (or Hopefully This Was Just A Bad Phase)

Posted on January 24, 2019 | Comments Off on Feeling A Bit More Luck (or Hopefully This Was Just A Bad Phase)

I’m aware that several of my posts lately have been a negative lately. I hate when they are like that, but I also believe in being real and honest on here. When I’m going through a tough time, I don’t want to lie and pretend that everything is great. I know that people do that on social media by only showing the best parts of themselves and that can actually make other people worse. If you are only seeing amazing things from other people and you are struggling, you can feel alone. I know that feeling and I don’t want anyone to ever feel that way because of something I’ve posted.

A lot of my negativity has been around my job situation. It’s horrible when you feel like things are finally going your way and then the rug gets pulled out from you. And I’m aware that I was not setting myself up for this possibility and was not in a good financial place to lose about half of my income. I don’t know if anyone is really ready for that, but I do know that most people at least try to have  an emergency fund to tide them over. I didn’t have that since any extra money I have goes to my credit card.

While I have been offered a new temporary job, it hasn’t started just yet. Originally it was supposed to start at the beginning of the week, but it’s been a bit delayed. I’m trying to not think anything horrible like the contract has been canceled because I have seen my contract (it’s just not the version to sign, it only has the terms on it), but it’s hard not to slip back into that mindset. But I know that soon enough I will have everything ready so I can start that job and I will be making the money that I need to cover my bills.

I haven’t slowed down on my job hunting because I know that job is only for a few months, but it’s been tough finding legitimate jobs that are what they claim to be. There was one job to be a virtual assistant for a company that I was referred to by a friend. It seemed like the perfect job for me and my phone interview ended up being over an hour because the owner and I really connected and enjoyed talking to each other. When I didn’t get that job, I was a bit sad because it seemed so perfect for me. But I knew that it must not have been meant for me.

But I did hear back from the owner saying that she wanted me to reach out to her again to discuss things. She told me that she did hire someone else for that job who had a bit more experience with the specific things she needs, but she enjoyed talking to me as much as I enjoyed talking to her. And while she doesn’t have a job for me right now, she wants to hire me for something in the future. It may just be temporary jobs or a few hours here and there, but I would be so grateful for anything I could get!

Obviously, I would have been so happy to get the job I interviewed for and that would have been incredible. But to know that I impressed the owner enough in my interview that she wants to find a way to work with me really gave me a confidence boost that I needed. I was feeling so down after encountering so many scam job posts and it was hard not to feel hopeless. And when I didn’t get this job that feeling was coming back. But knowing that she does see a future where we could work together gave me that hope back and we have a plan to check in with each other soon when she thinks she may have work for me.

I know I can’t rely on temporary or unreliable jobs, but anything I can get right now helps. I still have to work on job hunting until I have another job that has some stability, but there is a chance that one of the temporary jobs will become that job. I want to leave myself open to that possibility but also to make sure that I don’t get myself into the same situation that I’m in right now again.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Work

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An Almost End Of The Year Review (or Looking Back At My Goals)

Posted on December 28, 2018 | 1 comment

I know there are still a few more days left in the year, but I wanted to get my end of the year recap done before the new year started. I feel like it’s a nice transition to have a clean break from year to year and I didn’t necessarily want to spend the beginning of the new year going through the past. So I figured with a few days left I would have a good idea on where I would stand with my goals by the end of the year.

My first goal I had this year was to do 199 Orangetheory workouts. That one I accomplished and I’ll finish out the year with a few more! I should be at 206 workouts by the last day of the year unless something happens that prevents me from going to one of my planned workouts. But even if I didn’t go for those classes, I will still be ahead of the goal! I did 4 workouts a week almost every week which made it easy to make it to over 199. I thought I’d have more 3 workout weeks over the year but I didn’t have that many. I tried to look back at my schedule and I don’t think I had any 5 workout weeks (I could be wrong) which is what I thought I’d need to do a few times to make sure I made it to my goal. I’m so glad that this goal ended up being relatively easy to accomplish since it seemed like one that would be tough for me.

And I’m lucky that first goal was easy for me to accomplish because it ended up being the only goal I really did accomplish that I had set for myself. I don’t want to make excuses for myself, but for some of these goals I didn’t meet there is a reason. But I still need to hold myself accountable for why I didn’t do what I was hoping to do.

The next 2 goals I had are somewhat related. I wanted to find a 5K race to do and I wanted to get a new PR on my mile time. Neither of those happened and if I’m being totally honest I really don’t care too much that they didn’t happen. Doing 5K races was a big part of my life for a long time, but that was also a while ago. I didn’t have Orangetheory when I did a bunch of races every year and I think having a regular workout has made me not feel as motivated to find races. I had a few races that I kept doing, but once they stopped having races each year I didn’t try to find a replacement. And with wanting to get a new mile PR time, I really thought I’d be able to do much more running this year than I have been able to do. This is due to multiple factors like getting sick, my hormonal nausea, and other things that have prevented me from using the treadmill as much as I wanted to do. Getting a new mile PR used to be so important to me and a sign of my progress, but I’ve had to learn new ways to measure my progress and the mile time has lost some of the importance it used to have.

The next goal I failed on is one that I feel like I have the most excuses for. I had a number in my head that I wanted to get my debt below. I was making real progress toward this for the first part of the year and I was so excited about it. But then I didn’t have as many hours with one of my jobs as I thought I would have and then that job wasn’t able to offer me a new contract like we expected. Being down one job meant that I didn’t have the money to put toward paying my credit card that I used to and I had to start using my credit card for more things than I would have liked to. Losing a job and using my credit card to pay for regular expenses is how I got into debt. I’m trying to stop this before it gets as bad as it did before (and I’ll have more on that in my 2019 goals), but it did increase how much I owed on the card. It’s unfortunate, but it’s my reality. I wasn’t expecting to lose a job and I don’t make enough money right now to really have savings to cover a job loss. I know this is bad and I want to fix this, but for now I have to just focus on finding a new job so I can get back to paying down my debt.

And my last goal I had for 2018 was to keep doing what I’ve been doing with my eating disorder recovery. While I wouldn’t say I necessarily failed at accomplishing this, but it didn’t go the way I planned it would. I did keep doing what I was doing and I’ve found new things that do work for me and I’ve dropped things that I found weren’t working for me anymore. I had the hope that I would feel like I made more progress by this point, but I also know that recovery is a weird journey and it’s not always easy to judge progress.

Even though I really only accomplished one of my goals I set for the year, I don’t see that necessarily as a bad thing. Instead, I feel like I had a minor failure to plan with my goals which is a newer issue for me. I think I need to allow myself to alter and change my goals throughout the year. If I had that as the plan, I would have switched out my running related goals before the year was half over to something else that was fitness related. Maybe I would have had a goal to be able to use a certain weight for an exercise or I would have changed it to a goal on the rower or bike. But I felt like my goals were set for the year and I didn’t want to alter them. That is something I will be changing as well as adding to my monthly challenge planning reminder to look back at my goals for the year to see what steps I need to make and if there are any changes that should happen.

It’s so funny to think about how happy I am to have goals I failed at because it has given me a lot of insight into myself and how I can make the next year even better. And I’ve got some interesting goals in mind for 2019 that I’ll be sharing next week that have been inspired by me not reaching my goals. Sometimes you need a setback to help you think clearly and I think that’s exactly what I had this year.

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Asking For Help Again (or Trying Not To Feel Desperate)

Posted on December 19, 2018 | 2 comments

Job hunting has been a part of my life for a long time. Even when I had regular jobs, I’m always looking for other things I can do because it never hurts to make more money. I figure the more money I make, the quicker I can pay off my credit card. This has been my game plan for a long time because I want to have no debt in my life, but it just hasn’t been my reality yet. For a while, I was doing pretty well at making dents into what I owe, even if I wasn’t going at the pace I wanted to. But it was amazing to see the total owed go down and I felt hopeful that I would reach my goal eventually.

But lately, that’s not what has been happening. I’m down to one day job right now, and that job doesn’t pay enough for me to live off of it. It basically pays enough to cover my rent and maybe one of my cheapest utility bills. I’ve been looking for a new job for a while and looking for a job is almost like a full time job for me. When I started job hunting, I mainly focused on remote positions that I could do around my current job schedule. That worked out really well with my last job and it would be amazing to find something like that again. Then I started looking at remote jobs that would be replacing my current job. Even though I enjoy my current job and it’s easy, I can’t keep it if there is something else out there for me that can pay me enough. And now I’m just applying for anything and everything I’m right for.

On average, I’m guessing I’m applying for 50-60 jobs a day. It’s a lot and it’s a bit ridiculous, but I have to do whatever it takes to find another job. I hate feeling so hopeless and stressed, but I honestly don’t know what else to do. I know I am very lucky and privileged that if it comes down to it, my parents can help me out a bit. But I don’t want to ask for their help. They already do so much for me and it’s so embarrassing that I can’t be an adult and take care of my financial stuff myself. I hate feeling dependent on someone else and even though I’m grateful to have them there if I need it, I don’t want to have to ask. I’ve already spoken to my parents about my current situation and they know what’s going on, but I’ve also said over and over that I don’t want to have to ask for help from them. I am just trying to stay hopeful that something will come my way.

And like with the other job hunting type posts I’ve written on here, I’m asking you all for help. If any of you know of any jobs, can you please comment on here, use the contact form to reach me, or message me on social media? I’d love a remote job and that would allow me to work for companies anywhere in the world, but if they are non-remote jobs I’m looking for something in LA (preferably on the westside of LA but I can’t afford to be picky right now). I have found jobs through my friends so many times and I have a feeling that my next job will be through a referral again since that seems to be the most common way people are finding work these days.

And I’m looking at lots of random side jobs that I could do. I’ve gotten my availability back up for babysitting again on the apps I’m registered with since that can be really good money. I’ve looked into doing dog walking which is something I did years ago (I stopped because the company I worked for was being weird about paying their employees). I’ve looked into working for the scooter companies for charging scooters. And I’m signing up with different temp agencies because I know that maybe I’ll find something good that way.

I’m really doing whatever I can right now and it’s just hard when things aren’t happening for me. I have gotten some rejections from applications I’ve been doing online and at least that proves that someone is seeing what I’m sending out. And I have gotten some responses back regarding some of the jobs, but when I looked into them they appear to be more of a scam than a job (like having to pay to work for them or the point of the job is to get friends to sign up). As much as I want to believe I will find something soon, I know right now is a weird time to get a job with the holidays. I won’t stop applying for things because of that, but I’ve also had to be realistic and realize that I might not be able to find something until the new year.

All I can do is keep applying for everything I can, keep asking if anyone knows of any jobs, and hope for the best. I know eventually I will find something, but I really thought that eventually would have happened by now.

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Job Hunting (or You Never Know Unless You Ask)

Posted on October 19, 2018 | Comments Off on Job Hunting (or You Never Know Unless You Ask)

I’ve written about my job situation on here a few times. It’s been up and down over the years, but I have been lucky that for the past few years things have been relatively steady. I’ve had 2 main day jobs and even though one of them varied in the number of hours it was still something. But since one of my day jobs is a government contract job, it’s always been a bit of an unknown what each year would be like for me.

My contracts for that job are renewed each September and it was looking like this contract was actually going to be a much bigger contract than what we thought. I was so excited about that because money is always tight for me and I can use more money to pay off more debt. But then things changed and there was no new contract for me this September. This is not due to my work performance or even what my job wants. It literally is a government contract that is decided way above all of our heads. My boss felt horrible that there wasn’t a new contract right away, but she was hopeful there would be a new one soon.

I thought maybe there would be a month or two delay before the new contract was ready to go. And it’s still possible that I’ll be signing my new contract soon, but there’s no date estimate yet. It could still be a few more months or it could be tomorrow. But right now there is no way to know when it will happen until it happens.

I do expect that I will be working for that job again soon, but at the same time I need to figure out something else to help supplement my income right now. Even though I didn’t make a ton of money at the job during the past contract, it was money that paid my bills and I need it. I did just get a small raise at my other day job, but that only covers about 25% of what I was making at the contract job. So while I have been a bit lazy about job hunting (because I was hoping that I would be on a new contract soon), I can’t do that anymore. I need to find something that I can do that will cover what I’m not making right now.

I’ve had a lot of luck with finding jobs through people I know or people I previously worked for. My current box office job is through a friend who worked for the company. My contract job is through an old boss of mine. And my will call job (which is usually one day every other month or so) is also through an old boss of mine. Even the random temporary jobs I have had in the past few years have been from friends knowing I’m looking for work and knew of a job that fit what I can do.

So I’m putting it out here again. I need another part-time job. Ideally it would be a remote position so I could work from home like I already do and that I could do it between my customers at my box office job. I have a lot of downtime and would prefer to use it productively instead of watching lots of random things online or searching different Internet forums. I know that I’m asking for something very specific, but I know what type of work would work best in my current situation. And hopefully there would be something that fits that and is looking to hire.

It would be amazing if someone reading this knows of a job that I could apply for. I am always so grateful for people who are willing and able to help me out or consider me for jobs they know about. It’s not easy finding a job, especially a job that is flexible enough for me to continue pursing acting. It’s a hustle to make it doing what I love, but it’s so worth it to me. I know that one day my hard work will pay off and I look forward to that day. But for now, I need to find another day job to help support me in pursing my dreams. And hopefully putting this out there will help me find that job and will be the next amazing story of all the day jobs I’ve had.

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Posted in Work

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Am I In A Rut? (or Not Sure What To Do About Work)

Posted on October 4, 2018 | Comments Off on Am I In A Rut? (or Not Sure What To Do About Work)

I’ve had several friends that have been in ruts lately. Sometimes they realize this on their own, and sometimes they have something dramatic happen in their lives and then they realize they can’t just keep doing things the same way anymore. Either way, I’m always so proud of my friends when they are able to make positive changes for themselves. They always seem so much happier and all I want for my friends is for them to be happy.

I’ve been in a couple of ruts in the past before. Sometimes it’s a rut with my day job and sometimes it’s a rut with my fitness or health. It’s not easy to change things up, but when I do I always feel so much better and I feel like the change was necessary. These ruts have led me to some new and fun things and I’ve never really had any regrets. I just see these changes as positive moves in my life and even if they don’t work for me I am glad I just tried to see if they would.

I don’t necessarily feel like I’m in a rut right now, but because I have so many friends going through them I’ve been questioning it. Things have been pretty stable and boring for me lately, but I like that. I have things in my life that are hectic or dramatic, so I like having other aspects of my life normal and routine. But I also know that sometimes when I feel this sense of comfort in my life that means I do need to make a change.

The main thing I have been debating about is my day job situation. I’m fine with my box office job right now. I would love if I got paid a bit more, but I should be getting a small raise around the new year. But my other day job hasn’t been able to tell me yet when they can bring me back. I haven’t worked for them since the end of September. I thought a month or two off wouldn’t be too bad since that job didn’t pay me that much. But even missing that little bit of income is affecting me and I know I need to figure out something.

I’m going to try to wait it out a bit more because I do want to keep working that job. It’s really an ideal situation because I can do it between the customers at my box office job and my boss knows me well so she doesn’t have to micromanage me. Plus, I actually enjoyed the work. It wasn’t that tough to find events to add to the calendar, but it was fun seeing what different things were happening around LA and different organizations that I might be interested in doing things with in the future.

I think waiting it out really is the right choice because I’m so unsure if I need to make a change. I don’t want to stress too much about when I will be working with them again, but I also know that eventually if they can’t add me to a new contract that I will need to find a new job. So I have casually looked at jobs online to see what is out there. It’s tough because I have requirements that aren’t always compatible with all jobs, but at least I’m not under a time crunch right now.

I think that this uncertainty with my job is just something that I feel from time to time. I have felt it with almost all jobs I’ve had as an adult. I wonder if I am doing what I should be doing or if I will be blindsided one day by losing my job. I want to be a step ahead so that if I do lose my job I am not at a disadvantage. I’ve been in jobs where I had no clue I was going to be let go and I hate that feeling. But I also know that this situation I’m in now isn’t that. As soon as my boss has a better idea of what will be happening she’ll let me know. It has nothing to do with me or my job performance. It’s just the downside of working a contract gig that depends on government funding.

I have said this a million times before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but just getting all that out has made me feel so much better. I needed to rant and typing it out has helped me get into a better mindset. This blog seriously is one of my best forms of therapy.

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Default ThumbnailAnother Rut In My Life (or Time For Some Shopping) Default ThumbnailGetting My Butt In Gear (or Missing Out On Fun Stuff To Work) Default ThumbnailWork Begets Work (Old Bosses Possible New Jobs) Default ThumbnailWork Work Work (or Another Very Part Time Job) Default ThumbnailWorking To Find Work (or Maybe My Last Work Related Post Did Get Read) Default ThumbnailReadjusting (or I Guess I Forgot What It Felt Like To Work My Work Schedule)

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Building Upon My Monthly Challenge (or Continuing To Work On Shopping)

Posted on October 2, 2018 | Comments Off on Building Upon My Monthly Challenge (or Continuing To Work On Shopping)

Last month, I said my monthly challenge was to not do any online shopping. I did allow myself some exceptions to the rule if necessary, and I’m happy to say that I only did that twice. Both times I shopped online this past month was on Amazon, but only one of those was for me. The first time was sending my friend some supplies they needed after getting home from inpatient treatment. I would have preferred to bring it in person, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do that soon enough. And the second time I did online shopping was for some household goods (batteries, paper goods, office supplies). And I did do price comparisons to make sure getting them online was the right choice.

Even though I didn’t completely eliminate online shopping, I feel like I did reduce it a lot. And it changed my shopping habits as well. For the stuff I ordered online for myself, I didn’t buy things right away when I needed them. None of the things I needed were urgent, so I just added them to my Amazon cart and saved them up until it was the end of the month. It was much more mindful than I have done online shopping before and I really did notice a difference in what I was considering buying when I knew that I wasn’t necessarily going to be getting it soon. While my shopping wasn’t out of control, I knew I needed to cut back and I’m happy that I was able to accomplish that in September.

I’m going to continue working on limiting my online shopping. I know it won’t be completely eliminated, but I can work on making sure that I’m not ordering things whenever I think of them. I think adding them to my cart and waiting a few weeks was the right choice. I do have other gifts for people I need to order online this month, but it’s really not the same as ordering for myself so I’m not as worried about it. And since they are gifts, I’m just getting that one thing and not seeing what else is something that can be bought.

And going off of that idea, I was inspired for this month’s challenge. I have become so much more mindful of my shopping online. Now I want to be more mindful of my in store shopping as well. And a majority of my in store shopping is for groceries and household things, so the easiest way I think I can be mindful is to always have a list.

I’m actually pretty good at making lists when I’m shopping for household things. I usually shop at CVS and I have been taking advantage of their coupons for a long time. But I have learned that I can combine the coupons you get when you shop along with coupons that various brands put out and with the overall discount coupons I get in the mail (like when you get 30% your shopping trip from CVS). I’m not a crazy coupon person, but it does make me happy when I see the percentage of savings on the bottom of the receipt and it is over 50%. It happens more often than not and it’s nice to know that things I am buying are cheaper than what others may be paying for them.

And I used to do grocery store lists and still occasionally do them. If I’m making something new or have food planned out, I make a list because I hate forgetting one thing that I really need. But I don’t always have a plan and do a lot of routine shopping. I know that I will eat certain things each week and I usually don’t even think about it as I pick up those things each week. But then I also know that there are plenty of times that I just get those things and don’t necessarily think about different meals or what my schedule will be like that will make my meals a bit weird.

I don’t necessarily want to make this about meal planning, although I do think that will be a bit of a side effect of doing this. But I do want to write down what I am going to buy even if it is just stuff I usually get each week. I want to think about what I’m going to do before getting into the store. I can’t guarantee that I will only get the things on the list because sometimes I see something that is new or inspires me. But at least it will give me a plan to try to follow.

In a perfect world, I will make the list for shopping for whatever I am getting before I leave my house. I do try to do that when I can, especially when I’m doing multiple errands back to back. I’ll make a list of each place I’m going to and what I will be getting at each store. I think writing it down really is the best for me because it does help me remember it. But if I’m out and going to do some shopping, I can just make a quick list on my phone. I do have some list apps, but it’s also easy enough to do it as a text or email to myself.

I’m also planning on using this for shopping for clothes and other goods too. When I need to go to a store to buy some new clothes or replace something, I also end up doing a lot of wandering around the store and seeing what else catches my attention. I’m doing much better not buying things that weren’t a part of the plan, but maybe making what I need to buy as a list will help me not waste the time wandering around. I still want to give myself the freedom to do window shopping and see what inspires me, but I want to also make those moments more mindful and for me to be aware that I am choosing to do that.

I’m so glad that I’m going to continue working on my shopping habits this month. I was pleasantly surprised by how last month went and how easy it ended up being. I only hope that this month goes the same way.

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No Shopping September (or At Least No Online Shopping)

Posted on September 4, 2018 | 1 comment

Another monthly challenge time! This feels almost late to write this post, but it’s only 4 days into the month so it’s not so bad. But this challenge is actually one I started before the month started, so it feels like I’ve been doing it a bit longer.

But first, a really quick recap on last month’s challenge. I don’t know what I was expecting to happen, but I really didn’t have to say no to things as often as I thought I might need to. I don’t know if my friends read the post and didn’t invite me out to things or it was just a slow month socially for everyone, but I never really felt guilty saying no because I never had to say no to anything significant. I didn’t make plans, but that’s different from turning down plans. But I did like allowing myself to have days at home watching tv or reading because I did need those.

And I plan on continuing to do the same from now on because I do feel in a better place mentally than I had before. Even after dealing with some setbacks, I bounced back from those faster than I expected and I think that’s because I did allow myself to be the priority. While I don’t like the idea of being selfish, I see the benefits of doing it and how it makes my time with other people better and more focused.

So this month’s challenge is something I started last week as soon as I thought of it. I am challenging myself to not do any online shopping for the month.

I am not as bad about online shopping as some people are, but it’s bad for me. I find it way too easy to order something online and not have to think about it. It’s not all about the instant gratification, although ordering something on Amazon and getting it a few hours later is pretty incredible. It’s also making me a bit lazy and allowing myself to not go out and do things because I can just order stuff online.

If I see something in an article or in social media, it’s so easy to click on the link and to see if it’s something I want and then to order it. I do try to not buy things too often, but even when I think about if I want something or not I still often get the thing. And I know I have spent money on things that I wanted and not that I needed. I do like to have nice things, but I also am not in a financial place where I should be thinking about what everyone else has. I need to focus on maybe being a bit more minimalistic and paring down on what I have. I have started doing that a bit with all the cleaning I’ve done lately, but I know I can do more.

If I do see something online that I really do think I want, I am going to work on using wish lists more often. This isn’t always an option for all online stores, but I know I don’t use it enough on Amazon. I will probably create a private wish list so I don’t have to worry about other people seeing what I have in there, but I should also work on adding things to my public one too since I can use that for anyone who is asking what I want for my birthday or Hanukkah.

And for online stores that don’t have wish lists, I can try to see how long you can keep something in your online cart before it is released. I don’t think most stores will be long enough, but I’m going to test some out to see if there are some I can use that way. And if I can’t, I can always email or text a link to myself to remember I was looking at it or add a bookmark for that website. There is almost nothing that I need to get right away and can’t wait for. And if I can wait, maybe I’ll realize I don’t need it or it will go on sale and if I need it I can spend less on it.

But there will be a few exceptions to this challenge. First, I’m not counting paying bills online or ordering refills of my prescriptions online. Online bill pay is not shopping so that’s not even one I considered to eliminate this month until a friend had asked me about it. And ordering prescriptions online is basically required with my insurance unless I wanted to go to the hospital one day to order my refill and then return a week later to get it because my medication isn’t usually in stock when I order it.

I’ve also had a few books for my Kindle that I was thinking of getting this month. Some of them I can wait on (or figure out if I really need to own them versus getting them from the library). But there’s one book that may be a part of a 7 week challenge with an online group (similar to The Artist’s Way). I can’t get it from the library because library books are only for 3 weeks and I would need it for 7. Also, it’s possibly something I would like to own. But I’m debating on if I’ll do the challenge now or another time. Also, some of my supplements I take are significantly cheaper online and if I need a refill of one I will order it online. It’s silly to buy a 30 day supply for the same price as a 60 day supply would be online. But I will be doing some price matching before ordering anything just to make sure there aren’t sales for stores I could go to.

And while I have tried to buy things online I knew I would need ahead of time, I do have a few gifts for birthdays/weddings/babies being born that will possibly need to be ordered in September that I will allow myself to order online if that is the cheapest way to do so. I think I have gotten everything ordered that I will need this month, but especially with the friends who are having babies I know that they might be born before October and I do want to get gifts for others on time. Maybe I shouldn’t consider gifts for other people shopping since it’s not for me, but I don’t want to make too many exceptions if I can help it. So this exception is only for gifts that need to be timely and can’t wait until October.

I don’t know how this challenge will go or if I will feel a huge difference. But when I realized that my online spending was not as controlled as I would like it to be I wanted to see what I could do to fix it now instead of waiting to see if it happens to get better on its own randomly. I know there are some friends who are doing no shopping at all challenges this month, but I’m not totally sure I can do that one. But I am going to try to spend less in stores in person as well since I don’t want to take my online shopping habits and just shift them to shopping in person.

It will be interesting to see how I feel after this month. Maybe I won’t feel like I need online shopping as much? I might discover things that will help me be a smarter online shopper so I don’t stress about overdoing it. But I have a feeling that whatever happens this month with this challenge that there will be a lesson to share when I recap this in October.

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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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