The final step: Figure out if my spending is in line with my priorities.Īt the moment, little purchases like frozen yogurt and the occasional Uber rides are worth it to me, because they bring me happiness without getting in the way of long-term savings goals. I had to buy: The $121 subway card, $43.79 on Whole Foods groceries, $50.85 on Trader Joe’s groceries, and $9.47 on tampons.Worth it to me: The $10.68 prosecco the $30.60 Uber that kept me from taking an hour-long, two-train journey while tipsy Pinkberry and beers and $45 for our fantastic cleaning lady.These are things I could have gotten for much, much cheaper (or free, in the case of the book).
I’m also going to include the fancy $123.84 date night dinner here, which I totally loved, but isn’t something we should do too often. I can't believe I spent X dollars on: The $29.33 Amazon book, which I should have borrowed from the library.That wasn't worth what I spent on it: The $2.99 Kindle book was terrible.I probably shouldn't have bought that: $5.33 on coffee, $7.20 on more coffee, $13.59 on ClassPass credits.$45 my half of $90 for our cleaning lady, who comes every other weekĪnd here’s that weekly spending, organized by category:įollowing Malani’s guidelines, I categorized each expenditure after the fact.$50.85 at Trader Joe’s, which got me two bags popcorn, frozen pizza, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, celery, baby carrots, edamame hummus, two ginger kombuchas, a tomato feta soup, two prepackaged salads, one coconut yogurt, and two bars of chocolate.
$7.20 on an almond milk latte for me and a large coffee for my husband.$123.84 for my half of dinner (one entree, one appetizer, one cocktail, two glasses of nice wine, and a 20 percent tip) at a fancy restaurant for date night.$30.60 for an Uber from my book club back to my apartment.$10.68 on a bottle of prosecco for my book club.$43.79 at Whole Foods, which got me a pound of salmon, baby kale, hummus, baby carrots, celery, 2.5 pounds of grapes, minced ginger, three olive snack packs, a bulb of garlic, and two punnets of blackberries.$29.33 on a book ( Writer's Market Deluxe Edition 2018, if you must know).$2.99 on a Kindle book for my book club read, which wasn’t available at the library near me.That's part of why this experiment makes sense for me-I still feel like I’m spending money on things that aren’t worth it for me personally in the course of my day-to-day life, which is not great when I don't know exactly when my next paycheck is coming. We are immensely privileged to be in this position and I try my absolute hardest not to take it for granted. The good news is that my husband and I are also currently on track to meet our annual savings goals of maxing out our 401(k)s and saving over 40 percent of our combined post-tax income. If everything goes according to plan, I'm on track to make about $75,000 in 2018, before taxes-but that could change in an instant depending on how well my clients are doing, whether I can maintain good relationships with them, and what happens in the media landscape overall.
As such, I never know exactly how much is going to come in each month-I’m theoretically owed thousands of dollars, but I don’t control when I’ll actually see that. Some clients pay immediately others take weeks or even months to do so.
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