Money Mondays: April 2015 Budget Verdict

April was an unpredictably spendy month. We took a small vacation. I decided to finally purchase a new camera to replace the one that I had lost on the plane ride back from Hawaii. I decided to splurge on a present for the significant other. I've just finished tallying everything up and man oh man O_O. Looks like I went a tad crazy this month. Luckily, we have 3 paychecks in May! Hooray!

One of the things I haven't been so good about doing is analyzing my spending. Sure it's great to track and see what I'm actually purchasing and the bills I'm paying but what about doing something to attack what's sucking all your money? For this month, one of the major money suckers was eating out. It's something that has definitely been difficult to control. We've moved to an area that has high walkability and every day that I get out early is an opportunity to go to happy hour. For the month of May, we definitely need to start cooking more at home as well as packing a lunch. I think that will be the thing that will help us decrease our spending the most.

Here's to getting shit together in May! Happy Monday!

Money Mondays: April Check-Up

April is just flying by! Can you believe almost half the month is already gone?! Seriously where is the time going. So far it looks like April will be another spendy month. March was a month for splurging on myself but it looks like April is the time for some much needed r&r. If you can spare the time and money, I think it's nice to take a little vacation every quarter. It gives you a chance to recharge. Work has been pretty crazy so we booked a little mini-vacay to get away (think back to those Southwest "Want to Get Away" commercials.) The way this month is headed, I'm really looking forward to getting 3 paychecks in May!

Hope your April isn't turning out as spendy as mine! 

Still got another 17 days to go O_O lol. 

Let's tackle this week and Happy Monday!

Money Mondays: March 2015 Budget Verdict

March has come and gone and it's time to tally up my expenses for the month. I spent a little more this month because I did receive a check from Uncle Sam and I also got my bonus this month. In February I spent $1919.52. April may either be a super frugal month or a super spendy month so we'll see. We're either trying to save up for a trip or actually go on a trip.

Hope everyone had a great Easter!

Money Mondays: March Check-up

There's about a week left in March but it's still a good time to see how we are doing so far.

I did purchase a bit of stuff this month for myself. I splurged on some flats for work as well as a purse I'd been wanting. I've also been shopping around for some more suitable work clothes. Looks like I'm still doing ok but I should be cutting some spending, especially since next month is a rent month. Just one more week! Save save save!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Don't forget that it's tax season! Don't procrastinate! 

Money Mondays: February 2015 Budget Verdict

March is officially here! Quite scary for me since I'm basically supposed to be starting all of my changes this month. But first, I'll reflect on how I did for February. Like I had said previously, I wanted to make sure to keep my spending low in the beginning of the month because I knew I would be spending quite a bit a money during the end of the month (take a look at my "Out of Town" expenses).

Tony and I switch off paying rent (one month I'll pay, and the next month he'll pay) so money is a bit tighter on rent months. I was still able to pay much more on my loan payment which is good. However, I was in the negatives in terms of money rolling over to next month. This isn't such a big deal since I know for March, I don't have to pay rent so I'll be able to save a bit more.

So far so good! Hope everyone had a great weekend!

I'm ready for you, March!

Money Mondays: February Check-up

It's that time of the month again when we take a look at how we're doing in terms of spending. Looking at the total, it's a tad more than I'd like to have spent. I have to prepare for some high spending events at the end of February so I'd like to have a good chunk saved up. However, around this time last month I was already past $1,000 so this month is a bit of a improvement but we'll have to see how the entire month comes out. Until then, how is your February budget panning out?

Less than 15 days to go until the end of the month! Let's make it under $1200 this month!

Money Mondays: January 2015 Budget Verdict

January is officially over! Can't believe how fast it has flown by. Now is the time to take a look at your January spending and do some analyzing.

First off, let's look at how much we had to work with. For the month of January, I took home approximately $3,000 biweekly after taxes. For me, I did the 50-25-25 rule so 50% towards debt, 25% towards savings, and 25% towards fun. However, I was also paying off a lot of holiday debt this month (spending due to the holidays, ie,, presents, etc). My 50% towards debt doesn't include my credit cards; the 50% of my income towards debt goes straight towards paying off my loans. The 25% towards "fun" represents all of my credit card debt whether it's bills that I have to pay or clothes or eating out. I figure it's easier this way since I'm trying to pay off my student loans ASAP and I don't usually spend that much money on myself anyways. Here's how everything was came out.

Based on the 50-25-25 rule, I would've had $3,000 to go towards debt which is just going towards my loans so I ended up exceeding that by about $500 dollars. I was just a tad short of saving the "budgeted" amount. With that being said, that left me with about $1,000 to spend on "fun" stuff rather than the budgeted $1,500.

For January, I also didn't have to pay rent since we switch off paying rent so we don't have to write a billion checks. But that also means I should have saved enough rent money for February. Luckily I had enough money to cover rent for February without having to dig into my savings.

I would say I was pretty successful this month with keeping to my budget. However I do get a little anxious knowing that every single dollar is accounted for and that there is no "cushion". I feel like maybe I should subtract out a couple hundred dollars to account for emergencies/unexpected purchases. I like having a little cushion in my checking account just in case. It's a work in progress this budgeting thing so hopefully it will get easier!

Hope everyone stuck to their January budgets! Whatever goals you want to accomplish this year, I hope you're all on your way!

Money Mondays: Tracking Your Spending

The month of January is almost over O_O! If you've made it your goal to spend less in 2015, now is the time to take a look at how you did. January is a great month to look at because there usually aren't any extraneous purchases. If you take a look at December, you might have a lot of spending due to gifts and that will skew your entire budget. January is when most people want to start fresh so it's a good month to set up a baseline.

What I've been doing is spending some of time with my good friend Excel. I made a little spreadsheet to track my spending. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. The less fancy the better since you don't really want to spend all your time on aesthetics but if it'll make you more likely to stick to it, then by all means, knock yourself out.

Here's what my Excel sheet looks like.

When trying to figure out what expenses are dragging you down, it's important to make categories. These categories will vary depending on your lifestyle. For instance, I have two sets of bills, one for my parents and one for the bills at our apartment because I want to determine whether it's something I can actually control. Obviously I won't be telling my parents to use less electricity, etc. Also, I've split up food into two separate categories because I eat out quite a bit so I was trying to determine how much I was spending by eating out. Starbucks is also it's own category because it's my own little daily reward. It's something I'm definitely not willing to give up when it comes to cutting costs. For me stuff, that's just clothes and other stuff that I'm just purchasing for myself. That's where my "fun" money fund goes toward. As a said in my Budgeting post, I'm trying to put 50% of my income towards debt repayment (loans & credit cards), 25% towards savings, and 25% towards fun. My fun money will be a combination of my eating out and my "me stuff".

If you have a lot of transactions, it's best to go through them on a weekly basis so you are not super overwhelmed at the end of the month. I've been going through my transactions every Saturday morning while I sip on my coffee. It's also a good benchmark for you before you start your weekend because if you know you've already spent a lot for the month, you probably shouldn't do any spending that weekend (or at least try not to spend any money on extraneous purchases).

Only one more week until January is officially done! Can't believe this first month will almost be over but I hope everyone is still financially on track! Remember that January and February are your guinea pig months. Don't get too down over whether you're meeting your financial goals. It's still early in the year so cut yourself some slack. If you are at least tracking your finances, you're on your way to determining your Achilles heel.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and have an awesome week!

Money Mondays: My Student Loan Story & Repayment Plan

Student loan debt is a heavy burden that most millennials are dealing with. Despite making enough money to live comfortably and paying the minimum on your loans, there is still that nagging debt about the size of a mortgage just shouting "I'm collecting interest for doing absolutely nothing!"

When I graduated from pharmacy school in May 2011, I had racked up a decent amount of debt. Despite getting financial aid for my 4 years at UCLA, the total of my undergrad education accumulated to $22,871 ($5,844 was a Perkins Loan and $17,027 was a loan through Sallie Mae). These two loans were in deferment while I went through another 3 years in pharmacy school and luckily they did not accrue interest at that time. My grad school loans were a completely different story. In August 2011, my grad school loans totaled $218,399 with $111,712 being a Stafford Loan (6.55%) and $106,687 being the Grad Plus Loan (7.65% interest). I'm more of a visual person so here's what it looked like.

It was a crazy amount to even fathom owing and it was only going to increase day-by-day since interest starts accruing 6 months after you graduate. I was lucky enough to find a job in June 2011 so that I could make some money as a grad intern while I studied for the boards. By late August I was officially licensed and "making the big bucks" as some would say. As December approached, letters from all the different loans companies started flooding my mailbox. How do you want to pay off your loan? 10 years or 25 years? Standard or Graduated? I knew I wanted to go with the fastest route possible so I went with the 10 yr Standard Plan.

One thing that I wasn't prepared for was not getting full-time hours. I was hired as a floater and 24 hrs was enough to have benefits and be considered "full-time" in my employer's eyes. Therefore, for the most part, I was only working 3 days a week and not really making enough to be on the 10 yr repayment plan. It was extremely stressful because at the time, both of my parents had lost their jobs so in addition to paying off my own debt, I was also paying for our home expenses. They dug into their savings to pay the mortgage but it was my responsibility to pay for everything else. Because of that, I ended up changing my loan to the 25 yr Standard plan. I figured I could always pay more when I had extra money rather than stress myself out trying to make payments. This definitely made it much less stressful.

First order of business was to start saving up for an emergency fund. As a floater, I knew my job wasn't very stable and when you first start out, you're also not very good (just being honest here lol) so you're not being requested very often. So from August to December (when my loans were going to be out of deferment), I saved and saved.

The second decision I had to make was how to plan my attack. There's usually two ways to go about this: either start with the loan with the highest interest (aka the "Math Method") or start with the loan with the smallest amount (aka the "Snowball Method"). Here's a great article on one versus the other that might be helpful. I went with the Snowball Method. I decided to completely pay off the Perkins Loan with the money I had saved up from August to December. One down, 3 more to go.

In August 2012 (one year after graduation), my loans looked something like this.

It wasn't a particularly pleasant sight but the silver lining was that at least the Grad Plus Loan was finally under 100k. By early 2013 I had saved up a decent amount but I was having a difficult time deciding what to do next. Should I just go for it and pay off my undergrad loan completely or should I pay off the Grad Plus Loan with the higher interest? I decided to just eliminate my undergrad loan. The satisfaction of completely eliminating a loan was worth going against logic, I suppose lol.

I won't bore you with what happened in 2013 and 2014. An Excel spreadsheet is worth a thousand words.

note: "Differences" were calculated by subtracting the total owed this year by the total owed last year

I also wanted to mention that the snowballing method just happened to work out for me because the loan with the lesser amount ended up being the loan with the higher interest (after I paid off my undergrad loan) so at this point, it's a no brainer as to which loan I should pay off first.

My ultimate goal would be to completely eliminate my Grad Plus Loan which is a pretty hefty goal. A couple of things I do want to use to my advantage this year are my bonus which comes around mid-March and my employee stock option which I was "gifted" when I first started with the company and is now fully vested. I may also borrow money from my 401k (at half the interest of my loan) to pay off a good chunk of the loan. Just a few things to mull over this year.

I hope this post was helpful to those of you with student loan debt. I do want to note that this method might not work for everyone. I have friends that are using the income-based repayment plan which might pan out better for some people. I believe the income-based repayment plan makes it so you don't pay more than 10% of what you make per month (based on your salary the previous year) and you pay that for 25 years. After 25 years of on-time payments, the rest of your loan is forgiven. I didn't really have the time to calculate out which would be better and as such, went with what I already know.

Money Mondays: Budgeting in 2015

Looking back on the previous year, I was quite disappointed with the amount I saved. I was so focused on getting my loans down that I ended up dwindling quite a bit of my savings to put towards my loans.

This year, my focus will be more on having a balance between paying off my loans and saving money. I was reading an article on Yahoo! Finance about the Payroll Leap Year and in the article it mentions how a financial planner tells her clients to put 50% toward debt, 25% toward savings, and 25% toward fun. She states that the percentages "take the emotional aspect" out saving and paying off debt.

After reading that, I realized it made a lot of sense. I've always had a lot of emotional attachment to my paychecks. I didn't really know how to divvy up my paychecks in a way that felt fair. By doing percentages, you'll have varying amounts depending on how much you worked so it won't be as hard as committing to a whole dollar amount when you have a paycheck that is less than pleasing on the eyes (and wallet).

For us biweekly pay-perioders, we already have our first paycheck in the bank. This means all we have to do is use the magic of Excel to do the divvying for us. All I have to do for the rest of the year is plug-and-chug. The less thinking I have to do (outside of work) the better!

Here's what my spreadsheet looks like:

How are you planning to reach your financial goals this year? 

Share your tips and tricks in the comments below. I'd love to hear about them!

Hope everyone's year is coming to a great start! 

Debt Free by 33: 2014 Budgeting How-To

A lot of people tend to get overwhelmed by their New Years resolutions. You want to lose weight, eat healthier, spend less, learn more, etc etc etc. That's a lot to take on on top of a full time job. By the start of February, you've realized that half of those resolutions have already been broken and you're back to your old habits. The key to following through with those resolutions is breaking them down into steps that you can actually accomplish. When you're in school, you are given a syllabus to get through a class. For example, a book that you must read during the semester might be broken down into 2-3 chapters a day. In life, the same rules apply. For the majority of us, just simply stating "I want to be healthier" isn't enough. There needs to be specific parameters that you can measure to see if you are or are not meeting your goals. Sometimes there's a lot of pre-work that you must do to set yourself up for success.

For this Budgeting How-To post, I will go over some steps to find what your monthly budget should look like. In order to spend less and save more, you have to look at what you have to work with: your monthly income and how much you spend on a monthly basis.

1) Monthly Income
This one is easy enough. Just look at your weekly or biweekly paychecks for the month of January (hence why I'm posting this in February) and add up those amounts. Take that amount and round down to the nearest $250. According to Wikipedia, the 2011 median annual household income in the United States was $50,054. Divide that by 12 months gives you $4,171 per month. So lets say average Jane made $4,171 in the month of January, you're going to round that number to $4,000. Unless you have a salaried job, your paycheck amount my vary from time to time so $250 seemed like a nice round number to work with. On your budget sheet, you will put this down as your "Monthly Income". What about the rest of the money you ask? This money goes towards something you want out of this year. Did you want to save up for a house? A vacation perhaps? Maybe you just want a pair of Jimmy Choos or a designer handbag? This hypothetical person would be saving $171/month. That's $2,052 in a year. This doesn't have to be something you're saving up for. You can use that monthly money as seed money for shopping or dining out or coffee fund lol. Just do something nice for yourself (if you haven't noticed, I'm all for spoiling yourself :)).

2) Expenses
This category is where people tend to give up. Face it, everyone has a ton of expenses. Living is expensive lol (although death may be quite costly as well, but let's not digress). To make this step a little less daunting, let's break it down into sub-categories. (I have a category for parental expenses because I, like many other children these days, support my parents in some of their monthly bills. You can remove this category if you don't and add additional categories i.e. child support, etc as needed.)
*note if you use your credit card to pay for certain bills (i.e. you have an automatic bill pay that pays your cable bill through your credit card) do not create a subcategory for those items since they will be included in your expenses under your credit card. Example: I use my credit card to pay for my cable/internet at my parents house so I will not create a subcategory for that under parental expenses since then I'd be doubling up. 

• Home/Apartment Expenses: 
• Rent
• Cable/Internet (if you have two separate bills, put these into two separate categories)
• Water
• Gas/Electric
• Parental Expenses:
• Home - Water
• Home - Gas
• Home - Electric
• Student Loans:
• Credit Cards:
• This number usually varies from month to month. This is where you'll have to do a bit of research. Go through your 2013 credit card statements. Write down those amounts and look to see if there are any severe outliers. Maybe you paid off a vacation one month and the amount skewed your payment. Maybe you did a lot of Christmas shopping and your December bill was crazy. Whatever it may be, if there is month where your spending deviates over $500 from the rest of the amounts, you've got yourself an outlier. What you then want to do is just remove that outlier from the picture. So if you've got 2 outliers, you will then add up the other 10 statement amounts and divide it by 10. This will give you your average monthly spending on your credit card. If, however, your payment amounts vary all across the board where there isn't one sore thumb sticking out, just average it out. Round this to the nearest hundredths place. (note: this only works if you're paying your credit cards off in full every month. If you're not then that's probably something that needs to be addressed first).

Last step in expenses is to add these all together. This gives you the total amount you spend a month.

3) The Difference

Take the amount you got from "Income" and subtract the total you got in "Expenses". This is where you find out how much wiggle room you have each month. If you find that you are in the positives, you're in luck! This means you can put this money towards your savings or towards repaying a loan. If you have unpaid credit card debt, this money could go towards that too. If you're in the negatives, that means you're spending above and beyond your means. This would be a good time to take a long hard look at those expenses, break down each credit card expense into categories and find out what categories you're spending the most money in and cut down those expenses. Again, it's a long tedious process but the reward will be huge. 

I hope this was helpful to those of you trying to make a budget and stick to it for the new year. I wish you all the best on your New Years Resolutions!

Debt Free by 33: Extreme Couponing

I usually buy my drugstore beauty products at CVS/pharmacy since I get a ton of coupons and I have my employee discount. Their prices are definitely pricier than say Target but the coupons make up for it. Here's how to make the most bang for your buck.

1. Join their Beauty Club. For every $50 you spend in beauty products, you get a $5 coupon. Now I don't really buy much stuff from CVS and I was still able to get the whopping $15 coupon so it's definitely worth it. 
2. Make sure you check the weekly ad and buy at the right time. There are a lot of things you can buy where you can get ExtraBucks. Wait for those times to buy those specific items. Another thing I like are the Buy 1 Get 1 50% off. Don't buy things when they are not on sale. That's just asking to pay an arm and a leg.
3. Always go to the coupon center and print out your coupons before you shop. A lot of times there are random coupons that have been picked out just for you! 
4. Pay attention to the expiration dates. There are usually different expiration dates for each type of coupon depending on whether it's a store coupon, manufacturer's coupon or just ExtraBucks you've earned. Easiest way to lose out is to let those expiration dates come and go. Especially when you earn ExtraBucks, don't let those go to waste! You wouldn't throw money in the trash now would you?

Now let's look at how I made a killing last week. I had the following coupons:

• $3 extrabucks for buying Almay products (coupon I got for buying a $5.99 eyeliner)
• $4 off cosmetics purchase of $12 or more (coupon I got from the coupon center)
• $1 off any Maybelline Face Product (coupon I got from the coupon center)
• $15 Beauty Club ExtraBucks Rewards (coupon I got for spending apparently $150 in Beauty products?? O_O)
• $5 off $30 purchase (coupon that was emailed to me)

Products I bought:

• Physicians Formula Organic Wear Mascara in Black 1063 (Bonus 2 pack) - $4.79 (on sale; $6 off all Physicians Formula products $6.49 and up)
• Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in 025 Sweetheart Valentine and 045 Romantic - $9.99, $4.99 (BOGO 50% off Revlon products)
• Revlon Colorburst Lip Butters in 050 Berry Smoothie and 053 Sorbet (New) - $8.49, 4.24 (BOGO 50% off Revlon products)
• Maybelline Baby Lips Limited Edition Lip Balms in Coral Crush and Twinkle - $8.49 (regular price)
• CVS Hand Sanitizer - $1.99
• Ice Breakers Spearmint Mints - $2.49
• Nice and Clean Wipes - $1.19
• 2 packs of CVS brand tissues - $0.99

Total that I should have paid: $47.65

Total that I actually paid before taxes: $19.65 (including my employee discount it dropped to $16.31)

I saved: $28.00 (w/ my discount I saved $31.34)

That's mostly how I'm able to buy (and accumulate) my beauty products! Hope this helps you stay not only money savvy but also beauty savvy!

Debt Free by 33: Fun Money

When it comes to saving money, I've always been the type to eliminate all the fun out of life to save those few extra dollars. However, I've recently come to the conclusion that although that works for some people, that just doesn't work for me. I remember awhile back reading an article about some dude that paid off all his school loans in a few years after graduation by not going out, not buying drinks, etc etc. I was rather motivated to try that route but when you worked as hard as I did to get through all this schooling and you're finally making good money, it's really hard to give up the little things that keep you going. This is why it's important to budget out some fun money every month for nice things to keep you sane.

For instance, one of my biggest "luxuries" (at least it is to me lol) is to get Starbucks every day. I only get it on the days I work (4-5 days a week depending on my mood) but it makes me happy and I don't feel like I'm depriving myself. The worst feeling is when you feel bitter towards yourself for putting every cent you earn towards that loan. You earned your money! Live a little! So I budget $71 ($3.55 x 5 days per week x 4 weeks in a month) every month towards my Starbucks fund. And it's actually a little less since I get a free drink for every 12 drinks with my gold card. Some people might be thinking that it's $71 that could be going towards my loan but that $71 per month is keeping me sane at work! And let me just say my sanity is worth every penny! lol.

So whatever that little luxury might be, budget so that you can splurge on yourself; because you're worth it!