New Bills September 8, 2009

For my old job, I worked in Residence Life so I didn’t pay rent, utilities, etc. I spent 2 years in that position, and starting in June of this year I began paying “real bills” again. I was sub-leasing a place in June and July, and at that apartment everything was included with the “rent” price.

I paid rent for August, and now I’m beginning to receive my first set of bills. This is what I anticipate my bills being, per month, for the next six to twelve months (depending on how long I stay at this apartment).

*Rent: $150
I’ll write more about my apartment and why it’s so cheap in another entry.

*Utilities: $50
My first utility bill, for 2 weeks in August, was $34.40 split between the two of us (so $17 each). I expect it’ll be somewhat higher during the winter months, and I’ll cover more about this in the “cheap apartment” entry.

*Internet: $49
My roommate doesn’t have a computer, so we’re not splitting this. She also doesn’t want cable (and neither do I, really), so there’s no point bundling with other services.

*Car insurance: $35
This might get even lower, given that I just turned 25 last week.

*Cell phone: $60
I share a family plan with my younger brother and my father, but Brother and I split the cost and don’t charge Dad. Total each month is around $120, split between Brother and myself. We usually take turns paying rather than each paying our share, however, he recently bought an iPhone so his portion of the bill will go up substantially. I will probably start paying my share to him each month and letting him be responsible for paying the bill.

I’ve never given myself a fixed budget for groceries or gasoline, which are usually my biggest discretionary expenses. I don’t intend to start that now. I use minimal gasoline, because I don’t drive a lot (mainly because I don’t have time to go anywhere during the school year!), and I love food and go out to eat substantially less when I have groceries at home (so spending more at the grocery balances out with spending less on eating out).

Am I missing anything major here? I am thinking about looking into renter’s insurance, any thoughts on that? Anyone have experiences to share?

End of Summer September 6, 2009

This weekend baseball wraps up, so that job will soon be done. I have a spreadsheet where I was keeping track of all of the money I made from the job, but haven’t been able to update since I turned in my old laptop. I’ve been keeping track in a notebook, but it might take me a while to find the old spreadsheet, update it, and figure everything out. It’s not really vital that I know exactly how much I made working there, it’s just of interest to me.

My graduate assistantship started last week, and I’ll be paid once a month on the last working day of the money. I’m anticipating each check being about $800 after taxes, but I won’t know exactly until the end of this month. I took out $10,500 in student loans for the semester, about $4.5k of which went to pay for tuition. The rest has gone straight to savings. I’ll use some to pay for my study abroad in January, the rest will sit there until its time to re-pay student loans, assuming no emergencies come up.

The summer job has led to two bartending jobs for this fall. I’ll be working in the clubhouse at football games on campus here (6 Saturdays total throughout the semester), and bartending at Titans games in Nashville (10 or 12 Sundays throughout the semester). Between those jobs and the GA position, I should have more than enough money to pay my bills and continue saving at a decent rate.

Blogs for Young Professionals? July 14, 2009

In the past few months I’ve become a little bored with personal finance websites. It’s been mentioned by others that most pf sites offer very basic advice, and after spending nearly two years reading a dozen or more pf sites (not to mention being obsessed with managing my money), I think I’ve hit the point of “outgrowing” most sties.

I’ve been really busy this summer, and when I look at my Google Reader I realize that I haven’t really missed keeping up with most pf blogs, in fact, I barely think about them or care that I haven’t been keeping up. I just feel like I haven’t been learning much from them in the past six months or so, and they aren’t worth the time and effort to keep up with anymore.

This may be in part due to my change in income this summer (from being salary for the past two years to working random days for an hourly wage plus tips at the summer bartending job). That, combined with the fact that I will be in grad school and have a limited amount of income this fall, means that learning about saving and investing – beyond what I already do – isn’t really applicable at the moment. (Most of my money goes into savings, plus $200/month going to my Roth IRA. Until last month I was also contributing to my employer’s retirement plan, but as I am no longer employed there that’s no longer an option.)

When I do have time to be online, I find myself more drawn toward sites for young professionals. Lately I’ve been reading Employee Evolution and Movin’ On Up, as well as random articles like this one from US News and World Report: “7 Mistakes Recent Grads Make at Work”.

Anyone have other suggestions for blogs or websites geared toward young professionals, graduate students, or people entering new fields/positions/careers? Or sites that combine personal finance advice with job/career advice or stories?

Life July 10, 2009

Money hasn’t been very fun for me to think about lately, but here’s what’s going on with me right now:

-I’ve been working a lot, and when I’m not working I’ve been out of town with no internet access
-My car has been in the shop for nearly 3 weeks; the repair it needs will be about $2,000. I’m going to go ahead and get the repair done, but I won’t have my car for another week (at least). Previously another shop estimated $3,000, so I was debating just getting a new car. I decided to tow it to another place for a second opinion first, and that’s why I’ve been without a car for so long.
-I just found out that I need to buy a laptop within the next week.
-My lease is up at the end of this month, and since I haven’t had a car, looking for new places to live has been more than a little difficult. I do have a couple of potential options, but I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do. No matter what I do, it’s going to cost money, obviously.

The bad news is that my net worth fell last month, for the first time since November of last year. The good news is it didn’t fall by nearly as much as I thought, since I didn’t include my car in it (as it wasn’t working and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it) but I do/will still have my car. So the other bad news is that it’s going to fall quite a bit again this month, once all of the above is paid for.

I recently signed the paperwork for student loans for the year, though, so in a few weeks I’ll have $10,000 and in the spring another $10,000. I don’t plan on needing much of the money, but I decided I’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

Any thoughts or suggestions on any of this?

Summer Plans June 7, 2009

This week I signed paperwork for the graduate assistant position, so it’s now official. Finding out about student loans may take a little while, though.

The bartending job has been going well. I’m not making a lot of money at it, because it’s been cool outside and raining a lot lately, so the games aren’t really busy. However, the money I do make working there is more than I would make it I were sitting around doing nothing, so I’m happy with it! Also, I have quite a bit of free time when the team is out of town, so I’ll be able to take the trips I’ve been planning for this summer. I don’t think any other job would want to allow me the flexibility that I have with the bartending schedule.

Later this month I will be in Anaheim for 5 days for a work trip. Yes, technically I no longer work at my old job, but this trip was already planned. Airfare, hotel, and meals will be paid for by work. I’m chaperoning three students, and they have talked about going to the beach and doing tourist-y things while we are there, so I may be spending some of my personal money on things like that. Hopefully not Disney, though, I really don’t want to spend a day there.

Next month I’ll be heading down to the Gulf Coast for about four days with an aunt and two of my female cousins. My aunt is making all of the plans, I don’t even know where along the Gulf she wants to go. I have no clue how much this trip will cost me, because I don’t know what all I will be expected to pay for while there (or what she’ll allow me to reimburse her for afterward).

In August, I’m planning a trip to the lake with friends in Missouri. A friend and I are splitting the cost, then everyone can pay us back later. We found a nice rental house on the lake with 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms that runs $900 for four nights. I’ve set aside $600 for the trip. If enough people show up, we could possibly end up breaking even or making money off of being the ones to actually make the plans and reservations. I doubt that will happen, but it would be really cool if it did!

USBank Credit Card (con’t) May 19, 2009

According to my online banking, USBank/Visa did indeed give me the credit card limit increase I asked for.

So everything’s turned out okay, but it’s really annoying that I had to go through so much frustration to get to this point.

I’ll post a longer update about things soon.

Living Situation May 13, 2009

Since I’ve (more officially? but still no paperwork…) received the GA position for the fall, I went ahead and put in my notice at work this week. So now my dilemma is: finding a place to live for the next 14 months!

One of the girls I work with is looking to sub-lease her apartment for part of the summer, since she’ll be gone for about 6 or 7 weeks. She has 2 roommates, and said that bills (total) are about $400 per month per person. Sounds good to me! I need to move out by 01 June, but she won’t need to leave for the summer until mid-June. I told her I don’t mind to crash on the couch for a couple weeks if she wants to split bills for the month. So I think my summer housing is figured out, and will run me around $600 total for June and July, which is very exciting! Now I don’t have to find a place for next year until late July!

Since I’m working the bartending job, I’ll be in town all summer. I think that by July I’ll have a much better idea of where I want to live next year – I’m still pretty unfamiliar with this town right now. And if living expenses will only be ~$400 per month, the bartending job should cover that. However, I’m not so sure about paying for hanging out with friends, going to the lake, and other trips I want to take this summer!

Update on the USBank Credit Card Saga May 4, 2009

I stopped by USBank today to find out what’s going on with my credit card (and/or throw a fit and close all of my accounts). Things went much better than I expected.

The banker I met with was much more helpful than I anticipated. He called the credit card people to find out what was going on, and learned that the company actually made a mistake. They meant to lower the credit limits on a certain type of card (their college student cards, I believe), and unintentionally lowered the limits on a variety of cards they offer. They’re in the process of sorting out the mistake, but since I went in to complain, my card is one of the first to be restored to it’s previous limit.

I actually requested a limit increase also, which I had been planning to do before they cut my limit. I’d like to travel some this summer, and want to make sure I have enough credit to buy plane tickets and also handle any emergencies while traveling, should they arise. They said that my card should immediately be restored to the old limit, and I’ll receive word in a week or two about the limit increase.

I just tried to log into my online banking, and it says the page cannot display. So I guess I still can’t use my card for a while, since I don’t know for sure what’s going on!

I Hate USBank April 30, 2009

I’ve had bank accounts at USBank for many years. When I was in high school USBank bought out my old bank, so I’ve had USBank accounts for 8 or 10 years. In that time I’ve had checking accounts, a savings account, CDs, a credit card, and my Roth IRA all through USBank.

About 2 years ago they pissed me off pretty good by charging me overdraft fees when I had already transferred money from my savings account to my checking (since apparently EVEN WITHIN THEIR BANK AND THROUGH ONLINE BANKING it takes them a few days to process a transfer? wtf?). My accounts weren’t linked at the time because my father’s name was still on my checking (from opening the account when I was a child), but only my name was on the savings. Therefore they wouldn’t let me link the accounts.

So about 6 months ago I finally started moving my money toward ING Direct. I’ve been meaning to ever since the incident of 2 years ago, and now that I have most of my savings is there. I still keep five hundred to a thousand dollars in the USBank checking and saving accounts, in case of emergency, etc., but the majority of my money is at ING.

Today I logged in to make sure my check was direct deposited and transfer some money to my ING savings. I go to make a credit card payment (which I do each time I get paid, twice/month) and see that they have CUT MY CREDIT LIMIT TO $300. I am livid right now. I rarely have more than $300 on my card, but my limit was around $1500. It’s the only credit card I have. I pay my balance in full every month. I’ve never missed a payment. My current balance is about $225. That leaves me with about $75 of available credit right now.

I also just dropped my car off at the shop this afternoon and found out that I need to get a car repair that will cost me $219 plus tax. I have plenty of money in my savings to pay for it, but I am livid that I have to make a decision TONIGHT about how to re-budget my money rather than being able to pay with my credit card and have a few weeks to decide which savings account to pull from, how much to withdraw from savings, and how much I want to re-arrange my current budget (so I can withdraw less from savings and pay more from my current money).

I am livid right now. I will definitely be stopping by USBank tomorrow or Monday, and likely very closing out my accounts there.

The one bright spot in all of this is that I happened to check tonight. Had I waited until tomorrow, I would have already used my credit card to pay for the repair, and either had my card declined or been charged fees (I’m sure insanely high ones, at that) for being over my credit limit, when in fact I would have been at less than 1/3 of my old limit.

Financing Graduate School April 26, 2009

I’m still waiting to officially hear if I received a Graduate Assistantship for the Economics program here. Unofficially, I have been told they plan to offer me a full assistantship, but are waiting on paperwork. I don’t want to put in my resignation at my job until the paperwork goes through, though – I like my job, and I’d like to still have it if something falls through with the grad program! (And my supervisors know this – I’ve been honest with them about my plans.)

So now, I have a new problem: financing what the GA position doesn’t cover. I think I’ll still be able to work part-time (if I so desire) during the year, even though officially it’s frowned upon for GAs to have other jobs. I think I’m going to take out enough student loans that I don’t have to work, though, if I want to be able to focus more on my coursework.

And since I’m taking out student loans anyway . . . I’m thinking about taking out an extra $10,000 or so. I’ve never been out of the country, but I am very interested in doing International Economics and would like to have a job that involves traveling abroad frequently. The Economics department will probably take two study abroad trips next year, one during January before spring semester starts, and another during May, right after the spring semester ends. Since I didn’t do a study abroad as an undergrad, I’m very interested in doing these trips. I also think it’ll show that I am as interested in traveling abroad and doing international work as I say that I am, since my current lifestyle doesn’t reflect that. The extra $10,000 would be enough to cover the cost of both trips. I think taking out $20,000 total would give me plenty of money for both trips plus any expenses not covered by the stipend.

I didn’t take out any student loans for my undergrad education, and I’m glad I made that decision because I consider my undergrad education to have been pretty useless. Not because I didn’t learn anything, but because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t have a passion for anything, I was there because I was a smart kid and I was supposed to go to college. I’m somewhat wary of taking out so much in loans for grad school, but I’m more comfortable with the idea since I have a direction and a purpose – I actually plan to use the education and the experiences I acquire from the program. Also, since I’m currently in the habit of saving over half of each paycheck, I’ll be able to quickly repay student loans if I continue this habit post-grad school.

What do you think? Am I missing anything major? Will taking out the extra money for the study abroad trips be worth it?