Building a Downpayment

I just remembered this because I was telling my dad and I had to share with y'all, because I'm sure it will cause people here to roll their eyes just as much as I did.

On Friday, a coworker -- I'll call her J -- and I were, um, using company time inappropriately and chatting in the breakroom. We were talking about our money goals and what steps we were taking to get there. So I explained my 50% a month plan and asked her questions about the home buying process, since she's been through it. She told me about what she and her husband are doing to get set for parenthood; she's due in a few months. Her plan boils down to paying off the last little bit on her car, so they'll only have their mortgage and utilities to worry about while she's on maternity leave, and then have a little bit extra saved up, hopefully.

Another coworker, C, inturrupted us and said, "Why don't you just enjoy your money?"

C continued on in this vein for quite some time (I think I actually had a bingo on the forum discussion of stupid excuses for not saving). Meanwhile, J and I were making cartoon faces of shock. Aside from the rudeness of interrupting someone else's conversation, there's the sheer comedy of C giving anyone financial advice, because we've heard C on the phone with her various creditors, some of whom are actually collection agencies.

I bit my tongue -- I do have to work with the woman -- but I just couldn't get over someone in that situation telling me to enjoy my money. Because collection calls are so enjoyable, you know?

I escaped just under $50, which is pretty good for me. Checking the flyer ahead of time was a good plan, one which I'll have to be more disciplined about in the future.

Another thing that helps is I'm pretty well stocked on spices now. When I didn't cook much from scratch, I could get away with nothing more than salt and pepper. As I make more of an effort to only eat what I cook, well, one needs a bit more to work with. Also, I'm trying to eat more fruits and veggies, which are gloriously cheap even in the winter (well, compared to meat -- I'm from a meat and potatoes family).

So, shopping is done for another couple weeks and mole chili is bubbling away in the crock pot to supplement last week's vegetable soup. I'll clean the kitchen when I go to add the last seasonings to the chili. Feeling mighty productive!

Well, if nothing unexpected comes up, I should manage to bank an entire paycheck this month.

It'll be close -- I have to get my car serviced in the next couple weeks, so if there's anything other than the oil needing changed, I'll probably go a bit into the second paycheck. But still! This isn't bad for early on.

The good:
-- I know most people feel they spend more on credit cards than handing over paper money, but me? I get cash and it goes *poof*. No idea what I spent it on. But I get really embarrassed looking at my credit card statement and seeing money wasted on it ("I paid how much for that coffee!?"), so I'm down to the emergency $20 in my wallet and charging everything.
-- Not having cash also makes me a lot less likely to eat out. I've only eaten out three times this month (Reno, dinner with some friends last weekend, and taking a friend to lunch this week when she needed to get away from her desk before killing us all).
-- Tied to the above, I've been making a point of cooking every night and putting aside a portion for the next day's lunch before I eat. I figure this is also good for my waistline. *g*
-- One roommate owed me money (I charged the room in Reno), so my share of the utilities were already covered for the month. She still owes me about $30, so I'll have that advantage next month as well.

The bad:
-- ... Damned car.
-- Speaking of which, I still need to shop around for car insurance. At this point, I may see if my current carrier gives me a decent reduction in January, as that will be two years with them.
-- I'm going through my pantry at a pretty quick clip and will have to do a serious restock soon. As I'm trying to eat healthier, this will probably be painful until I've managed to stock a healthy pantry.
-- I have to do my Christmas shopping still. Eek.

Overall, I'm feeling pretty upbeat about the financial picture. This might be doable!

Confession: One of my roommates and I went to Reno to visit a friend this weekend. Yes, I gambled. I know, not frugal, but I won enough to cover the cost of going up there and the meal out, so... Yeah.

Dilemma: My roommates and I are all paid on the last day of the month, so that is when they write the checks for their shares of the rent to me. I normally deposit the checks that day and pay the rent on the first. However, the landlord does not assess a late fee so long as the rent is paid by the fifth. In theory I could deposit their checks and leave that money in my savings account until the fifth, thus raising my average daily balance significantly for the month.

I don't know... I regularly wait as long as possible to pay other bills without guilt so I can keep that money in savings, the rent would still be paid on time with a good check, but I'm not given the rent so that I can make money off of it, you know?

One good thing: I've managed to keep from buying soda the last couple weeks. It's silly to buy sugar water, so I'm trying to quit. It's $5-6 bucks a week not going out.

Played with the car insurance. Discovered that my current carrier can take $8/month off after correcting their records (I could have sworn I told them I had ABS and dual air-bags, but whatever). I'm still going to attempt to find a lower rate, but I feel some success.

Opened a better savings account than I had (Citibank eSavings, 5.0%, vs Day-to-Day Savings, 0.7%). Transferred the $500 I had in the old savings account and an additional $580 from checking. Let the interest compound! I could do better, but 0.25% does not cancel out the ease of having everything under one roof.

Well, one can hardly have a good idea of what one can save unless one knows what has to be spent first, right?

As a side note: Being this frank about money where anyone can see it makes me uncomfortable. I realize this is a silly reaction, as nobody can connect this blog to me in real life, but I was still raised with a good chunk of "You don't discuss money, not ever!" by my mother's family. Dad has always been the person people went to to get their mortgages explained (he was a loan officer years ago), but I still couldn't tell you what our utilities ran a month.

People are funny about money. And by 'people', I mean me.

Anyway! Budgeting!

$2190 Estimated monthly take home income (just got a raise, this check has overtime, not entirely certain what the final checks will end up as)

Required expeditures -- monthly unless specified otherwise
470 Rent
90 Utilities -- usually they are $75-80, but I prefer to estimate too high
45 Cell phone
107 Car insurance -- I have a good driving record, so I think I could get this lower. Research time!
90 Gas assuming 3 tanks at $3/gal; anything less can go to savings
150 Registration & Smog check -- yearly ($13/month)
80 Vehicle service -- twice yearly ($7/month)
150 Groceries -- generally two store runs per month at $60/each, but again, conservative reserving
$972 regular monthly expenses

Optional expenditures
130 weekly funny money -- $30 per week, includes 'must attend' work lunches, monthly trip to Bay area, paying for casual days at work, etc.
30 haircut -- I know, I know, but Jamie does good hair and I can do it myself in 2 minutes
$160 monthly financial silliness

$1132 Estimated monthly outflow

$1058 left to save

Okay, now I know I just got my raise, but there is no way on god's green earth that I have only been running through $1132 a month. Now, things like going to the doctor on Friday happen ($105 poorer!), but not every single month.

So, since I'd really like to get to the point where I'm living on just the one paycheck, clearly I need to A) track better and B) slap things down a bit. I think the car insurance would be a good place to start. Additionally, I can work harder to keep the groceries down. I should probably say that I could cut the funny money, but I think I would go a bit crazy if I couldn't ever get lunch with my coworkers or buy a pack of gum.

At least I got out of the habit of buying lunch daily. *sigh*

NB: I know that the above budget does not include clothes or gifts -- the worst part of Christmas is taken care of (plane tickets home), and the roommates' gifts will come from funny money, as do my clothes.

So, to get the general information post out of the way: late twenties claims adjuster in northern California. Single, no real debt (other than my credit card balance which is paid-in-full monthly), but nowhere near the savings I should have. This is a problem, as this means no emergency fund and no downpayment fund.

On the plus side of things, retirement is looking quite good, as I'm maxing out my 401(k) at work and trying to max out my Roth. Additionally, the car is paid off, so that's a significant chunk of change to bank monthly. My living expenses are also fairly low, since I have two roommates. These two factors leave me feeling very good about my ability to save.

I hope this blog will help me save, since it will give more accountability than looking at my bank statement and going, "Oops, nothing left." My goal is to have at least $10,000 saved by the end of 2007, but I hope to do more. I'd also like to get myself to the point where I'm only living on one paycheck per month, but that might be more than I can do.