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.