Like many other recent college graduates out there, I wasn't too worried about my net worth when I first graduated - I just assumed that it would go up. In fact, I distinctly remember doing a Microeconomics exercise where we predicted our net worths at age 60. I knew my starting salary by then, and after applying the recommended (and very conservative) salary growth rate, and then a savings rate, the cumulative savings amount started becoming very very high very very quickly.
There was even a portion of the exercise where we were to calculate an optimal spend rate to adopt during certain years of your life to avoid paying too much estate tax when you die. My results were that I should go into debt the first 10 years of my life in order to even out my net worth and lower my estate tax.
I'll not be going into all the reasons why this exercise was completely wrong to do because 1). I do not have the time to type them all out 2). this is not a microeconomics blog 3). this is not a forum on what institutions of higher learning should be teaching us 4). the logical fallacies will be self evident to most people reading this blog.
Although I have never gone into debt outside of student loans, I have come to realize that the things that I want within the next 3 years are slowly becoming unattainable if I don't control my spending. That, coupled with my BF's halved salary, were enough to make me do the following analysis of my April spending.
Here were the frightening results:
Yowza! That's a lot.
Here is my justification and explanation of what happened:
Beverage - We're currently assessing the need for this right now. BF and I currently drink A LOT of coffee each day, and we both only like one brand of coffee that is unfortunately extremely expensive. We order the whole beans bulk - this amount is for 2.5 months of coffee plus 6 months worth of tea, but the coffe portion amounts to $1.10 per person per day, which is still less expensive than going to Starbucks.
Cat - so we have a cat who has a very particular taste for a certain higher end brand of cat food. This food went on sale in April and was 33% off what it normally is, so I stocked up and got a whole year's worth. On average, the cat eats about $0.50/day worth of food and his litter is around $5, so this entire category should be $20/month.
Cable - this includes internet. Right now Comcast is jacking up our bill every month…and I need to find the time and energy to deal with them.
Electric - This is actually two months worth of electric. Once you split out the two months, I think it's in line with what we've been paying. I'll decide later whether or not there are cheaper alternatives
Makeup/clothes - this is a major problem of mine and I will be attacking this immediately.
Taxes - as many of you know, April is tax month. This year we owed taxes for the first time. There's really no way around this
Supplements - will be talked about in another post
Rent - Will be discussed later.
Transportation - there are ways of cutting this down but it would be less safe. I may or may not write about this later, but right now I am putting this on the back burner.
So in conclusion, April was a disastrous month. One time fees like taxes combined with a double electric bill, then combined with all those clothes/makeup and cat food sales. Obviously the latter is more controllable, and that's what I'm here to do.
Over the next couple of weeks, I want to finalize a budget that I should stick to every month. I think I have a pretty good idea, but I'm definitely open to suggestions. Please let me know if you have any! Tell me where you think I can cut down!
