June 29, 2007
-
Treasury Report
I spend a good amount of money. I’m not entirely sure where I spend it, but even after I set monthly limits for books and DVDs, a considerable amount of my paycheck goes somewhere. I would assume $50 a week for groceries, and I don’t eat out much. I don’t purchase a lot of video games, and my electric bill is pretty low, seeing as I am never home. Gas is probably my largest regular expense, and my rent is paid for by the government.
Every once in a while, I get some huge expense that I debate paying for at least a week. I usually end up paying it, because I can’t logically get around it. My only hangup is that I am thrifty (cheap), and would just rather keep the money. For example, I want to get my personal trainer certification from the American Council on Exercise. The study program is $400. I would rather not pay $400 for anything, but there isn’t a way around it. A week of dragging my feet (basically I wanted to be really close to the next paycheck), and another $400 disappeared. My other big reason for waiting is that whenever I spend a good amount of money, having planned how it would affect my budget, another very large and unforseen expense appears.
At least when I do spend money, I try to get something out of it. I have 24,746 frequent flyer miles with Continental. I think that can get me a free flight from New York to New Jersey. If I can shop through their site, I usually do, which is why anyone who gets flowers from me gets flowers from a specific company. Same goes for most gifts, and I will be shopping for books through Barnes & Noble, since they price the same as Amazon. DVD’s will still be obtained through Amazon, since it is much cheaper that way. Lastly, if I ever purchase something at Best Buy, or Circuit City, you can bet that I will be purchasing it online for the miles, and then walking down the street to pick it up from the store.
I was going to title this post “One lucky sperm is going to college” as the 529 Plan that I started almost 2 years ago now has more money in it than one of my IRA plans. The idea when I started it was this: If I don’t have a child for 2 years, and I put in $250 a month for the next 20 years (assuming 6% growth), when the child turns 18, I will be able to pay half the tuition for Columbia University (which I chose as a guide because it is expensive). The prize is still unclaimed. Knowing how expensive children can supposedly be, it will probably remain so for a while.
On a related issue, I’m going to need to start contributing to my IRA again. I can’t have some unborn child having more money than me. The good thing is that if I have no children, I get to keep that money.
In the interim, I have formulated a plan for force-budgeting myself. Every paycheck, I will take the money that is left in my checking account before payday, and transfer that amount to my savings account. This will effectively remove that money from my thinking when I go to purchase things. It seems like a pretty good plan. I just have to be good about not saying, “Oh look. I have so much money over here, I might as well spend some.” This may happen when I can finally buy a gun or 4.
Black 6, out.
