Net Worth: How do you stack up?

Only a few days ago I made the transition to a positive net worth, so when I saw this interesting post at BudgetsAreSexy and I decided to steal it! (heehee)  So how do I measure up?

Source: CNNmoney.com

The good news is that in comparison with the rest of my age group, I’m doing really well!!! lol. The median is only $400 (understandable with all the student loans most of us graduate with nowadays!), and my net worth is a POSITIVE $6k!! (Not as good as Mr. J Savings’ $66k, but I’m getting there!)

However, in comparison with my income group I’m way behind…by approximately $103k. lol, no biggie…I’ve got many years ahead of me to increase my net worth, so right now I will just relish the fact that I have a positive net worth!

So, how do you stack up? Check it out at CNNmoney.com!

 

Car Woes

Tomorrow is the 4th and final day I have to make my 1.5 hour commute to the company HQ. It just so happens that last night as I was filling up my car with gas (for the second time in the week on a Tuesday night!! lol) I noticed that one of my tires was a teensy bit low on air. I realized it’d been a while since I’d looked at my tires. I decided that teensy bit of air it was lacking wasn’t cause for alarm, although I should fill it up soon to help with gas efficiency. My other front tire looked fine…as did the back left…and then as I was looking at the back right tire when I noticed what looked like a scratch mark on the wall of the tire. It wasn’t a scratch…it was more like a gouge! There was a tear in the wall of the tire about the size of half a radius of a quarter. It wasn’t leaking any air, but it looked like the tear was deep enough to affect the safety of the tire. (Not that I know much about tires though…)

Anyone that knows me also knows that I’m quite paranoid. I freaked out, and went home after filling up the tank. I had to drive 170 miles each day for the next two days and my tire could blow up any minute?!!! (Or so I thought…It also doesn’t help that my cousin’s cousin died in a car accident not more than two months ago when his tire blew up while driving on the highway.) First thing I did when I got home was have my dad look at it.

He looked at it for a bit, but he said it should be ok…I could make it to work and back fine, but it would probably be best not to go over 80mph (you know, just in case). At this point it was almost 10pm, so its not like I could get it checked out anywhere.

Well, I made it to work and back just fine, and I made sure to leave early so I could go 70 the whole way and still make it on time (I did…but geez…its hard to even go 70 without getting nasty looks from drivers!!) Right when my dad got home though he accompanied me to get the tire checked out by a “pro”.

We went to the Costco car shop. The guy took a look at it and thought it was cosmetic at first, but after taking a look at it more closely he saw what we were talking about. Apparently the tires my car had were $198 tires (what?!!), but they found one that matched the same specs for $98 (still a lot!!).

So, now I have a new tire, and apparently the rest of my tires are also under warranty now since I got service at Costco…after we heard that, my dad and I looked at each other and asked “do you think the other ones were still under warranty too?!” Yeah, I think they were….(ugh, why didn’t I think of checking that?!!) Either way, I’m going to check it out tomorrow and if they were under warranty I’ll see what I can do about it [shrugs]

Lesson learned: always make sure your item isn’t under warranty before shelling out bucks to repair or replace it!!!

An a more positive note, I checked out the mileage I was getting on my trusty little Accord…From Monday to Tuesday I went 333 miles on only 10 gallons of gas. Whoo! (Of course, this is without the AC on and going almost the entire way on cruise control at 75 or so.)

 

Shoe Lust

As I mentioned before, I went to the mall for the first time in a while this weekend. One of my biggest mistakes: going into Nine West. I didn’t incur any real damage, but it did leave me lusting for some new shoes…

 NewTimes $70 on sale

Fedaka $89

Fedaka $89

[swoon]

How am I supposed to choose between them?!! Lol. I’ll be holding out until they at least get to $50. Then I’ll think about even trying them on! (Been there, done that….won’t do it again!)

 

May Grocery Challenge

I think I may have to try this challenge again at a later month. First of all, I’ve only gone to the grocery store once so far this month, and it was only to purchase some things to bake those Strawberry Banana Muffins posted on SugarLaws.com (delicious, by the way…but only if you don’t like overly sweet things. They don’t have any sugar, only honey.) I’ve been eating a lot of things that we already have in the fridge or freezer, and this whole week they are providing lunch for us here at work…I feel like I’m cheating!!!

So, for the purposes of getting through the month, I’ll still post all of the groceries I buy, but I’m going to do this again next month. It’s only fair, right?

5/11 shopping trip:
Soap 3pk (for my mom) $2.19
Strawberries (2 packs) $4.00
Dry Yeast $1.49
American Cheese Singles $3.19
Sour cream $1.39
Seltzer Water (2) $1.18
Whole wheat flour $2.69

Total: $16.37

That means I still have $133.63 left in my May grocery budget.

As a side note, I usually buy a bag of grapefruit each week for $2.99 so that I can eat some fruit at work. I went to purchase one on Sunday and it was $5.49!!!! They were selling them individually as well, for $.99. Why would you sell a pack of 5 for $5.50 when you can just buy 5 for $4.95?! Beats me. I had to leave them at the register because the price wasn’t posted in the produce area.

 

Weight Loss…and (kinda) FREE MONEY!

Apparently my company is hosting its second annual weightloss competition this year (who knew?!) I found out from a tiny little flyer they have posted in the lobby, and I’m actually thinking about entering.

So here’s the deal: it starts on Monday the 19th and costs $20 to enter. It lasts for 3 months, and the person to lose the highest percentage of body weight is the winner! They actually have 3 prizes…1st prize is 60% of the pool money, 2nd place is 25%, and 3rd place is 15%.

I’m not sure what my chances are of winning, but I think it’d be fun to try! I also don’t know how many people would enter, so I don’t know how much I stand to win. 

So…should I do it?! Is it worth possibly losing my $20? (And having some people at work find out how much I weigh?!!! lol, sadly enough, I think this part is what scares me the most!)

 

No Longer Worthless

When I started doing my Net Worth calculations in November it was quite depressing. My net worth was a whopping -$11,141.32. Now we’re in May and for the first time ever I have a POSITIVE Net Worth!!

Here is my summary from the beginning of May:

Debts
Car Loan	$ 3,120.00
Student Loan	$ 29,297.10
CC 1	$ 50.00
CC 2	$ -
Total Debt	$ 32,467.10
Debt % Change	-1.24%
Assets
Checking	$ 1,264.81
Savings	$ 652.82
DP Fund	$ 27,635.58
E Fund	$ 3,163.52
Roth IRA	$ 494.17
401(k)	$ 5,285.85
Total Assets	$ 38,496.75
Asset % Change	12.82%
Net Worth	$ 6,029.65
Total % Change	382.34%

I am proud to say that I am no longer worthless!!! That is not to say that I tie my self-worth to the value of my “assets” ( )…and what does this really get me? Not much, but it feels nice to know that what I have in the bank is greater than what I owe on my student loans! Once I decide to buy a house…that’s a different story. I better enjoy this “worth” while I can!

 

The things we do for money…

Its almost 6 o’clock and I’m still at work…patiently sitting as I wait for my boss to give the “okay” that means we can all go home. Its my first time going through this process; we are “closing out” a project that we will be submitting to a possible client tomorrow.

I guess the title of this post is a little deceptive. People often get the impression that I don’t like my job, mostly because I complain a lot. I do complain, but its mostly my way to cope. In school when I’d have tons of project due the stress would get to me, but I had friends to vent with and we all knew what was going on…I think we all secretly liked school, but didn’t want to admit it to anyone (at least I kinda did! Not enough to do grad school though….)

Now at work, its the same thing….stress comes and goes with deadlines, so when the going gets tough…I get whiny! I’ve tried to stop it, but it just comes out that way! When some of my friends hear this they sometimes ask me, “why don’t you just get another job?” I don’t hate my job, I just gotta vent to someone! =]

I’m less disappointed with my job right now than I’m disappointed with the job I’m doing. While I was never a straight-A student, grades came pretty easily to me. I wouldn’t study much and still get A’s and B’s. All of that is coming back to kick me in the butt…I don’t have to study at this point of my life, but I do have to give it a good effort. I need to work to do a good job, and work for my money, and I tend to forget that at times. I tend to forget that its ok to ask questions, its normal to not know everything, and sometimes those that are “above” me may be just as clueless…so its ok to ASK! Ever since I started in this new position I’ve been feeling insecure, and inadequate….and while they’re “normal” feelings its hard for me to shake them off.

The good thing is that I’m getting a little more confident now. The first project I worked on was a disaster if you ask me (and my boss, I’m sure. I’m embarassed to say that..). This is the second one, and it went slightly better. I didn’t fall apart, but there are still some gaps that I need to work on filling. I guess everything is trial and error, and it ties into a lot of the themes we read about on most of these blogs…that on first view everyone else seems to be doing better than you, but if you take a minute to look at them closely they’re not doing that much differently than yourself.

Update: We were all called in to meet with the boss around 6pm and go over each of our parts to make sure we’d covered everything. We got to my portion of the work and discussed it with him…and at the end before I was dismissed he said “you did well…” Three seemingly insignificant words, but they did wonders!! I guess I’m not a complete waste afterall. =]

Disclaimer: To all the English majors out there, sorry about my atrocious grammar on this post!

 

Shopping…at my company’s expense

Yesterday, I went to the mall!!! It’d been so long since I’d gone, but I don’t feel badly about that part. (unfortunately it was the day before mother’s day, so it was full of frantic men and families looking for anything to get for the mother’s in their lives.)

We went (my mother and I) with a very specific goal, to go to Ann Taylor and check out what they have. In the process I also wanted to check out the inventories at The Limited (I have two $15 off coupons w/ no minimum purchase), Nine West (I’ve been needing a pair of cute and new sandals, plus I like to check out their sales), and Payless (I’ve been needing a pair of cute and new sandals….and I like to pay less. lol. You’d be surprised at the things I’ve bought there!). My mother also wanted to pay her balance at Macy’s.

To spare you all the gory details, we spent most of our time at Ann Taylor Loft. They had a 20%-off-your-entire-purchase sale, and my mom had found a bunch of cute tops during her lunch hour at another location. After about an hour off exhausting rummaging through the racks I found a number of cute tops in my size, yay! (Well, I wasn’t sure what size I was so I had to get two sizes of each style…twice as exhausting) In the end I found 3 shirts I liked and 1 dress, however I had just received my $50 gift card from my company (for completing that health assessment…easiest money EVER!) and I didn’t want to go over that (no fun money left for this week!) It all worked out because one of the shirts really didn’t seem worth the $24 to me, and the dress was slightly on the big side (and I plan on losing some weight. Even a few pounds would have left it looking baggy), leaving only two shirts for $20 each. My total was about $43, still leaving me with a bit of a balance on my card! The great thing is that I can wear these shirts to work, as well as on the weekends…they are super cute!

On another note, I LOVE the new Nine West collection. I was itching to even try on a few of their new pairs, but I was afraid to fall further in love (its like test driving cars….don’t ever drive until you’re ready to buy!).  At $80 each, I can’t afford to fall more deeply in love with them. Plus, how could I ever choose one color over the others?!! I definitely hope those are deeply on sale soon, or that they still have them at DSW when I get my $10 birthday GC from them!

Happy Mother’s Day to any mother’s out there reading this!!

 

Oh NO!! (Gas, once again)

No, not that kind of gas…lol.

I’ve just been told that I have to drive up to my company’s HQ 4 times next week!! That’s right….4 times! I always go on Mondays, and this Tuesday I have to go to meet with a boss to close out a project I’m working on. But then Wednesday and Thursday I have to go for training.

Why oh why?!!!

I’m definitely having a talk with my boss…I need to start expensing gas, even if its just a portion of what I use on Mondays. Like I mentioned before, it costs me about $22 to drive to work…just on Mondays! Multiply that by 4, and its $88. That’s slightly more than half a day’s worth of work!!

Maybe I’m over reacting, but just the thought of having to wake up at the crack of dawn (take that back…before the crack of dawn) to get to work, where I will be stressed out to the max since we’re trying to close on a project, just to have to drive another 2 hours back (eh, its more like 1.5), AND pay $20 each day for gas…AND REPEAT IT ANOTHER 3 TIMES….well, I’m exhausted and aggravated just thinking about it!! In fact, I almost started crying when I read the email. (And then I got a hold of myself and said “get yourself together, woman!!”)

Am I reacting unreasonably? I normally drive 13 miles to work each way (but it takes about 50 minutes to do so with traffic), and I can deal with that. But this is an extra 423 miles we’re talking about here (normally 271 miles a week, 694 miles next week).

I realize this is my job and I gotta do it…so I’m not realistically planning on complaining about having to be over there 4 times in one week (although I will bring up expensing the gas or mileage for my Monday commutes. It does add up.) I just needed a place to vent.  :-/

Is it too early to retire?!

 

May Week 1 Recap

Last week ended really well…with a $34 surplus!! This week didn’t go quite as well. Here’s my spending recap:

5/2 Deposit $75.16
5/2 CVS & cash $21.52 ($53.64 left)
5/3 Cheesecake Factory $38.74 ($14.88 left)
5/4 Walmart $12.99 ($1.89 left) [included 2 kinds of deodorant I'm testing out, 2 pots for my herbs, and floss]
5/4 BK $7.26 (-$5.37 left)

So I’ll be starting off the next week with a $5.37 deficit, plus another $4 that I took from a “stash” because I needed cash for a mystery shop I did this morning. I’ll probably just take out cash tomorrow and replace it right away, but that brings up another question….

I need to figure out how I’m going to handle my mystery shop income…some of it is going to be reimbursements, and I don’t want to throw it together with the savings. Technically this is money I’m taking from my fun money, so I think what I’ll do is pool it into my “overflow” fund (which is where my unused fun money goes at the end of each week).

As for the grocery challenge, I haven’t gone grocery shopping yet!! That would explain why I’ve been eating horribly lately (fast food after work on Monday and Tuesday, no lunch on Monday and Wednesday). I still have food at home, so I want to really take some time and plan what I can use without letting anything spoil….then I’ll go grocery shopping. I need to expand my cooking/food prep creativity!!!

On another front…my boyfriend is no longer un-employed!!! For now, that is. He does freelance work, and he just got a gig for the next 3 months. He’d been pretty bummed out for the past few months about not having money (and increasing debt), but he’s been tied up with projects for school and one of the school organizations. Now that he’s free for the summer this job just fell into his hands. I don’t think it pays much (I didn’t ask him how much they finally decided on paying), but I’m so happy for him…maybe in the future I’ll go more into detail about what he does, but he’s truly following his dreams, and it just makes me so proud.