My Month-Long Experiment: Dining Out

I mentioned in a previous post that I like to have goals of many varieties. One of my most recent goals was to go a full month without spending any money on food outside of groceries. That meant no restaurant or fast food meals, no stopping at a coffee shop for a snack (although I did make an exception for coffee with my pre-loaded Starbucks card), no popping in to 7-11 to buy a candy bar. I didn't do the best job setting up what my rules would be, but all things considered, I think I did pretty well.

Going into the month, I had one planned exception - a coworker and friend was leaving the office, so if a bar or restaurant celebration was planned, I was going to attend. As it turns out, we're still in the planning stages for said celebration, so crisis averted!

Here's how I did:

From January 21 to February 20, I spent $28.59 on restaurants.

February 5 - $19.30 - this was the day before a major event at work, and although I planned to stay a little late, I did not plan on working as late as I did. I took a break with a colleague and went out for Thai food. I knew at the time that I was breaking my own rule, but I felt like it was worth it. Otherwise, I'd have worked for another hour, taken 45 minutes to get home, and arrived at home hangry beyond belief. I'm a delight.

February 17 - $9.29 - my other "failure" during this experiment followed a three-day weekend where I did not leave my apartment. R was on a trip out of state, and we had yet another blizzard so the MBTA wasn't running and I couldn't get anywhere. I didn't really see another human for three days, so when my regular Tuesday night play date rolled around and we were concerned about getting home (neither of us live on lines of the T that were running at that time) we agreed to meet up downtown for dinner. I know we could have brought food and eaten at one of our offices, as we've done in the past, but after three days of solitary confinement, the idea of sitting in a sad dark office eating soup out of tupperware was too much. Worth it.

So, technically, I failed. That said, I did a lot better on food spending than I have in other months, so I'm not feeling too badly about it.

Take-aways:

I realized that with a bit of planning, I never need to spend money on dining out. There are certainly going to be days that I don't plan for, but for my regular routine, I can plan ahead and be just fine. I need to stop using "failed to plan" as a legitimate excuse for dining out.

A lot of my social life revolves around restaurants and bars. There were many reasons that this month was isolating. During the month-long period that I was conducting this experiment, we got about 8 feet of snow. That said, even when things were running as usual, I didn't reach out to people to make plans as I didn't really know what to suggest we do. I'd like to work on this in the future - there's no reason that all of my group outings need to take place "out."

Finally, because I did it a lot less often, the two times I ate meals out felt like special occasions, and it was kind of awesome. I didn't grab lunch somewhere and eat it at my desk. I didn't go out for dinner three times in a week and never really enjoy it. Each time I made a special exception to go out to eat, it felt more special.

So even though I may have failed, I learned a lot from this experiment and will be carrying on with limiting my dining out spending.

How do you value time v. money?

For anyone not living in the arctic tundra formerly known as Boston, you may not be aware of how crazy things have been lately. We've received over seven feet of snow in less than a month, and our aging public transit system, the T, has not been able to keep up. I won't speak to the policy and politics behind all of this - I'm not well informed enough on those issues to speak with any authority - but it's brought to my mind a major question: How do I value my time?

Look, snow!

Rewind to Tuesday night.

I live on an above-ground line of the T, and after our most recent blizzard, the above ground trains weren't running. I run-commuted (ran-commuted? ran?) to work on Tuesday morning to avoid dealing with the transit mess, but Tuesday evening I still had to get home, and running again wasn't an option. Instead, I figured out which busses were running and were most likely to get me home efficiently. I walked to a bus stop, waited about an hour for the bus, got on and rode to the next destination where I waited another half hour or so, and finally boarded a bus that would take me within half a mile of my home. All told, it took me close to three hours to get home.

I commute in style

All the time that I was standing in the cold, in the dark, with one very wet foot (I had run to work, so I didn't have my boots and was instead wearing running shoes. Stepping in a freezing puddle in running shoes is not something I'd recommend, and standing outside for an hour after doing so is what most people would call "foolish."), I found myself thinking about time and money.

On the occasions that I've taken a cab home from the office, it's usually cost me about $20. I haven't done this in many months as I've been focused on getting my spending under control, and it hasn't seemed worth it to save half an hour by spending that much. On Tuesday night, though, I think I should have changed my tune. Admittedly, with traffic as bad as it has been, a cab probably would have cost me a lot more, but I also probably would have been a lot less miserable and that is worth something. Actually, I think that's worth a lot.

Let's assume a cab would have taken about half an hour to get me home, and cost $40. It would have saved me two and a half hours. I would have paid about $16 per hour saved. So the question becomes, would that be worth it?

I don't have an answer for you. This is a question that's been on my mind a lot this week. We have student employees in my office who are so desperate to get to work they're paying $60 for Uber rides, when they'll only earn $30 during their shift. We have other student's who've opted to get to work 3 hours early to avoid the morning rush, or who have walked 4 miles through the slush to be on time. None of it is necessarily wrong or right, and after living in this mess for a while, none of it seems crazy to me. It just makes me think.

What is your time worth? These days, I think my time is worth more than $16 per hour, especially if it means getting me out of the cold. That said, I still haven't been willing to bite the bullet and pay for a cab, and the T is slowly returning to normal.

Mid-Month Mint: February

Let's take a look at my Mint pie chart for February so far:

As you can see, this month looks a little different than previous months. First off, it's worth mentioning that my student loan payment hasn't happened yet, so that will shift things around significantly. Second, there's a category here that I haven't seen in a while: travel.

I've mentioned a few times that I have a dedicated travel savings account, and this month was the first time that I put it to use, as I booked a cross-country plane ticket for May! I think this was the first time I've booked a trip with dedicated funds set aside to pay for it, and it felt pretty great. I don't have to worry about cutting down in other areas to pay my credit card bill this month; instead I can focus on continuing to contribute to my travel fund for the other trips I want to book and the expenses outside of the literal travel to get places. This feels like a huge step!

Health and fitness also makes an appearance here, as I've signed up for my second half marathon, taking place in late May. It was a less expensive race than my first one, and I think it will be fun. If my travel fund allows, I might even go a day early to the town where the race is taking place to avoid having to rent a car and deal with driving and parking. I'll have to see what work looks like that weekend, but it would certainly be more enjoyable that way.

Food and dining is a smaller piece of the pie this month, as I've been focused on not eating out for any meals - I'll talk more about that in a later post.

In all, February is going well spending-wise, and I'm hopeful that I can keep up the good work!

My one-out, one-in policy for clothes

An area of my budget that I often find myself struggling in is clothing. And it's funny, because I don't really enjoy shopping or clothing all that much. Actually, I really dislike shopping - I find the whole experience overwhelming. Regardless of that, I somehow end up buying clothes every month or so that I don't need, I don't wear, and I ultimately don't even want. Why do I keep doing that?

In an effort to continue my loan payments while also enjoying my life with occasional outings and trips, I took a look at my spending and my priorities, and it became really obvious what area I would be most willing to cut back or even cut out entirely: clothes.

I've never kept a lot of clothing around, and I recently did a pretty major purge of my wardrobe. I share a single closet with my boyfriend, so there simply isn't a lot of room for extra, unnecessary stuff.

Our closet

The rest of my wardrobe

These images sum up pretty much all of the clothing I own right now, with the exception of shoes, outerwear and underwear. There are a few items in the hamper, but otherwise, what you see is what I've got. It's not much.

When I first toyed with the idea of cutting back on my clothing spending, I thought maybe I could do what Mrs. Frugalwoods did - cut out clothes shopping for an entire year. I realized pretty quickly that that wouldn't work. My wardrobe is just the right size, but if something wears out, I don't have much of a choice but to replace it!

Instead, what I've decided to adopt is a "one-out, one-in" policy when it comes to clothes for the next year (and beyond!). That means if something has to go out, I'm allowed to bring something else in. Otherwise, I'll work with what I've got.

A couple of key rules:

• If I can reasonable mend an item or do without it, it doesn't need to be replaced.
• An unexpected "occasion" is not a reason to buy a new outfit - I can work with what I have, or borrow from a friends
• The exception to this rule would be a job interview
• I can replace my running shoes, once
• Finally, if I do change jobs and need to step up my work wardrobe, it will be on an "as-needed" basis, with a very strict budget

I think that about sums it up! I'm hoping that this new rule will help give me some structure in my spending decisions, and allow me to free up the extra for loans, travel and enjoying myself!

How do you manage clothes spending? I've never really had a system before, but I know plenty of people budget monthly or annually for clothing.

And I know things now, many valuable things, that I hadn't known before

Did anyone else see Into the Woods? I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it! But, I actually am here today to write about some lessons I've learnt, albeit a little too late.

1. Pay your loans while you're in school - if there's one thing that I would without a doubt go back and change, this would be it. It would have been so simple to pay even just a little bit on my stafford loans while I was in college, and it would have saved me quite a bit in interest. I don't dwell on it, because what would be the point, but every now and then I read or hear about someone much smarter than me doing just that. If not paying while you're in school, at least paying while you're in your 6 month grace period could make a big difference!
2. Don't take more than you need - I took out loans my first year living off campus to cover my housing expenses, only to realize that I was earning enough in my part time job to pay a large chunk of my rent. That extra money ended up sitting in my savings account depreciating, and now I'm paying interest on loans that I didn't necessarily need.
3. Think long and hard about what you study - I know. I know. I know this is covered by every single person telling you how to get the most out of college. I got a degree in theatre. I knew going into it that it wasn't a lucrative option, but I did it anyway. It's not something I regret, but if I were to go back? Maybe I'd add a double major in something a bit more practical, or even taken some summer classes or electives that would beef up the "skills" portion of my resume.
4. Consider where you choose to go, as well - Going to a private liberal arts college is not something I regret or would change. At all. My financial picture would be different had I gone somewhere else, but so would my entire life and worldview. That's not to say that financially it was the wisest decision, and frankly at the time, all I knew was that this was my dream school and I was going to make it work. I'm glad I did, but that doesn't mean it was smart.

These are little things. And you'll read them on any list of finance tips for high school seniors or college students. I think sometimes we see things like this, but because we've seen them so often, we ignore them and move on, they become like white noise while we search for ways to earn more and pay faster so we can spend more.

Like I said, I can't change any of this for myself, but if you're early enough along in your student loan journey to be able to consider these things, don't tune it out.

What would you change about your past financial self? If you had access to a time machine, would you use it? I probably wouldn't - I'd be too scared of changing everything that I'm so happy with now!

Later this week, I'll focus on the positive.

Mid-Month Mint: January 2015

Let's go ahead and make this a series, shall we?

This month, my Mint pie (that does not sound delicious) is not looking too great:

That "home" section is really taking over - stupid table. You'll also notice that the education slice is a bit underwhelming. Don't worry, I'm not going back on my word already and paying less on my loan. I made a payment at the beginning of January for half of my Stafford loan, and I'm making the other half at the start of next week. I also just sent a check for my family loan, so that will be reflected next week as well.

The food and dining section and shopping sections are, as usual, where I need to focus my energies. I'll talk more later this week about my plans for getting those under control. Particularly when it comes to shopping, I've got a fairly rigid idea in mind, and one that I think I'll actually be able to stick to!

In all, the chart above isn't really surprising to me, but it is helpful to look at my spending like this, and see how one or two decisions can really impact my financial picture. I'll check in on this again at the end of the month, so we can see how the categories hopefully shift a bit.

No, it won't "all work itself out" - my attitude problem

I have an attitude problem when it comes to my finances.

I have a nasty tendency to think that things will work themselves out. Basically, if I ignore the problem, it will go away. I'm about to drop some knowledge here - the problem will not go away on its own.

Last week, I impulsively purchased a table. This week, I accidentally spent more than I planned to at drinks with friends. I'm still paying my loans at the rate I planned to, that's not the concern here. The concern is that I'm not entirely sure where the money is coming from. It'll all get paid, on time, but it's going to be a much tighter month, and I probably won't be able to transfer anything extra to my vacation account. A little over a month ago when I opened a second bank account, I planned to put the extra $100 incentive toward my loans - that money is now going to go toward my credit card.

I don't regret these purchases, necessarily. It's the attitude that's a problem. It's the attitude that says, "Future Becca will figure this out." So far, it's always worked out, but I'm setting myself up for failure here. There will, without a doubt, come a day when Future Becca can't bail me out of whatever nonsense I get myself into. That is, if I continue with things the way I have been. So I won't.

Here's where I make a declaration: I am going to change my attitude, and my actions. I am no longer going to defer to my mysterious future self to solve my problems and make my bad decisions go away. I won't be perfect, but I'll try harder and I'll eradicate from my mind the idea that "it will all work itself out."

An impulse purchase

With a new year beginning, and all of these resolutions whirring about, you would think I'd have a little more self-restraint. Alas, you'd be wrong.

I moved into my apartment a year and a half ago. At the time, it was just me, but I knew that my boyfriend would be joining me over the summer, so I found a place that, while small, would comfortably house the two of us. When he eventually moved in, we moved some things around, made some small changes, found a place to keep his bike, but for the most part, everything stayed the same. That changes today.

Our kitchen table up until now is a piece I inherited from my mom - it's an oval shaped drop leaf table, and the supports extend diagonally to hold up the leaves on either side. It's a great table, but more and more we've been finding that it doesn't suit our needs. It's not the most comfortable for dining, and it's definitely not designed to seat more than two people comfortably. So with that in mind, we decided to purchase a new table, and it's coming today!

Of course, the flip side to this is that the new table (and chairs, because the ones we have now are the cheapest ikea chairs I could find while I was in college) ran us about $300, and it's an expense that *gasp* I didn't budget for. I know I should have waited and saved up for a couple of months to purchase it, but I wanted it now. Not a good reason, not a good practice, and I know it's something I need to work on. When I decide I want something, I can get a bit obsessive. I was the same way with my bicycle, but you know what? $500 later, I have a great bike that I rode quite a bit in the fall and I'm excited to pick back up in the spring!

So, I could beat myself up over the table. I'll have to borrow from my savings to pay off my credit card this month, probably, and that's not a great feeling. But what's done is done, and I'm excited to have something that's ours, not mine. We're keeping the old table, folded down, and we're going to try to find a way to store the old chairs as well, so we suddenly have twice as much seating and we can host more humans in our apartment. Maybe I should feel guilty about all this, but I don't.

My New Years money resolutions

Until last year, I hadn't been one for New Years resolutions. I made them, certainly, but they were always vague, and mildly impossible. Last year, instead of ambiguous big picture items, I made concrete goals. Most of them were a reach, but none of them were totally out of the question. Looking back at the things I've done this year, I think I did a great job!

For this year, I'm focused a lot on my finances, with a couple of other goals thrown in for kicks (and to keep myself from turning into a robot). So, here they are:

• get my stafford loans under 9k - if I pay according to the plan in place now, I'll be under 10k, but I'd like to believe I can do better than that. It's about reaching, after all, and if I don't succeed, I'll still have paid off more than I would have otherwise.
• find a way to earn from a creative side hustle, whether knitting on etsy, writing, or some other wort of creative work.
• learn a new skill, preferably a marketable one. Whether it's something I learn at work, through a professional development class, or by teaching myself, I'd like to walk away this year with something learned.
• take advantage of my employer match for my 403(b). That will kind of happen automatically, but it's still a big deal. This is assuming I stay at my current job through at least July, or that my new employer considers time previously served.
• don't spend beyond my travel budget. I've been contributing for the past few months to a travel savings account, and I'll continue to do so. By this summer, I'll have several hundred dollars saved, which is what I'll use to find my airfare and any housing costs for my trips. When I run out, I'll ever have to find it elsewhere in my budget (lighten the grocery load, spend less on entertainment, etc) or else stop traveling, period. Which means I'd better figure out where I want to go, how much I'll need to save, and get on that!
• open and contribute to a holiday/birthday savings account. I don't buy for a lot of people, but it sure will be nice to be able to pull from there instead of trying to scrape money together each time something comes up. As more of my friends start getting married, this will also be the one for wedding/shower gifts. Man, having friends and family is expensive...
• continue to use mint to track finances regularly

So, a kind of long list, and it doesn't take into account my other resolutions/goals, but in general, I feel pretty good about it. Most of it is just taking what I'm already doing and stepping it up a notch. All in all, I think it's going to be a good year.

Happy 2015 everyone!

Mid-month Mint

I use Mint to track my expenses. Here's what my pie (yum) for December looks like so far:

As you can see, home and education are the biggest pieces, with food and dining coming in third.This is probably a pretty typical pie for me, although some months entertainment is bigger, and in the summer, travel is a piece of that as well.

One of the things I love about Mint is being able to look at my spending for the week, the month, the year, etc. My pie for 2014 so far looks more like this:

In the last few months I've gotten more serious about cutting back my spending in all areas, but especially food and dining and entertainment. I'm excited to see how my pie will differ in 2015!

Frugal Hobby Highlight

I'm something of a homebody. When people asked me about my weekend, even before I picked up a weekend job, I would struggle to come up with more than one thing I did with other humans. I just like spending time alone, at my home. That said, even I like doing things. And I like it even more when they don't cost money.

One of my favorite hobbies is almost entirely free - running. There are some associated start-up costs (shoes, attire), and it's possible to make it a very expensive sport (watches and heart rate monitors, coaching, races, etc.), but generally speaking it's pretty affordable. This year, I trained for and completed my first half marathon, and the expenses were as follows:

• new shoes: $65
• race entry fee: $100
• travel to race: $100

That's it. This was over the course of four months, and I found room for these expenses in my entertainment budget.

Plus, I got a metal and a shiny cape.

I could have done it cheaper - I could have found a less expensive race, one that didn't require me to travel anywhere. I chose to run the Runners World Half Marathon because it's in my hometown, and because from everything I'd read, it sounded like they put on a great race. And they did! I had the most incredible weekend, and I got to spend it with my family. Absolutely worth the added costs, especially since I didn't travel home for Thanksgiving.

A spending update

Man, blogging is hard. I should probably try to post more than once a week, huh? I'll just have to come up with some interesting things to post about.

This week, I get again failed at some of my goals, but yet again, that's okay. I did a little better than last week, but let's take a look at where exactly I left things:

• Well, I didn't drink two liters of water daily, but it did come closer than last week. Not exactly a win, but I'll take it.
• I also didn't finish all my shopping (I know, that's bad) but I'm closer. I'm baking with my brother, so for him I'm buying groceries and I'll do that when I get to PA so I don't have to schlep everything with me. I haven't started my Dad's hat, but I at least found a pattern that won't take too long to make. I need to pay for Ruben's passport, but that can't really happen until he fills out the application. I guess what I'm saying is, I bought one present this week, for my sister, and made mediocre progress on everything else.
• Eating out actually was pretty successful this week. I went out for drinks twice instead of once, but the total amount I spent was under $30 for both, which was what I had planned to spend at once. Not technically a success, but not bad.
• Finally, I succeeded in keeping my grocery budget down by working with things I have on hand, and really only buying things that were on sale for future use - pasta, oatmeal, flour.

So, a better job than last week to be sure. This week is going to be a challenge, though. I have plans to go out almost every night, and I'm traveling this weekend to visit friends, so there will be a bit of spending there too. Because of that, I'm going to try to be a bit more flexible with my goals. So:

• Spend less than $80 in CT, including gas money for the friend driving me, and whatever my share of groceries, wine, and entertainment for the weekend comes to. I'll probably take this out in cash to be sure I stick to it.
• Less than $30 on food and drinks out during the week. I don't know yet (and have no control over) where we're going for any of my plans this week, so hopefully that will work...
• Drink two liters of water daily. I think this is the first of many weeks that I really make that happen.
• Make my dad's hat
• Post 3 times on the blog

How I did this week

My goals this week were to not spend money on eating out or drinking, and to drink 2 liters of water every day. I did... Okay. Well, if you consider failing all three to be okay. To be fair, drinking water is my goal every single week, and I have yet to achieve it for a full week straight. Maybe this week will be the one...

I came very close to not spending any money on food out this week, but yesterday I needed second breakfast after my run, and the yogurt I had at my office was long expired so I ended up buying a bagel. So, I spent $2.77 (wow, that's a lot for a bagel with cream cheese) and didn't spend the morning feeling miserable and cranky. This weekend, I'll pick up more yogurts so I can avoid that outcome in the next couple of weeks.

I also ended up going out for drinks on Thursday night with a friend I dint see very often. I spent more than I should have, putting down $25 for two cocktails, but I at least had the foresight to eat dinner at the office. We went to a pretty pricey spot, so dinner easily would have doubled what I paid. That said, I could have been just fine with water, or drinking beer instead of cocktails, and really cut down my costs.

Other unexpected expenditures this week: I signed up for a race in February, running me about $35, and I bought a few impulse kitchen items on Amazon. I am making a lot of cookies as gifts, and decided that I should have more sheets and cooling racks so I can be a bit more efficient. Necessary? Absolutely not. Foolish? Probably. Will I enjoy and use them? Definitely.

In all, not a bad week.

Goals for the coming week are:

• Finish Christmas shopping - still need to get gifts for my sister, brother, and boyfriend. And make my dad's gift.
• Drink 2 liters of water daily
• Only one day with money spent on food/drinks out (planned for Friday)
• Keep grocery costs under $50 - last week was a bit pricey, picking up a lot of ingredients for a lot of cookies. Let's rein it back in.

Things I (believe I) will always spend on

Living frugally is one of the major keys in making my debt repayment plan happen. I've been pretty frugal all throughout my life, and especially in college and since graduating. I've never amassed any credit card debt and I work hard to consider whether things I'm purchasing are "worth" my money - I even wrote my honors thesis in college about the difference between value and price!

That said, there are some things that are important to me, and that I'm willing to spend money on even though they might be beyond what most would consider necessities. In the interest of full disclosure, here are some of those things:

• Groceries - I do what I can to keep our grocery cost low, shopping seasonally and planning meals around sales when possible. That said, I also enjoy cooking and eating well, and I value my nutrition. Most of my grocery spending happens in the produce department and the baking aisle, where I find many of the supplies to make healthy meals from scratch for my boyfriend and I. In addition to "normal" cooking, I make all of our bread and almond butter, I keep a freezer stocked with soup and other frozen meals, and I am constantly looking into other ways to introduce fewer processed foods into our diets, even if it means spending a bit more.
• Netflix and HuluPlus - we don't have cable, but we have both of these relatively inexpensive subscription services. And frankly, I think that's okay. I rarely spend money on entertainment, but having a huge variety of shows and movies available on demand makes a major difference in my quality of life. Worth the >$20/month in my opinion.
• Shoes and clothes - not in the sense that I have a lot or enjoy shopping, actually quite the opposite. I maintain a relatively small wardrobe and I don't shop often, but when I do, I try to focus on quality. I buy items that I think will last and that I will enjoy for years to come, even if they are more expensive than some alternatives that would keep me just as clothed.
• Occasional travel - my family is spread out all over the country, and my boyfriend's family lives in California. This means that seeing either of our families almost always involves a plane, train or bus. Neither of us would be willing to give up the expenses associated with seeing them at least twice a year, although we try to do it cheaply. We're also planning a real vacation for next summer to Montreal. We'll do it on a budget, but it's certainly not a necessity.

I know that none of these are necessary expenses, or at least not to the degree that I spend my money on them. Right now, I'm comfortable with what I spend in each of these areas, and that's good because I'd really rather not adjust in any of these areas. That said, knowing that these are areas where I could cut back also means that in leaner times, I know the first places to look for extra money in my budget.

What I'm doing

My plan to pay my loans is pretty aggressive. I really hate being saddled with debt, so although some internet sources would suggest that investing is better (I might earn more investing than I'll lose in interest), I am fully committing to paying my loans as quickly as possible before I focus on anything else. The only exception to that is contributing to my employer's 403(b) plan at 3% of my pre-tax salary. I'm not eligible for a match yet, but I like that I've started a very very modest retirement account, and in July when I become eligible for a match I won't have to increase my contribution at all.

In order to be so aggressive with my payments, I've done a few key things over the last few months, and I'll do a few more to both cut expenses and earn additional income:

• I picked up a second job. On the weekends, I work between 5 and 13 hours at the same part time job I had in college. This means I'm earning a bit, and it also keeps me from spending much on the weekends; a win-win. The job is low stress, at an organization I'm happy to give my time to, and comes with a pretty great perk - free theatre tickets at various points throughout the year!
• I maximize cash back deals as much as possible, without spending money I wouldn't otherwise. This means that groceries always go on the card that gets me 6%, and when I can get 10% rewards at Starbucks, I reload my card to last me several months. I also pay in full every month, so this is basically free money.
• I pack my lunch every day. I also pack snacks, and for the days when I know I'll need it (workout days, or when I'm going out after work) I'll pack a second breakfast and/or dinner. It means a lot of Tupperware to clean, but it's also hundreds of dollars a month I'm saving, not to mention the health benefits.
• Almost every bit of extra money goes to loans. I try to save $50-100 per month for upcoming travel expenses, as I have several small trips planned for the summer and I want to be able to pay for airfare without cutting back on my loan payments. Other than that, any extra money leftover or any gifts, rewards, or unexpected cash goes to loans.

Right now, my boyfriend (and roommate) isn't earning much, so I'm covering the bulk of our living expenses. Next year (academic year), that will hopefully change, and he will take on most of our financial obligations for a year. We haven't figured out exactly what that split will look like, but I anticipate that he'll at least be covering half the rent. That alone will make a huge difference in what I'm paying toward loans, but for now I can't count on anything more than that. My goal of paying my loans before I'm 27 is with that in mind, but I'm stubborn enough that, should something in our relationship or individual job statuses change, I will do everything in my power to stick to my goal.

I'll write more about my budget at a later date, but, spoiler alert, I try to keep my expenses as low as possible.