My "No Moving Home" Fund

Despite knowing the importance of an emergency fund, and growing mine this year, I am pretty confident that I won't need it.  After all, grad school is a stable source of income and support, and I have good medical insurance (seeing as I'm still on my parents' plan for now).  So I thought of my emergency fund as a nebulous thing that I wouldn't need for 5 more years, just in case I can't find a postdoc position or there's a gap between defending and my start date.

But this semester I started thinking about whether I'm going to stick all the way to the PhD.  Maybe I'll leave and just teach? Maybe something else will come up?  Classes have sucked and I know that's a big influence, so I'm not going to make that decision until I have my Master's in hand (another 1.5 years), but the thought is there.

Simultaneously I've been thinking a lot more about my relationship with my parents lately.  And how much I do not want to move home (visiting can even be a challenge).  And then it occurred to me, that this was the reason to have an emergency fund.  So that I can continue to live on my own for several months while I transition to a new position, if my path changes that drastically.  In the same way that some folks build up an "F You" fund so they can leave their job with some security, my emergency fund is my backup plan to stay independent if I choose to pursue non-academic goals.

I feel like the money I'm socking away "just in case" has more of a purpose now, and that gives me more reason to stick money in the account. There's probably some discipline to saving with no purpose, but I'm glad to have an idea of where this might go.

That was easy.

I have a retirement fund! Registered on a whim (sorta) on a Saturday night in less time than it will take me to post about it.  Woo!

It wasn't truly on a whim because I've been thinking about getting my retirement funds off the ground for a while now. This is basically half of my summer savings goal.  For right now, the amount matters less to me than actually starting the account.  Which is a Roth IRA at Vanguard, in case you're wondering.  Their STAR fund has a $1000 minimum and waives the $20/year fee if you register for electronic statements, making it easy for me to jump in and start saving.  

Get Rich Slowly calls the STAR a "mutual fund of mutual funds, a safe choice for beginners."  Right now, I'm don't want to be hands-on with my money.  I want to set it and forget it, as much as possible, because there are so many other things going on in my life.  Plus, I have little desire to get involved with the stock market, and little knowledge* about investing. 

Opening the account was simple and straightforward.  I needed my Social Security Number and bank info (and money in said bank account).  It took me about 10 minutes.  And starting it is the thing.  It's there, its easy to access.  I can set up a regular payment, and start seriously saving.  

This feels like the first big step I've taken into adulthood.  I'm taking control of something that's not school or one of the basic needs in life.  My parents always handled savings.  I knew they were active savers - I saw them meet their financial adviser, and they talked about saving for retirement, and I heard them talk about our college funds - but I wasn't really involved.  Now I'm looking to the long term for myself, which makes me feel kinda weird, actually, because I know most other people my age aren't doing that.  But I feel good about this - I'm starting to take charge of my future and claim my independence.


*a dangerous thing, I know.

Summer Goals

Classes are over; I've (mostly) recovered from the trial-by-fire final project from one of them.  After a research presentation on Wednesday and moving on Friday (!), I'll be set to roll into summer.  40 hours of research a week, and chilling out the rest of the time? Seems good to me.

Except I won't totally be chilling out.  I've got Things to do.  Here are my goals for the summer, both work and personal.  Some are lofty, some are mundane.  All are probably too general, but for now...

1. Work hard and efficiently at research.  This is why I'm here.  Subgoals:  Get the paper from my undergrad project submitted and through revisions (that depends a bit on collaborators and reviewers).   Get the paper for my current project finished by the time I go to a conference at the end of the summer (in France!)

2. Get my NY residency squared away and transfer all my mail, etc, up here.  I'm no longer a dependent on my parents for tax purposes, so I'm ready to transition away from MD being my primary residence.

3. Get my savings in order.  I set aside some money throughout this year, but didn't do anything with it besides stick it in the bank.  I have a mutual fund that is wanting for contributions, and I want to open a retirement account.  Subgoals: talk to HR since they sent me a letter about retirement plans, and research said plans.

4. Sort some personal stuff out that's currently keeping me from dating anyone, and some other stuff that's screwing up my relationship with my parents.  These might be the same stuff; I'm not yet sure.

5. Eat or preserve everything in my CSA share each week.

I plan on posting about 2, 3, & 5, for sure.  The CSA starts in 2 weeks; I'm probably most excited for that.  2, 3, & 4 are about me trying to figure out how the heck to be an adult.  Should be a fun Summer! :)

Food budget(ing)

At the beginning of January, I switched to an envelope system for my food spending.  I had planned to do this in the fall, but never got around to it.  I had given myself a $200/month budget for groceries and the farmer's market, and I figured I was probably in the ballpark.  At any rate, after my once-a-month grocery trip was complete I parceled out the remainder of the $200 for January into an envelope and tacked it to the wall.

And by halfway through January, I was below $20.  Oops.

I can say that I basically made it through that month without spending much more, but that's because I went on a ski trip with some other graduate students and paid for food there, not out of my 'grocery' budget.  I did commandeer all of the leftovers because no one else wanted to haul them home, but that's a small blessing.

I cut back in February and March, with ~$70-80 left over at the end of each month.  I only went to 4th St Food CoOp in February, and only to Trader Joe's in March.  Usually I go to 4th St and either TJ's or Whole Foods at the beginning of every month.  I also started out saying that I would be more careful at the market, and avoid some of the inherently expensive foods like baby spinach.

It worked, but almost too well.  The leftover budget from February and March will last me until May.  This despite buying greens frequently.  My overall market spending has gotten cut way back, which is promising from a budgetary standpoint and less-so from a health standpoint.  I really haven't been getting enough fruits and veggies.  It's getting better now as spring greens are coming in and there's a new, less-expensive greens stand at the market, but I wasn't able to motivate myself to spend a lot of time cooking winter dishes from the market. 

I got lazy about eating out, which I need to rein in for reasons both monetary and sustainable.  I also skipped meals a couple of times.  Unintentionally, but I'm still not really happy with that.  Hopefully as spring (slowly) gets in gear, I can get out of this food funk and back on the right track. 

I have to go shopping

For the record, this is not an I-love-shopping, closet-full-of-clothes-but-nothing-to-wear, fashionista 'have to'.  This is an oh-crap-I-don't-fit-in-my-clothes-anymore 'have to'.

Over spring break I went back to my parents house, and I cleaned out nearly everything that I had left in my closet.  I brought a few old summer clothes that still fit back to NYC, but nearly everything in the closet was dressy/business casual clothes or summer clothes.  Then, on Saturday, I partially went through my closet here.  And lo and behold, I filled another big bag with pants, sweaters, and skirts that don't fit me because I've lost 25+ pounds since the last time I wore them.  There are probably at least a dozen more items that should go, and they will when I lose a little more weight.

There's no option here - I can't just wear something a little loose or a little tight, and go on with my time.  This is skirts with waistbands that just fall from where they're supposed to sit, even with elastic.  It's shirts that hang loose where they used to skim curves.  I know enough about fashion to be embarrassed about wandering out looking baggy. 

Meep.

Help.

I don't like shopping.  Fashion is mostly a mystery to me.  I feel awkward being the jeans-and-tshirts/sweaters girl everywhere I go, and I'd like to fix that, but that requires money, time, and clothing sense.

My closet is forcing me into spending that money and time.  And to spend wisely, I've somehow got to gain some clothing sense. 

I'm looking into a capsule/minimalist wardrobe.  Both for time/money/space reasons and because city living seems to have an affect on my waistline without a lot of effort on my part.  I foresee some more weight loss coming this summer and I don't want to buy a whole new wardrobe now that I might have to toss out in 6 months.  Plus, since I'm going to try to do most of the shopping at thrift stores, the fewer items I need to hunt for, the better.

So right now I'm trying to come up with an outline for my personal style (!?!) and a list of items to make up a summer wardrobe.

Then I just need to find a patient friend to keep me sane while shopping.  Hoo boy.

To CSA, or not to CSA?

My favorite farm stand at the Greenmarket had CSA sign-up sheets out this morning.  I have one sitting next to me, blank and waiting.  I have to put a deposit down on Feburary 3rd.  But I can't decide whether I actually want to do this.

I'd order a half-share.  That's $260 for 26 weeks, starting the first week of June.  I'm also debating a fruit add-on, which would cost an additional $130.  So that would be $10-15/week.  I'm spending at least that much now on produce each week, so from a money standpoint this would be a good move.

On the one hand, I like the idea of being forced to try new things by having them on hand.  Particularly in the summer, when I'll have more time to cook and experiment, I think that will be pretty exciting.  Although I can see the week that the "featured item" is eggplant or hot peppers being an unhappy one.

On the other hand, I've heard from many other folks about getting way too much produce in their CSA box each week.  I'm one person, with very little food preservation knowledge at present.  There will be additional cost and labor.  I forsee that a CSA share would also involve me buying more freezer containers (at minimum), a dehydrator (likely), and possibly canning equipment (least likely, but apparently another girl in my department knows how to can so maybe...). 

Also, I don't have a good temperature-controlled space to store food in.  Our apartment tends to be very warm, but if we live a window open overnight the temperature drops by a lot.  So storing garlic and onions will be a challenge, since they barely last a month as it is, and potatoes and carrots usually don't last a week before they get soft and start rotting.

Decisions, decisions.

Learn to Love Interlibrary Loan

Frugality blogs always encourage using your local library rather than buying books.  However, I'm continually surprised how many people don't realize that you aren't limited to the books housed in the library building closest to you.  There are 3 different forms of interlibrary loan, or ILL, services ready to help you out. 

Well, the first form isn't really ILL, and most people do know about it.  Usually, public libraries or university libraries don't exist in isolation.  Your local library is most likely a branch: one location of many that all share a catalog.  Public universities will be linked to the other libraries in the state system.  Certain holdings technically belong to each branch, but you can order books, CDs, and DVDs from anywhere in the system, through the library's website.  It's right in the catalog page - usually its the "Place a Hold" button.  Then you select what branch you want to pick the item up at.  And voila!  3-10 days later, you've got your book. 

Then there's the do-it-yourself version of ILL.  My college was networked with about 50 other colleges and universities in our state, and in Maryland all of the county libraries are linked.  Basically, there will be a separate system that you have to log into with your library card, and you can search all the network catalogs simultaneously.  If it finds the book, you can request it to be sent to your local library.  This can take anywhere from a week to a couple of months. 

Not every library is part of one of these systems, unfortunately - NYPL doesn't have one so far as I can tell, although they're a massive library to begin with.  And even when a library is in a network, patrons might not know about it.  My college promoted the service like crazy, but it was only a few years ago that I managed to access the Maryland one, called Marina.  It can be really great though - in the three years between discovering Marina and moving away, I ordered at least 30 books through it.

Finally, traditional Interlibrary Loan service is for those hard-to-find books that aren't available through the other two methods.  Find the form (here's the one for NYPL), log in, and give all the details about what you're looking for.  That form goes to a person (or office of people) whose job is to search all the libraries in the country for that thing you're looking for.  And it doesn't matter what you want, as long as it's been in print for at least 6-12 months (most libraries won't loan out recent releases because their duty is to their own patrons first).  I used to think you could only bother the ILL people for important research materials, but then I discovered that students at my college requested everything from class textbooks to romance novels.  These people want to find books for you!

These services are there for you as long as you're a member of your local library, and they're almost always free.  You can get any book you want, as long as you're willing to wait.  Intra-system requests take about as long as standard shipping from an online seller, and I'll admit to filling my online shopping fix by "shopping" the NYPL catalog ;-)  One word of caution though: you can typically only renew ILL books once, if at all, and the fines will be higher.  So don't take out too many at once. 

The cost of a haircut

Back in May, 6 days after graduating from college, I took a leap I've been wanting to take for about 10 years.

I cut my hair off.

Not all of it.  But quite a bit, especially if you compare to the length it was in 10th grade, when I got 18 inches cut off and it still sat at my chin.  My hair has fluctuated between mid-ear length and ~shoulder length since then. But this was different.  There was no turning back from this haircut.  My longest strands were about 3-3.5 inches in May - and last Sunday's haircut left nothing longer than maybe 2 inches. 

The benefits?  I love every one:

• I look older.  Someday, this may bother me.  Right now, (almost) nobody questions that I'm over 21 anymore.  And even if I dress a little casually, I don't look like an undergrad when I TA.
• I only shampoo my hair every other day, so I only spend half as much on shampoo.
• I don't use conditioner any more.  I don't need it, because my hair is too short to get frizzy like it used to.
• Breakage isn't a problem.  My hair doesn't tangle or snag, so it doesn't break.  That means it doesn't get frizzy, either.
• I don't need to buy product for my hair, and then remember to use it every day.
• No blow drying! Or straightening! Granted, rarely did either, but the result was a messy mane when my hair got long.  

My point is that I like how my hair looks without the effort.

However, there are downsides:

• I have to at least get it wet every morning.  Otherwise I look like something the cat dragged in because it goes everywhere while I sleep.
• It dries ridiculously fast.  This is great when I've combed it and styled it before it dries.  Less so when I forget.  The day I left the house without combing it? Not. Good.
• I pay an uncomfortable amount to get it cut.   The exact amount fluctuates; let's just say it's >$50.

The last one is where the cost-benefit analysis part of this is the hardest to deal with.  On the one hand, I could grow my hair out and get it cut straight across every few months at a cheap salon.  Maybe long layers.  (I don't trust cheap places with my short hair, because short hair makes a bad haircut more obvious, and good stylists go places they can get paid better.)  And then I could put the day-to-day effort to make it look nice.

I'm not sure whether the product to make long hair look nicer would be cheaper.  My guess is probably yes, since I have to get it cut about every 6 weeks (and that's pushing it).  So, I'm cutting it twice as often, for at least twice as much as a Hair Cuttery (for example).

For the most part, that's worth it to me.  I hate having to spend time on my hair, so having to remember to schedule (and budget for) an appointment once every 6 weeks is a blessing.  But since I'm trying to save money, I still feel a little bit guilty about what I'm paying.

Culture on the (relatively) cheap

When I moved to NYC, I was really excited to check out all the great performances in the city.  Unfortunately, a lot of those cultural experiences are pretty expensive.  This has not deterred me, however, from going to the Metropolitan Opera and to Broadway.  Both have ways to get cheap tickets if you nose around enough.  (Although admittedly, cheap is a relative term here)

The Met has a few different options for acquiring cheap seats.  Thus far, I've only sat in seats with a partially obstructed view.  You miss a little bit of the action, but the family circle box seats have excellent acoustics.  When I saw Carmen, an old man sitting near us said he always got those seats because the sound is the best in the house.  Another option is purchasing family circle seats (the highest level in the opera house) way ahead of time - I already have tickets for a February performance that cost the same as the box seats I sat in last month.  Those were $30 each, plus some annoying ticket fees that jacked it up to $40.  Other shows have less expensive tickets though - Turandot, for example, has $20 box seats.

Two other Met options that I haven't taken advantage of yet are Met student discounts, where they release a certain number of tickets that can only be purchased if you have a valid student ID, and standing room only.  A friend of mine has done standing room only, and says it's not that bad, but I don't know whether I can handle standing through a 3 hour opera.  I'm a student member at the Met, so I get emails about tickets, but haven't bought any yet.

Traditionally, to get cheap Broadway tickets you need to do rush/student rush.  I have sat in student rush seats, but a friend went to the box office for both of us so I have no experience with the lines.  We sat in partially obstructed seats for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying last summer, for $20 each I think, and had a great time.

My sister visited this past weekend, and we discovered an option at least for shows at Lincoln Center Theater: LincTix.  You have to be between 21-35, and you can sign up to get $30 tickets for almost any show, for any seat still available in the theater (as far as I can tell).  We bought tickets to War Horse on Friday night, and sat in the front row of the Loge (the balcony) for the Saturday matinee. Those are usually $125 each, but we payed just over one quarter of that amount.  And the show was very good.

City living definitely isn't cheap.  But thus far I've had pretty good luck finding discounts; all it takes is a little bit of extra work.

Finally Paid

It's been an exciting month on the financial front.  My stipend comes to me in two different forms: a big check at the beginning of the semester, and then a few hundred dollars twice each month. 

It turns out my university had some trouble getting me my big check this semester.  Quite a bit of trouble, in fact.  I got an email saying I could pick the check up way back in mid-late August.  I tried several times to pick it up, and kept being told to come back in a few days.  Eventually they did cancel the check and reissue it (after telling me they were going to do that several times), and I got the check on Monday.  I had enough savings in the bank from undergrad that I could handle it without asking my parents for money, but it was going to get close.  October's rent will be a little late, but the check's in the mail.

I now have a new appreciation for the emergency fund.  I had planned to use my pre-grad-school savings as the seed for an emergency fund, but I didn't think I'd need it yet.  I was planning for far-off emergencies, like a busted computer or having a funding gap between grad school and a post-doc position.  Instead, that few thousand dollars allowed me to settle in, eat properly, and pay September's rent without resorting to my credit card.

UPDATE 10/5: I have not yet been paid.  The university apparently put a stop payment on this check after they had given it to me, so my bank returned the deposit.  I wrote myself a check from my account at my parents' bank that will hopefully clear in time to cover the loan and rent checks that are in the mail, but this could become nightmarish soon.  

First round of shopping

I brought some leftover canned/jarred foods, baking supplies, and spices with me that I had in my apartment last year, but the last half-week I've been trying to stock up my kitchen with at least a basic array of goods.  It's been an adventure, and I've learned a few things.

The first lesson was that trying to shop for food after two straight days of cleaning, shopping for apartment stuff, and organizing with Mom and T was a really bad plan.  I wandered around Fairways and Trader Joes in something of a state of shock.  I know I'm an introvert, it shouldn't surprise me that trying to go out in public after two straight days with people would make my exhaustion that much worse.  So, updates on Fairways bulk section will come a different week.  For now, let's just say the rest of their store is expensive.  I don't know how I shopped there last summer.  I didn't spend any money there last week.

Trader Joes.  This was my main store last summer, because it's relatively cheap, it was on my way home from work, and my roommate adored it because her boyfriend worked there.  It's still convenient to get to by subway, so I went there last week.  However, now I realize that basically everything is packaged in plastic.  It's probably going to be a primary source of meat in the future, though, because, well, it's cheaper than anywhere else I've ever seen it.  In the end, I bought canned goods and a box of tissues there, to the tune of $14.50.

I also hit up the local farmer's market. I   I got green beans, peaches, apples, honey, a quart of milk, and bread for $18.  Most of that money went towards the honey and the milk, but the milk comes in a glass jar so I'll get a discount next time I go.  And it was good milk, so I don't regret that decision.  I also got some more produce (green beans, tomatoes, and bell peppers) yesterday for $6.50.

Finally, Whole Foods UWS.  My first bulk-buying experience.  Unfortunately, the bulk-bins are completely self-serve, there's no way to tare my own containers.  So I think I'll just have to take my lightest bags and pay a few extra cents :/  Still, I got nuts, granola, sugar, and quinoa for $14.34, and the trip overall cost me $47.07 for bulk items, a few herbs and canned goods, and local mozzarella.  The mozz was an impulse buy that was way more expensive than it needed to be and that I probably didn't need to get.

So my grocery/market spending last week: $76.07.  Definitely room for improvement, since my monthly goal is $200.  Restaurant spending was something like $40 (I didn't save all my receipts) for a grad student happy hour and three meals with a friend who was in town.  That's coming from my wants budget, and that's more than half of a week's worth of "wants", so...that should be reduced.

Preparing to Budget

I've finally gotten my housing assignment for next year, so my rent is a known quantity and its time for me to start setting up my budget.  I've given myself budgets in the past, to variable success, but I'm determined to stick with it this time.

The primary challenge to my budgeting process is that I don't know what my tax situation is going to look like.  I have a stipend, but nothing will be withheld from it as far as I know.  In addition, my fellowship package technically includes my tuition and some university fees that are paid without me ever seeing the money. Do they count as income? Will I have to pay taxes on it?  Right now, I have no idea, so I'm just picking the tax bracket that I technically fall into if my stipend were my only income and removing a flat percentage before I start budgeting.  If I wind up with extra money at the end of the year, hooray! I'd rather be cautious this year until I figure everything out. 

Post-taxes, this is how my budget will break down, percentage-wise.

Giving: 10%

Saving: 20%
- For the first year or two, most of this will go towards an emergency fund. My current savings will roll into the base of the emergency fund, and then I'd like to double the amount that I have right now.
- I'm also going to start putting away a little bit of money into general savings (which will eventually become a retirement account) and a future-house fund.

Needs: 55%
- My rent is about 42% of my total budget every month, although utilities (water and electricity) are already included.  I do have to pay a $29 internet fee every month, though.  I'm living in university-owned housing, which means I can live close to school without paying the higher rent that the neighborhood can command.  I'm also purchasing renter's insurance through my parents' home insurance.
- I'm budgeting $200/month for food. I wish I had kept track of my food costs last summer (I lived in the same neighborhood during an REU) so I could know if this is reasonable. 
- I plan to set aside a little bit of money every month to cover what I'm calling "career costs" - books, computer programs, dry cleaning for conference clothes, stuff like that.

Wants: 15%
- This is the category I'm most worried about sticking to. On the one hand, this percentage feels small compared to my other categories and recommendations I've seen online.  On the other hand, the actual dollar amount is well above what I've spent on myself every month during undergrad.  On the other other hand, my parents helped me out sometimes and won't be doing that as much anymore.  So yeah. Nervous.
- I'm including any eating out that causes me to go over my $200 "Needs" food budget.

I'm sure I'm going to wind up with some serious Wants-Vs-Needs analysis going on, especially the first semester.  Right now, my plan is pretty strict and my needs are almost entirely limited to food and shelter.  But I don't want to compromise on giving or saving, either.  The former category has been important to me for a while now, and the latter needs to become important for the future. So I will make this work.  Somehow.

Hostel as Conference Lodgings

On my previously mentioned conference trip to Spain, I was traveling on a more stringent lodging budget than I have in the past.  Two things combined to cause this: I couldn't find a roommate to share a hotel room, and I'm between schools and advisers so I was scraping together funding from a variety of sources.  Rather than spend at least $150/night to stay in a hotel, I decided to stay in a hostel for about $250 for the entire week.  I got the idea from a postdoc who used to work at my undergrad who preferred to stay in hostels.  I've stayed in one before, but it was back in high school on a school trip to Italy.  So this was pretty much a brand new experience. 

I searched online for hostels in the conference city.  I read the reviews carefully, and I'm glad I did.  Any hostel with more than one or two reviews complaining of noise got thrown out, as did any with bad cleanliness reviews.  I didn't worry too much about reviewers complaining about the tourism aspects of the hostel (the lack of planned excursions or club trips, for example).  Then I picked the highest-ranked hostel that was closest to the conference center.

My stay turned out well.  I lucked out and my neighbor turned out to be another undergraduate attending the conference.  Although I hadn't paid attention to details like breakfast or air conditioning, I was exceedingly glad that my hostel had both.  Having breakfast included helped keep my food budget under control, and air conditioning made sleeping much more comfortable since it was hot and muggy in the city.  Paying attention to noise reviews meant that I picked the hostel a few blocks away from the party quarter, rather than another otherwise-well-reviewed hostel in between two bars.  The hostel also had good electronic security lockers, which I hadn't given a lot of thought to when I looked at reviews.

The best thing I took with me was good ear plugs.  Even though the hostel overall was quiet, if my roommates (I had 3 all week) came back late they could be noisy.  And soccer victory celebrations in the street are not muted affairs.

I do still wish I had done a few things differently.  For one thing, I wish I had booked early enough to book an women-only room.  I luckily had female roommates for most of the week, but my last night it was just me and three men I didn't know.  Booking earlier would have allowed me a little more peace of mind.  I still can't decide whether I would rather have booked a single room - I would have needed to look much earlier and maybe stay further from the convention center to avoid the party quarter. It would have cost about twice as much as the quad, but that's actually still cheaper than half of a hotel room.

I also wish I had taken shower shoes. Despite being pretty clean overall, the floors could be a bit questionable because I was waking up before the cleaning crew came in but after all the party-goers had come back.

So, in summary, hostels are more than just cheap lodgings for backpacking college students.  When chosen carefully, they can be great ways to stretch your conference budget.