In the past six months, I’ve paid down over half of my debt. You know, the debt I was so ashamed of having when I left New York. By the time I’m back in New York, I’ll have only one account that I still need to pay off. It feels fantastic.
To do this, though, I’ve had to cut spending in other areas, including the sartorial one. It sucks to be a fashion blogger and have to do this, but I’m thinking of it this way – the sooner I’m out of debt, the sooner I can have a larger wardrobe that I actually paid for responsibly.
Other areas where I’m cutting back: continuing to live with five roomies even though I need my personal space; limiting my coffee shop intake to $30 a month, ’cause it’s free at work and nearly free at home; and going out to eat for special occasions only. The latter is really difficult for me, in some ways more so than not buying clothes. Why? Because I have a closet full of really great stuff that’s appropriate for all occasions, and when I get tired of all of that, I have a pretty sizable fabric stash to make myself something new . . . but a mysterious closet where I can store months’ worth of dumplings, burritos, and pad thai bowls the size of my torso to be recycled into infinite meals without buying more raw food materials hasn’t been invented yet.
As I get more and more financially stable, though, I get ballsier about saving in different ways. As a Mother’s Day gift, I gave my stepmum and my boyfriend’s mum some theatre tickets to the Tony-award winning regional theatre where I work part-time in the evenings. The tickets are cheap for me ’cause I’m on staff there, but that just means I can spent a bit more to take Lucille and Miss Kathy [yes, this is how I address Boyfriend's mum] out for a nice dinner in addition.
The other day I called my credit card company and negotiated yet another rate decrease, based on the fact that I’m working my ass off to be good customer and pay my bills on time, yadda yadda yadda. This is habitual for me now; in the past few months I’ve saved over $2000 over the life of my cards just by negotiating retroactive rate decreases and special payment options. [My best tip for doing this? Call executive customer service. Skip the call center all together, because the reps there can only do so much for you, whereas when you call executive customer service, you get an audience with someone who's empowered to make things happen, all for the sake of customer retention.] At a thrift shop in Chicago a couple months back, I got over fifty percent off an already discounted dress by pointing out how many repairs it needed. I haven’t started asking for discounts randomly at the grocery store yet, but I can’t say it won’t happen.
I’m becoming absolutely fanatical about Mint. I love data visualization, and I love it that Mint is smart enough to tell me exactly what portion of my income I spend on yarn, sequins, or paint brushes. [Or, you know, bills, dog food, and bus passes. Whatever. It has infinite data-visualizing power!]
One thing I’m definitely spending a little more on these days: fitness. I joined a gym. It is fifteen dollars a month with no long-term contract, and the receptionist was super-sweet and waived my membership fee. [See? Negotiation works, people.] They have a “cardio theatre” where Chris and I run on the elliptical machines while watching Wayne’s World or The Express or Avatar [unfortunately, they've played Avatar so much that we've seen it fully twice]. We like it because unlike working with free weights or Nautilus machines, we’re working out in a cool, dark room where no one is judging either of us if our asses shake when we cross-train. [Which they're doing less and less these days, the more we go.]
It took almost six months in Cincinnati for this to actually click, but I have a stable of freelance clients now. I finished my last contract at the corporate offices of a hospital group, temped a little bit, and then with the help of the super-sweet folks over at Creatives on Call, I found some clients who pay me to edit their copy [and sometimes write some too]. It’s what I’m really good at doing, so it’s good to be out of technical writing for awhile and back where I’m comfortable. Also, in the last two weeks I’ve been working with a local branch of a global interactive firm on a large-scale content migration/editing/web copy project for one of their clients. I can’t tell you where it is or what the client sells, but I can tell you the office has a lot of dogs that run free. Which I think should be part of every compensation package from now on, really.
Financial stuff I’ve been reading and internalizing these days:
- Ashe Mischief on why fashion bloggers should talk more about their finances. This is spot-on, and I’m glad other people are thinking it, too.
- Fabulously Broke is a blog about living fabulously without spending a lot. This gal is impressive because she paid off $60,000 of debt in eighteen months, and also because she’s super-strict with her finances but never seems to go without. She has a couple of sister blogs, Style on a String and The Everyday Minimalist. [Incidentally, I really like what she does with her professional life too - she works as a contract/freelance employee in the IT field, and while we're not in the same industry, I'd love to see her write more about how she designed her career trajectory to be like this.]
- Oh, Ramit. He has saved my life so many times with his amazing information. If you’re not subscribing already, get over there now. He also does a few courses on how to make extra money as an entrepreneur, which are uber-expensive but which I can’t wait to try myself when I have the cash.
- Everything over on Penelope Trunk’s blog about careers is great. She writes a lot about looking out for yourself in the workplace, including making sure you’re treated [and paid!] fairly.
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