Got an Apartment

Well, that was quick. Or at least it probably seems that way, since I just blogged about this last week, but after a lot of searching, C and I have found a place we both liked and we're going to sign a lease this week. We'll be renting a 1-bedroom apartment about a mile down the road from where I am now. It's right on the subway, around the block from a large grocery store, and has a park nearby, too. Our rent will be $1550/month, plus electric and possibly gas (I can't remember if there's a gas stove or not), and cable/internet if we go for that. We're also going to be renting a parking spot that comes with the apartment, which neither of us needs, in order to make an extra $25-50 a month by renting it out at a slight markup to another tenant. Many of the tenants apparently need more than one parking space, so this is common practice in the building. And since parking on the street overnight is illegal here (seriously!), it shouldn't be hard to find someone to take the spot off our hands and knock $25-50 off our rent per month.

We had hoped to find a place with a bit more space (ideally, a 2-bedroom), but after looking at many, many apartments we realized that we probably weren't going to get a (clean) 2-bedroom in our price range/rent cycle, so we settled on a larger 1-bedroom. The apartment has a ton of closet space and a much bigger kitchen than I've ever had, so I'm quite excited about that. :)

When we go in to sign our lease, I plan to ask about subletting. In the off chance that I find a place to purchase before our lease is up next September, I'd like to know what my options are. I had to break my lease to move into this rent-free apartment last year, and I definitely don't want to become a serial lease-breaker. I'll also need to completely re-work my budget, since I won't have as much money to put towards my student loans or save. I need to figure out whether savings or paying down my loans is a priority. It's a tough call. If I keep possible homeownership in mind, it's even tougher; do I want to put a larger downpayment down (of course), or do I want to have less debt to my name when I eventually make that purchase? I'll probably go with savings, and drastically reduce what I pay towards my loans each month. Or, I might alternate and make a large savings deposit one month, and then a large student loan payment the next. Over the next few weeks, I'll be doing a lot of thinking about this.

Balancing Time & Money

Last week, JD at Get Rich Slowly had a great post about finding the balance between time and money. As someone who’s working incredibly hard to get out of debt, I know that struggle too well. Last Saturday, I went to my hometown to visit with my parents and attend a family party. Everyone was talking about what they were doing for Easter. My grandmother asked me if I’d be coming to Easter dinner, and I sadly had to say no, I couldn’t come because I had to work.

I miss a lot of family parties. My Sunday shifts at the inn mean that I can’t attend birthday parties, or christenings, or anniversaries. I can’t go to Easter dinner. Missing these times with my family is hard. My grandparents aren’t going to be around forever, really no one will be, and it hurts to think that I’m missing spending valuable time with them now. At the same time, I don’t really have much of a choice if I want to get out of student loan debt before I’m 35. And I really, really want to get out of student loan debt by the time I’m 35.

I wish I had the financial stability to have only one job so that I could see my family whenever I wanted to. Having more than one day off per week would be nice, too. I’m still young, but all this working is starting to get to me. Not only do I work a full time job plus Sundays at the inn, but I also often pick up cover shifts for my co-workers at the inn during the week from 5-10 after I’ve already worked a full day at my other job. Not to mention the emergency phone, which starts to get busy this time of year with heating/cooling complaints; I had my first one at 12:30am this morning. It would be great to have just the full-time job, but I don’t think I can afford to do this for a few more years.

I hope I’m making the right decision, and that I haven’t died of exhaustion by that point.

Financial Achievements for 2008

Though I've always cared about saving, 2008 was the first year I truly dedicated myself to personal finance.

In 2008, I:

~Landed into this amazing rent-free opportunity!

~ Began using the debt snowball method to eliminate my student loan debt as quickly as possible. You can find a great debt snowball spreadsheet here; I've come across many of these types of spreadsheets, and this was the most useful one I've encountered.

~ Split my savings account into separate accounts to reflect my savings goals, almost meeting my $7k emergency fund goal, and reaching the halfway points of my down payment and fun funds.

~ Fully funded my Roth IRA for 2008, and saved up the full amount for my 2009 contribution, with a little leftover to go towards the beginning my of my 2010 fund.

~ Continued to put 6% of each paycheck toward my 401k. My company matches 100% of the first 3%, and 50% of the next 3%. Since I'm still relatively broke, and investing in a Roth IRA each year in addition to my 401k, this is as much as I'm willing to put into it at this point.

~ Began investing monthly in company stock and individual stocks of well-established companies that pay dividends in order to capitalize on low stock prices during a down market, and to continue diversifying my overall investment portfolio.

~ Finished the year reducing my federal student loan debt at a rate of 3% per month, and my private student loan debt at a rate of 0.3% per month. If I continue at this rate, loans will be completely paid off by the end of 2014. This sounds like a very long time from now, but I will be extremely impressed with myself if I can manage to pay off $77k, plus interest, in less than 10 years.

In non-financial 2008 accomplishments, I also:

~Got a promotion and 5% raise at my full-time job, and a dollar-per-hour raise at my part time job (I guess this one is finance-related, too :)) This was almost a year ago, and I'm hoping to add this to my 2009 accomplishments soon.

~Hung out more with co-workers (from both jobs) and attended more social gatherings. Sounds boring, but I'm a pretty shy person who feels most comfortable alone or one-on-one, so this was a pretty big deal for me. Hopefully I can continue on this path in 2009.

~Went on my first business trip - alone. I was really nervous about having to talk to people I didn't know for five days, but it went surprisingly well, and I even made a few friends out of it. Of course, my company (like most companies) is cutting its travel budget, so who knows when I'll get to go on another business trip, but it was still a good experience.

~Read over 30 books. I hope to increase that number in 2009. In fact, I should have at least one finished by the end of the day.

~Began to learn how to knit. So much fun! I'll be writing a separate post about this soon.


I'll be posting my 2009 goals this afternoon- stay tuned...