Rich Life Audit + Money Diary
In February 2021, I wrote a blog post all about how I’m creating my Rich Life. I had recently finished reading I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi and was inspired to put together and share my Conscious Spending Plan, Money Dials, and Money Rules. I’ve adjusted a few things when it comes to my spending and have been planning to share an update, mostly for myself to see if I’m still on track to reach my goals…but hopefully you find this interesting, too.
Here’s an honest look at where I’m at with my Rich Life and my current Conscious Spending Plan and how it compares to last year (and to my goal CSP). I also shared a quick little money diary so you can see what a full-time employed PhD scientist and part-time style blogger spends money on in a week!
RICH LIFE AUDIT
I Will Teach You to be Rich by Ramit Sethi is a popular book in the personal finance world, and I highly recommend reading it if you have any sort of interest in getting your personal finances in order! (The companion podcast is also FABULOUS and features couples sharing their real money issues “behind closed doors”!)
The main theme throughout the book is that of creating and truly living your Rich Life. You can define that however you want! I love that Ramit teaches you to ask yourself what you WANT to spend money on, and then he teaches you how to do exactly that, with no guilt. That’s the idea behind a Rich Life.
I wrote this last year and it’s still true: Currently, I envision my Rich Life looking like traveling often (and staying in fabulous accommodations), buying good food, not thinking twice about paying for whatever my cats need to feel comfortable and live their best lives, giving amazing gifts to my loved ones, and paying for convenience. I have other long-term goals including endowing at least one college scholarship (but ya need big $$$ for that, which I do not have right now lol).
Before I dive in, here’s where I’m at as a PhD-educated/full-time employed, partnered but unmarried woman with no children: I do not own a house (Korri owns the house we live in and I pay rent to him), I do not have any credit card debt or car payments, and I have a small amount of student loans remaining that I’m hoping will be forgiven, but if not, I can pay them off before they start accruing interest again. (But 🤞🏻🤞🏻 for forgiveness!) I also have two senior cats and pay for all of their care.
CONSCIOUS SPENDING PLAN
There is a chapter in IWT about conscious spending, and it was enlightening to put together my own Conscious Spending Plan last year based on my current spending and updated the numbers to where I’m at currently. It’s still not where I wish it was; below I shared both my actual spending and my spending goal (each category is shown as percentage of total take-home pay). Ramit recommends that 50-60% of your take-home pay goes towards fixed costs, 10% goes towards investments, 5-10% goes towards savings goals, and 20-35% goes towards guilt-free spending money.
My Actual Spending (Apr 2022)
My Spending Goal (Apr 2022)
My Actual Spending (Feb 2021)
My Spending Goal (Feb 2021)
Over the past year, my fixed costs went up, my investment contributions went up (yay!), but my savings goals is currently nothing and my spending money went down. I’m sort of in an unusual spot with fixed costs, because somehow I fell behind paying Korri utilities by about six months, and now I’m paying two months at a time until I catch up. Normally fixed costs would be around 60%.
The big thing is that last year, I finally started contributing to my Roth IRA regularly and set up automatic contributions so I don’t even have to think about it. A month ago, I adjusted my contributions so that I’m going to max out my Roth this year! Yay! (I also took about half of my tax refund and applied it to my 2021 Roth because I didn’t max it out.)
Sadly, both of those increases came at the expense of my savings goals. I still have the same amount saved as I did last year, which is great because at least it’s not going down, but I’d like to at least double that. Plus, with inflation, the value of it went down a lot. I’m getting a raise this year but it’s still not a huge amount and won’t change things that much. These numbers don’t take into account blog income/expenses; I’d REALLY like to get to the place where my blog makes at least the same amount every month as I do at my full-time job (and basically double my take-home pay).
MONEY DIALS + MONEY RULES
I shared my Money Dials and Money Rules in the blog post last year and still find them to be accurate, so there’s nothing to update here!
MONEY DIARY
I find money diaries SO interesting to read (also, I’m nosy), so I thought it’d be fun to share one here in case you’re curious (read: also nosy) about how I spend my money. Of course, this is only a week and doesn’t capture EVERYTHING I spend money on, but it’s a good snapshot!
Note: I only included money spent, not money earned, and I also didn’t include anything blog-related.
Wednesday, April 20th
I worked from home and managed to not spend any money! Yay me!
Thursday, April 21st
OMG, two days in a row of not spending money!!! 🤣 (Another WFH day. I don’t think I left the house at all the past two days.)
Friday, April 22nd
I ordered two pints of ice cream to be delivered from one of our favorite local ice cream shops called The STIL. Sometimes they have deliveries in partnership with other local retailers that I like to take advantage of (and can again now that I WFH on Fridays), and this week we got a couple of bags of flavored nuts from City Peanut! $33.92
I also browsed Kindle books on Amazon (I do this daily) and found that Party of Two (book 5 in The Wedding Date series) was on sale for $2. I have little self control when books are only $2, plus I loved the first book and am slowly collecting them all, so I bought it. $2.11 (total spent = $36.03)
Saturday, April 23rd
Record Store Day! Korri and I headed downtown for RSD and to check out one of the farmers markets, grab lunch at one of our favorite local spots, and pick up boba drinks. I found a record I wanted from RSD (star-crossed by Kacey Musgraves) and found another indie store exclusive I didn’t already have (= by Ed Sheeran). Korri bought us a bottle of moscato at the market, picked up the tab at lunch (for me and his parents), and bought me boba because we had to drive to the opposite side of town to sell something he had listed on Nextdoor. $68.88
I was also charged for our weekly Green Chef delivery. $80.93 (total spent = $149.81)
Sunday, April 24th
We shot an outfit for the blog before I headed out to collect signatures for the Quality Education Act (it’s the last week of signature gathering!). I was going to wash my car afterward because it still has remnants of the mud rain we had a couple of weeks ago on it but I totally forgot and drove home instead. So, that saved me a few bucks LOL. I browsed Kindle books on Amazon again and saw that While We Were Dating (book 6 in The Wedding Date series) was on sale for $2, so I bought it. $2.11
Monday, April 25th
Back to the office! Today there was a food truck, and Korri came to eat lunch with me. Luckily, he treated me to lunch! (We swap who pays for things fairly regularly.) I have automatic payments set on one of my credit cards, and the money came out of my account today. Oof! $820.48
Tuesday, April 26th
Another work-in-the-office day. I brought leftovers from home for lunch. I did browse The Container Store and Target and add things to both carts, but I have not checked out yet. After looking at my spending for the month I’m trying to hold off for a while! 😅
That’s it for now! Have you read IWT yet? What does your Conscious Spending Plan look like? What do you LOVE spending money on? I’d love to know how you approach personal finance!