My biggest focus is to establish a healthy financial lifestyle that I can sustain. In the past few months, I have stemmed the tide of charging things to my credit cards and overdrafting my checking account, but there is a long way to go to get things back in shape.

Here is a current picture:

Assets:

401(k): $15,690.47
Emergency Fund: $300 (I am trying to grow this at $100/month)

TOTAL: $15,990.47

Debts:

Visa (@ 23.99%): $6,997.13
American Express (@ 16.24%): $3,838.55
Line of Credit (@ 12.9%): $4,149.29
Car Loan (@ 4.49%): $15,125.27
Student Loans (@ 6.8%): $6,000.00 (approximate; will owe when I leave school in June)
IRS (@ ???): $3,549.00 (post on this coming up this week!)
Dad (@ 0%): $5,325.14

TOTAL: $44,984.38

NET WORTH AS OF 2/5/12: -$28,993.91

It is worth nothing that I have paid off about $3,500 of debt since the beginning of January – so this picture could be much worse. There are going to be some big changes around here, stay tuned!

Thanks for your support through my ups and downs. Love you all.

$$ DEENA $$

My graduation date is June 17th, which is only 150 days away! (I sound like Katie, don’t I?)

Now it’s time to learn about job searching. (I have only ever applied for one real job, which I got, so I have very little experience with this whole mess.) At Bridget’s suggestion, I bought What Color is Your Parachute? today and will see where that gets me.

Now it’s time for some uninterrupted, well-earned sleep!

$$ DEENA $$

12 Financial Goals for 2012:

(1) Pay off my car loan ($15,545.98) by selling my car by 3/1/12.

(2) Pay off loans to my family (~$7,000) as soon as humanly possible.

(3) Pay off miscellaneous debts ($670) by 3/1/12.

(4) Keep student loan total under $6,000.

(5) Pay down $5,000 of my credit card/line of credit balance. (Not $5,000 in payments, but $5,000 plus accrued interest. Starting balance $15,764.68.

(6) Save a mini emergency fund of $1,000.

(7) Track spending daily, report weekly, for the whole year.

(8) Post monthly budgets, budget recaps, and net worth reports.

(9) Save $750 for my dear friend’s wedding in Boston in which I am a bridesmaid.

(10) Save $25/month for Christmas 2012.

(11) Roll over old 401(k) into an IRA and carefully choose investment elections.

(12) Earn $2,500 above and beyond full-time income (can be by programming, babysitting, selling things, etc., but not including tax return if I am to get one.)

12 Other Goals for 2012:

(1) Either re-dedicate myself to school and decide I am going to stick with it for the duration, or make the decision to leave in June with my master’s degree and look for a kick-ass job. (A pretty non-measurable goal, but one I feel is critical.)

(2) Find a new therapist and a new psychiatrist who I feel I can continue to make forward progress with. (Goal date: 2/1/12).

(3) Lose 34 pounds. (I weigh 169 currently, and 135 is my “in shape” weight that I have maintained easily at various points in my life through exercise.)

(4) Take 30 hip hop dance classes. (Giving myself a few weeks off for traveling).

(5) Try bikram yoga class for at least 8 sessions.

(6) Get set up at school gym and get on 2x/week workout schedule. Monitor this.

(7) Be able to run a 7:30 minute mile by the end of 2012. (I used to run a 6:03 mile, so this is reasonable!)

(8) Read 12 books this year outside of school assignments.

(9) Blog once weekly on deenadollars (52 posts in 2012).

(10) Make two dentist appointments in 2012.

(11) Try 5 guided meditation classes.

(12) Make a spreadsheet of all my possessions to re-invigorate my minimalism.

Here we go!

$$ DEENA $$

(1) Pay off all credit card and car loan debt.
(2) Save $5,000 for a proper emergency fund.
(3) Lose 35 pounds.
(4) Move to the city, and get a bike and a train pass to go to school.

Nope, nope, nope and NOPE! The only thing I came close to accomplishing on this list was moving to the city, but I am still trying to sell my car and take up the car-free lifestyle (a post coming on this soon!), so I do not count that one as a success.

Life throws curve balls, and sometimes it is all you can do to just keep moving. I have had a year of intense turmoil, both personally and professionally, and my finances took a serious hit. I am not quite ready to reveal where my finances stand (seriously, it’s that bad), but suffice it to say, next year’s goals are going to be much more humble.

As I ponder that, tell me in the comments (if you have not posted elsewhere) how your 2011 goals went!

$$ DEENA $$

Months ago, I asked my parents to split the cost of my plane ticket home, and so I shelled out about $250 for a plane ticket. Me being on the East Coast will have to be enough present for most people. While I know spending time with them is the most important gift of all, it hurts not to have the perfect present for everyone to unwrap. I am normally a lavish gift-giver. I was remembering today that the first Christmas I bought my own gifts for people (instead of my parents signing my name on the card), I was 8 years old. I made $1 a week in allowance, and I saved up most of the year until I had $28. I went to Wal-Mart and picked out gifts for everyone in my family with that budget, and I was pleased as punch for them to have something that I bought and I wrapped.

This year, at 26, I had about $28 to spend on gifts as well. My family is very predictable about what they will ask for and expect, and I typically go way beyond what they’ve asked for. This year, there being no money for that, I bought my Mom a tube of Lash Stiletto Mascara (she is constantly running out and likes me to scout new brands for her), I got my grandfather a tin of candy (he treats himself to one piece per day and makes it last for months), and I got my grandmother some floral stationery (she sends us letters about very mundane things, and we all keep folders full of them — she was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s so she won’t be able to send them forever). I will probably give my brother a six pack of fancy beer (he usually goes low-brow, so that will be a treat), and give my Dad a hug and a kiss on Christmas morning.

I know Christmas is not about the price of the gifts you give, but there is a certain point at which it just sucks. I vow that this will be the last Christmas I have to be embarrassed at the gifts I am giving. Starting on my next paycheck January 1st, I am going to put something away each paycheck, even as I am paying off debt, so that I never have to go through this again…

$$ DEENA $$

I have missed blogging and you all so much! I have been keeping up on my blog reading and Twittering, but not on posting or commenting, and I am sorry to all of you for that. In short, there is a lot going on with me. Mental health continues to be a real struggle, my finances are in bad shape, and I have some thinking to do. I have to make some serious decisions about grad school and my career over the next month or so. While this is a deeply personal topic, it is also related to personal finances, so I hope it is okay if I use this space to muddle that over.

For those of you who have not followed me on the various incantations of my blog over the last few years, a quick recount: I am a PhD student in sociology. It is a six-year program on average, and due to time off last year for mental health reasons, I am still in my first year with at least five to go. I live in San Francisco, which is expensive as heck, and I make $30,000 a year in stipend with no hope of getting a raise for five more years. I have a pretty good chunk of debt that is not budging. My career is extremely important to me, but finances have a great ability to stress me out, as it turns out.

This brings me to my current dilemma: grad school makes me absolutely miserable on a daily basis. Intellectually, I am very stimulated by the material I am studying, and it is not that it is too hard in a basic sense, but I have a crippling lack of self-confidence, and academia is filled with a bunch of talented, confident people who know how to sell the importance of their own research. Maybe this is something I can learn, or maybe it will be hard every day for a long time. Unclear.

More and more lately, I have been contemplating the option of leaving with a master’s degree and going back to the policy world to do research. To complete the master’s, I have seventeen credits to complete, which I could do next quarter in one fell swoop, or do a half-time load plus some research, and stretch it out over two more quarters and be done in June. My department has said they would continue to pay my tuition, health insurance, and stipend if I choose this option, so there are no financial implications of declaring myself a PhD-dropout. (Grease reference, anyone?)

What would I do afterward? Before coming to grad school, I worked at a think tank on the East Coast that happens to have an office in Oakland, CA (read: commutable from San Francisco). They are accepting applications for an opening this summer, which is for someone with a master’s in social science and a strong background in statistics. I left this company in a very good place: they knew I was leaving for grad school, and still gave me a significant promotion two months before I left, which both signaled that I had done a good job, and means that it is easier to be re-hired (because it would be a horizontal move from my old position instead of a vertical one).

Okay, so what would this change mean? If I can get the job (which is not a given), I would be in a pretty sweet place. I could stay in my apartment in San Francisco, and commute-wise, I could walk 15 minutes to the train station in downtown San Francisco and take a 13-minute BART ride, and then walk 4 minutes on the other end to get to the office. (A thirty-five commute sans-car sounds pretty awesome, since my commute now is 1.5 hours each way on public transit!) Salary-wise, it would mean a doubling of my salary from a $30,000 graduate student stipend to a ~$60,000 starting salary. There is also a 6% 401(k) match, a profitable employee stock ownership program, the option to utilize a health savings account and commuter benefits to put money aside pre-tax, dental insurance, and tuition benefits if I wanted to continue my education part-time. My salary trajectory would not be as steep as someone with a PhD (assuming they can get a job, which you know, is never a sure thing because the academic job market sucks!), but I also would not have to do five more years of school.

Keep in mind, I will leave my program in good standing – good transcript, decent recommendations, maybe even a publication – and I would be able to re-apply somewhere else in a few years if I decide I am dying without a PhD. (Seems unlikely…)

I’m not sure what kind of input I am looking for, here, but I needed to get this out. Any preliminary thoughts are welcome, though I intend to puzzle this out in a more-emotional, less-logistical way over this winter break. Stay tuned!

$$ DEENA $$

My budget for November is fairly simple. I have not been good in recent months on budgeting or tracking spending, and I am going to make a concerted effort to keep things uncomplicated so I stay motivated to do this. Here is my November budget with explanations below:

Basically, the only two discretionary categories here are how much I pay toward my debt to my Dad, and my gas/food/fun category. I am going to try to budget the latter weekly, hoping that I will be able to anticipate what I will need more easily if I think about the entire coming week on Sunday night.

Goals:

• track spending and post weekly
• cut down to one soda per day (will help with money, and help cut down on caffeine)
• work out twice per week (look into going to school gym)

This is about all I commit to right now, because school has me working 12+ hours per day, and I am absolutely burnt out.  I need to keep things simple, but still on track.

What is up for November for you all?

$$ DEENA $$

An update. It turns out that while the requirements for the redevelopment association were modest (a 610 credit score and a $5k down payment), you cannot get your mortgage funded through their financial partners with those numbers. The partners want a 720 credit score and a $20k down payment. (I have a 680 and could have put up $10k, but that’s still not enough). It’s like the two entities never talked to one another before they started advertising these requirements.

After crying to my Mom and composing a frustrated email, it is time to let that ship sail. I am going to try to improve my financial situation, and keep my fingers crossed that the condo continues to sit on the market without a buyer who can meet the requirements. (Hey, it could happen. Who can meet a low income requirement who also happens to have $20k sitting around?) At any rate, the condo will probably get snapped up, but the worst that can happen is this situation motivates me to improve my finances, and that is good for its own sake.

So, instead of paying $835 a month for a condo, I will be paying $1,650 a month for an almost-identical apartment. Frustrating, but that’s life. Thanks, everyone, for your thoughtful, patient, wonderful advice!

$$ DEENA $$

I mentioned some time ago that I was eligible for a $2,000 bonus this year if the department decided I made good academic progress last year. Apparently my progress was fine, because the money showed up in my account today just in time to pay all my bills. This brings my base salary for the year to $34,000, which is great.

Student Loans:

I was approved for student loans, which means I will be borrowing $1,942.00 this quarter to cover living expenses.  I will still have to side hustle to supplement this and be comfortable, but it does help quite a bit. Cue sigh of relief.

Car:

In order to stick to my budget plans, I need to sell my car by January 1st. This means I will probably list it by December.

Apartment:

I was approved for an efficiency studio apartment like I wanted, but this one is at a rate of $1,650 per month for a six month lease. Not as great a deal as the one that was listed a month ago, so I will keep my eyes peeled. I could sign a year lease to save $50 a month ($300 total), but I have something very exciting in the works, so I do not want to commit myself to that long of a lease.

I need to think of some more exciting posts, since I have just been babbling random tidbits of my life lately. Thanks for hanging in! How are you all doing with your money? I need to catch up on blogs, too!

$$ DEENA $$