52 Week Money Challenge

Anyone who know me knows that one of my biggest passions is to travel and see the world. I have Pinterest boards dedicated to all of the famous landmarks I want to see, types of food I want to try and things I want to do. All of which can take a bit of strategic financial planning to achieve. When I tell people that one of my goals is to travel to four different places this year (local, stateside and internationally) they immediately stop and ask how.

It’s because I started planning 2015 travel in 2014. All with the help of a popular financial challenge.

WORTHY Reads // January 29, 2015

Can you believe the first month of the year is already almost over?

I’ve been making some progress on my goals and I’m still pretty motivated! Granted, it’s still very early in the year but the old me would have usually forgotten what my goals were- much less started making progress on them. I’m looking forward to seeing what February has to offer.

Speaking of February, I’m looking forward to taking my first trip of the year; in New Orleans! I love that little town that always seems to be alive. There are always things to do, food to eat and sights to see. I love New Orleans so much that this will be my second visit in less than a year. I can’t wait to share my experience as a “second-timer”. Perhaps I’ll share a detailed itinerary as well as a breakdown of my budget? Stay-tuned!

I hope you all have a great weekend. Here are two articles that I have read recently and enjoyed and hope you enjoy as well. Thanks for reading!

The Easiest Way to Budget

 

No one likes to budget. I get it.

The scattered receipts, the excel spreadsheets, the meticulous mental accounting of trying to figure out if you spent $4.63 or $4.93 on this morning’s latte…it’s enough to drive even the most analytical person crazy.

And then there’s the matter of trying to figure out how much is too much or too little for each line item in your budget. Should I budget $100 for shopping? Is that enough? Am I going to spend more than $50 at happy hour this month? Have gas prices come down enough to consider $75 enough for gas?

Sometimes life isn’t so simple and you can’t plan out how your future self will spend every single penny. I mean, you know what you have to spend on rent, insurance and other fixed costs but how can you possibly know how much to set aside for those random purchases that don’t occur every single month?

Insert the “One Number Budget”.

My Investing Strategy

If you had asked me how the stock market worked five years ago, I probably would have described a scene out of the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street. I always imagined a frenetic scene where traders are standing around in a pit, yelling and screaming at each other, yelling and screaming into two or three phones at a time. Why I thought they could carry a conversation with three different people at the same time, I’m not entirely sure. But I was in awe of these people who had mastered the art of serious multitasking in this magical place called Wall Street.

I never thought “investing” was something I could do because a) I didn’t know any stock brokers, b) I’ve never had thousands of dollars to throw into whatever stock was hot at the moment, c) I don’t really trust people that multitask. Seriously, something always falls off no matter how good you think you are.

It wasn’t until I started educating myself on saving, budgeting, and overall personal finance that I learned just how simple investing can be. Sure, there are so many different ways to invest your money; bonds, individual stocks, ETFs, index funds, real estate, private equity, etc. But that is the beauty in building wealth. There isn’t just ONE way or RIGHT way to do it. So it doesn’t necessarily matter how you do it; just that you do it.

Definition // What is Financial Independence?

Hey friends,

There are many articles out there that can help you put a numerical value on what financial independence is. However, I’d like (for once in my life, lol) to take the numbers out of it. Here is my stance on financial independence and what it truly means for me. Enjoy.

Simply put, being financially independent is being in a position where you are able to take care of your living expenses without needing an active job. Meaning you don’t necessarily need to go to some workplace and clock in 8 hours of your time every day. You have created passive income streams that you can pull from to support your lifestyle and you aren’t living paycheck to paycheck. Traditionally, the most common path to financial independence was through creating a successful business and then hiring managers or supervisors to run the daily operations. More recently, people have come to understand that simply saving a large portion of your income and investing over the years yields the same desired outcome.

2015 Goals

So, as you can see from my previous posts, I do have quite a bit of consumer debt (approx. $25,000). Luckily, I’ve been able to allocate a decent percentage of my income to savings goals by keeping my expenses relatively low. However, although challenging given my limited income, I am confident that I can achieve the following goals:

Financial Goals-

• Open a taxable account in a discount brokerage firm with $2,500 by 3/1/2015.
• Allocate at least $400 per month to my taxable account.
• Hold a portfolio balance of at least $6,500 by 12/31/2015.
• Allocate an extra $50 per month to my car loan principal.
• Bring car loan balance down to less than $4,800 by 12/31/2015.
• Allocate 6% of gross income (currently at 4%) to company 401(k) to get full company match.

Health/Spirituality Goals-

• Sign up for a 5K run by April 2015.
• Completely remove pork and beef from my diet by 12/31/2015.
• Give at least two hours of my time every month to helping someone in need.
• Donate at least $50 every month to church or a reputable charitable organization.

Travel Goals-

• Allocate $50 per month to my travel fund.
• Take at least 4 local, stateside, or international trips by 12/31/2015.

There you have it; my 2015 goals. Obviously, I included not only monetary goals but also time allocation and experience building because, believe it or not, your TIME is an investment. You must make sure you are getting the best return on how you’ve invested it. More on that later!

The past two years have been great because I have started to learn the tools and tricks I needed to get to where I am today. Although I have much farther to go in gaining financial independence, I believe 2015 (in addition to what I learned in 2013 and 2014) will be the key year where I really push forward and accomplish really amazing things.

What do you think? Let me know some of your goals below!

-XO

Reflections // Looking back on 2014

Life is like a book and every year is a new chapter. Welp, it’s page 365 of 365 for chapter 2014.

As I reflect on this year, I can’t help but think about the things I’ve accomplished, the small changes I’ve made, the lessons I’ve learned, and the moments of defeat that I’ve changed into moments of victory. At the beginning of the year, I knew I had a difficult time just “going with the flow”. Therefore, I decided I would adopt the mantra “Let it go”.

Ya’ll, I’ll be honest. For me, 2014 was a very difficult year.  I went in thinking it was going to be my year, though. I always had this superstition that any year that ends in an even number would be a great year for me. Every big success (graduations, meeting major life goals, etc) was accomplished coincidently in years that ended in an even number.

So imagine my confusion and disappointment when things didn’t really turn out how I THOUGHT they would.

My Expenses vs. Savings

Again, in the spirit of making sure I’m moving in the right direction, I’m laying it all out here on this blog. I’m hoping that this blog will help keep me accountable with my finances and the goals I have set for myself. Luckily, my income and expenses rarely change so I am pretty confident I will be able to achieve my goal of building wealth and enjoying financial independence.

Overview – From the beginning…

Before you know it, Christmas will be here. And then New Years Eve and New Years Day. I’ve decided not squander another year when it comes to my financial life. In 2014, I’ve educated myself through books, blogs and podcasts on personal finance and investing. In 2015, I plan on implementing what I’ve learned. Welcome to my journey to financial independence!

In order to make sure you’re moving in the right direction, you have to first know where you stand. As of December 13, 2014, here is my financial situation:

Debt-

Student loans:

$4,228.52 at 3.4%

$3,436.97 at 4.5%

$2,505.86 at 5.6%

$7,275.86 at 5.0%

Total student loans: $17,447.21

Car loans:

$7,250 at 3.39%

Credit Cards:

$0 balance

Total Debt: $24,697.21

Savings-

 Retirement accounts:

$2,813.05

Personal Savings:

Emergency Fund balance at $5,000

All other savings at $3,615

Total Savings: $11,428.05

NET WORTH: -$13,269.16

Wow…pretty sobering. As it stands today, I’ve got some real work to do regarding my finance’s. However, as part of my attempt to look forward and make changes for my future, I needed to have a clear view of what I’m working with. I am thoroughly looking forward to making some changes within the next few weeks/ months to increase my net worth. I’ll be updating my goals for 2015 within the next few days.

I’m ready for what 2015 will bring. Cheers to this new journey!

-XO

Hello // Blog changes

Hi all,

It’s been a while, huh?

The last few months have been a struggle for me with this blog because I’ve struggled to find my voice and really share anything going on in my life. Just to give a bit of history, I started as a fashion blog. However, I didn’t post very often because I felt there were hundreds of fashion blogs and didn’t want to be another drop in the sea. Also, the hassle of begging trying to convince friends and family to photograph my outfits was becoming a threat to my sanity. I then changed direction and wanted to talk about my day-to-day lifestyle. And that didn’t work because, unfortunately, I’m boring. Well, perhaps not boring but there was something uncomfortably narcissistic about a lifestyle blog (no shade to people who have one). I just struggled with coming up with something meaningful to write because, I mean, would anyone find my trip to the gas station interesting? Would anyone want to know about the time I had to curse out Deepak from Comcast because my cable was out again? (Sorry Deepak if you’re reading this. I know it wasn’t your fault there was an outage while Scandal was on.)