It’s Per$onal is an anonymous blog series designed to shed light on the intricate details of the personal finances and lifestyles of women.
Name:
Chicken Wing
How old are you?
23
Where do you live?
Suburbs of Minneapolis, MN
What is your highest level of education?
Bachelor’s
Are you single or married?
Single as a pringle
If you are married, do you and your spouse have joint or separate finances?
N/A
Do you have any children or dependents? If yes, please explain.
No
What is your total monthly rent / mortgage for your household?
1000
Has Covid-19 impacted you financially in any way?
Thankfully, no it hasn’t. But some of my family have been impacted.
What is your current occupation? If not currently employed, please say “Not Employed”
Engineering Analyst
What is your yearly salary (or approximate yearly compensation) for your current occupation?
$70,000
If you are currently employed, do you like your job? Why or why not?
Yes and no. I just recently changed my role. Before I was doing more of an analyst role and doing support work and I found out I didn’t enjoy that. Even though my new title still has analyst, I am more of a developer now. So far I seem to enjoy it because I’m able to be more hands-on on projects.
Do you have a second job or side hustle? If Yes, please explain.
No but will eventually look for ways to generate income
If you have a second job or side hustle, about how much money do you make monthly from your second job / side hustle?
N/A
Do you budget on a consistent basis? If so, please explain how you currently budget:
Yes, I plan out my bills based on paycheck and follow the kakeibo method. I use a notebook to write out each paycheck and allocate money based on what bills and expenses are due between receiving my first paycheck until my second paycheck.
I wanted to become more intentional with my spending so I decided to track my spending in two ways. One is I use mywealthdiary’s wealth building dashboard and the other is using the kakeibo method where I would track what I spent and put it in categories: essential spending, optional spending, leisure spending, and emergency spending.
With this method I wanted to save even more money that I already saved by making sure I didn’t impulse buy every day. I also automate my savings to a HYSA per paycheck so I never see that money. What you don’t see, you don’t spend.
Are you debt-free?
No
If you are debt free, how much debt have you paid off and how long did it take you to pay it all off?
N/A
Do you have any student loan debt currently?
Yes
If yes, about how much student loan debt do you have?
$9,000
What is your monthly student loan payment amount?
105.71
Do you have any credit card debt?
Yes
If Yes, about how much credit card debt do you have currently?
Currently: $5,302 but at the start of this year I had about $14,000 in credit card debt. My goal this year was to be credit card debt free and I’ll be reaching that goal this December.
Do you have any other kinds of debt? If Yes, please explain:
I also bought a used car last year and I still have $16,000 left to pay off
Do you know what your credit score is?
Yes
If Yes, what is your credit score?
707
Are you currently saving for retirement?
Yes
If yes, about how much do you have saved for retirement?
I currently have about $7,300 between a 401K, Roth IRA and HSA. I contribute 6% to my 401K and my job doesn’t start matching until the quarter after your 1 year anniversary. I just hit my 1 year at my first big girl job so within the next 4 months I’ll start getting a 401K match. I plan to get a second job to help pay down all my debt faster so that I can contribute 50% or more to my retirement. Right now I’m averaging at 15-20%
What does an ideal retirement look like for you?
For me, I want to be work-optional. I’ve always loved traveling and before COVID, I would be traveling out of the country once a year. Once I feel that it’s safe for me, I’ll be traveling again.
I have thought of the idea of working remotely from a different country. When that time comes where I reached my financial independence number and other factors in my life are doing good, I want that idea of working remotely to become a reality instead.
I also want to have at least one rental property by then that can generate cash flow for me.
What’s your biggest purchase of 2020 so far?
Probably concert tickets that I had to end up refunding anyways because it got cancelled.
Biggest purchase of your life?
MY EDUCATION (around $13,000) Biggest purchase in my life was my bachelors degree and that is because I dedicated 5 years getting prepared to go to college (middle school and high school was spent being an over achiever to be a good candidate for my college of choice) + 4 years into paying for this degree and graduating.
What do you spend money on that brings you joy?
Money spent to bring me joy: bubble tea, bt21 collection items, anime stuff that I see and want to get, Money splurges: skincare (I want that nice skin but I had to experiment to find out which products worked on my combination sensitive skin)
What are your short term money goals, if any? ( < 1 year)
Pay off my credit card debt by December 2020 and start sinking funds for unplanned wants, travel and gifts
What are your long term money goals, if any? ( > 1 year)
1. Have a full EF of $15,000 (right now it’s 2200/15000) by 2021
2. Max out Roth IRA each year
3. Pay off student loans by 2021
4. Pay off car loan by 2022
5. 2023+ help pay off parent’s mortgage
6. 2023+ max out 401K and send the remaining money to invest
7. Reach my $100K net worth after paying off debt
What is your #1 financial concern right now?
Still fresh out of college and got into credit card debt because of so many things that I wanted to have because I was influenced heavily by my friend group.
Now that urge to splurge has died down due to COVID, I hope I don’t go back to that habit since I’m very serious about becoming financial independent and work-optional.
What financial victory/success are you most proud of?
Since I made it a goal to become credit card debt free, I have paid off 4 credit cards that had 1000+ on each of them.
The one with the biggest balance is going to be paid off by November. I also paid off my perkins loan and 1 student loan so far too.
Anything we didn’t ask about you that you want to include?
Growing up with immigrant parents and being a first-generation college student while also being the oldest in my family.
I first thought about learning about personal finance to help out my parents’ financial situation since we’ve always have been living paycheck to paycheck on a single income.
Seeing how that put stress on my parents to the point where it affected their health, I worked my ass off in school to get a good paying job so that I could help them out financially.
Now, personal finance became a hobby and something I enjoy to explain and help out the people around me to better manage their finances.
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