OJ the PA

Did you know that the average anticipated debt load from PA school is $112,500 ?! So if you're wondering why a lot of my posts this year have been related to budget, this is why! I recently posted about the No Buy turning into a Low Buy , after a friend and I admitted to both feeling a bit burned out by the limits on our spending. But I'm not sure anymore that this plan is going to work for me. The No Buy started after I evaluated my 2019 spending habits and was left wondering, "where the heck is all my money going?!" I know a couple of things about myself -- I am not a fan of spreadsheets, and I can make excuses to buy just about anything. So I needed a simple strategy to limit my spending, and thanks to some YouTube inspiration, my own version of a No Buy was born. And so far, it's been pretty successful. I am spending 71% of my monthly average from 2019. I was able to save enough to pay off my car loan early , while still having a decent amount of savings to f...

Yup, it happened. I broke. I bought a pair of shoes. Which, if you know me, is kind of strange because I'm not really a big shoes person. But I have a bunch of sandals that are old and worn out, and I've been dying to have a pair of Birkenstocks for over a year now (which are obviously too spendy). So I think this longstanding want plus too much deprivation led to me ordering a nice pair of White Mountains (with a discount, of course). It took me days to actually pull the trigger and buy them. I knew it was breaking the rules. But then I said, "to heck with it!" and here we are. In my post about June's No Buy results , I mentioned that my friend who is doing this with me and I are really getting sick of this whole thing. We've been at it diligently for 6 months and even though we were both cruising along just fine for quite awhile, we've majorly hit a wall. A big part of me wanted to say, "well, we did it for six months and that's already a big ac...

I don't want to talk about it. Okay, fine. I'll talk about it. But I went off the rails a bit this month. Big time. I spent 112% of my average spending from 2019. And you know what? I blame my vacation. But you're supposed to enjoy yourself on vacation so I guess I just need to suck it up and deal with it. Here's some of what happened: $325 on hotels. The drive to visit my sister was 17 hours each way and I wasn't about to do that alone in one stretch. So I had two hotels for that. Plus, we stayed in a hotel near the Rocky Mountain National Park with a balcony and a great view of the mountains. $300 on gas, an oil change before I left, and a car wash. Sh*t, that was a lot more than I anticipated it would be. $280 on restaurants and dining. Meals on the road, lots of fun places to eat in Colorado, and a few times I ate out this month with friends before I left. Adds up quick, doesn't it? I also bought some souvenirs, because no travel for me is complete without a...

Something went wrong. Something went terribly wrong in May. Was it related to being done with school and finally having free time? Must have been. Because I spent 89% of my monthly average from 2019. Not exactly a big accomplishment this month. Here's where I think I went awry: I barely spent anything on groceries in April, but I definitely made up for that in May. Pantry needed to be restocked, apparently. Home maintenance. I purchased a ceiling fan and an above-range microwave that both needed to be replaced, so that was $300 right there. Luckily, my dad was able to come out and give me some assistance with installing both. Okay, he installed them. I just provided moral support.  Eating out is a thing again. My friends and I have, a few times now, gotten drinks on a patio or food to-go since we're (safely) meeting up again. I also cheated once and got to-go food just for me, so I need to be careful not to make excuses moving forward. Slippery slope! Amazon got me. Gran...

"I haven't blogged about April's spending yet," I thought, as I lounged on the couch after a long day at work. Wondering how things netted out, I opened my credit card app and navigated to the page that showed my monthly spending totals. WHAT IN THE WORLD. I shot straight up, apparently thinking this would give me a better look at the total. I spent just 33% of my 2019 monthly average.  I think a few things played a major role in my spending dropping so significantly. The Safer At Home order has been in effect since the end of March, meaning I was trying to limit my trips out as much as possible all month long.  To reduce the number of shopping trips, I was definitely more cognizant about using food items I already had on hand.   No dinners and drinks with friends. No coffee or happy hour dates. And since that was a major loophole in my No Buy (being able to spend money when I was being social), I'm sure this was a big factor.  With the end of the seme...

March has been a weird month, y'all. Social isolation, then a mandated safer-at-home order. Other than the obvious implications on my social life, what kind of impact did this have on my finances? I don't have a quarantine stockpile First, and probably foremost, I did not panic buy. I did not go doomsday shopping. I don't have a lifetime supply of toilet paper or canned goods. I've realized, though, that I do use grocery shopping as an excuse to get out of the house. So, I've been doing larger shopping trips so that hopefully I need to leave the house less to get supplies. I also signed up for a produce delivery service, Imperfect Foods . I haven't gotten a box yet (first one scheduled for early April), but I'm excited to have a way to get fresh produce without leaving the house (to help me with my goal of going to the store less for social distancing) while also supporting their mission to reduce food waste. Win-win! Use this link to sign up and get ...

While January seemed to just drag on and on, February has just flown by for me! I honestly can't understand how it's already March tomorrow ... and already time to recap another month of my No Buy. How did I do this month? Well, I did okay-ish. I spent 78% of my monthly average from 2019. Now, this doesn't sound like much of a win (a mere 22% less than usual? psh ). But, I bought plane tickets for my vacation in June, which totaled $278 dollars. So even with a couple hundred dollars in vacation spending, I'm still under my average. And I'm going to consider that a win. Has it gotten easier? Absolutely. During January , I felt like I was saying "no" to myself all the time. But now that this is more of a habit (and I know to keep my butt out of Target), it's actually not so bad. If I could be buying things, what would I purchase? I have a birthday in April and I would be lying if I wasn't starting to make a list of gifts to ask for! I want...

If I'm being totally honest, I went into this No Buy thing with a healthy amount of skepticism. You see these folks post on Instagram about saving a bazillion dollars and to me it just seemed... unreal? Like, I kept telling myself that I generally only buy the things I need and therefore doing a No Buy probably isn't going to make that much of a difference. Like I mentioned in my first No Buy post , I got a lot of messages from people about how good it made them feel to be smarter about their spending. And since I've been stressin' about my finances, I decided I'd take any good vibes I could get ... even if I didn't see huge results in the end. You guys, my mind has been blown. A little more than halfway through the month, I logged into my credit card app and decided to check in on how my spending was going. "You've spent 28% of your monthly average." 28%?! You've got to be kidding me.  And now that the month is complete, I can proudly...

The new year feels like such a clean slate. I've had time to rest and recover and reset my mind after a very long semester (lots of time on the couch with puppy cuddles definitely helped). As I mentioned before, one of my intentions for the new year was to be more budget conscious. And because I have some lofty savings goals, the idea of a No Buy Challenge really took hold. Here's what I've learned already, less than one week into the challenge: 1) Start soon after you decide to do the challenge.  I found myself "prepping" for my no-buy by buying things. A pair of new yoga pants, a weighted blanket I've always wanted to try. Yes, I was smart about finding good deals on these things, but it seemed like I took advantage of a big loophole from the get-go. 2) I definitely want to buy a lot of things I don't need.  Going into this challenge, I knew I'd be saying "no" to myself a lot. But wow, it's like daily. I busted a long phone char...

One of the intentions I recently set for 2020 was to stop spending needlessly. There's a really important reason for this -- clinical year is coming. And while I may have the luxury of working a part-time job right now, that's going to go out the window as soon as clinical year rolls around. Ultimately, what I want is to have enough money saved that I can stay in my house without having to get a roommate for that time (I'm getting too old and like my personal space too much for a roommate anymore!). I had a shocking revelation when I was paying my credit cards. Sure, it started because I got a notification that said I've spent less in November than in recent months (cool!), but upon further investigation, I was asking myself, "but how did you even spend this much ??" In November, I had managed to spend an average of $30 per day . And in previous months, that figure has loomed closer to $40. And that didn't include my mortgage, car payment, or utiliti...

Wow, it has been a whirlwind the last few weeks. Between work (and pulling some extra hours here and there), school and life, I feel like I blinked and November was over. Quick updates? I kicked butt on my endocrine module exams, did pretty well on my ENT exam, and now need to survive one more Big 3 exam (dermatology, yikes) and a couple smaller exams before I can finally take a much-needed break. Almost there!! The end of the year is fast approaching, and I'm a big fan of reflecting on how the previous year went. And wow, it has been a whirlwind year! If I think about how I thought 2019 would go in January, it definitely looks a lot different here in December. Yes, I started the year knowing I was going to PA school, but I ended up taking a spot at a different school and starting three months earlier. I left my dietitian job at a hospital I loved (I miss my dietitian, nurse, NP and doctors friends so much!). I moved into a tiny studio apartment on "fraternity row...