Tag Archives: Money

How to Save Stupid Crazy Money on Travel in Your Thirties..or.. Oh the Places You’ll Go..While Barely Traveling!

July 12, 2015 By in Friendships, Money Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

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I love travel, but I love New York more. If I had to pick whether to travel and never return to New York, or whether to stay in New York and never travel again…I must admit, I’ve just stumped myself with that one…

Anyway…I’m lucky and grateful that I never have to decide between those two options. And I’m also lucky that I get to travel all the time for work, but during the summer, the work travel slows almost to nothing. And it’s during this time that I travel the most of all! But I don’t have to go anywhere! And I don’t have to spend any money.

I will explain.

I used to have a travel blog where I’d talk about traveling all the time. Ironically, I didn’t actually ever travel for pleasure during this time – only for work- because pleasure trips cost too much money for me. Since I’m still paying off my student loan– which I’m gonna kill dammit…soon..I save a lot of money by not taking vacations.But I found a kind of travel that costs me almost no money, is just as pleasurable as pleasure trips, and never takes up a lot of time. I go on staycations! I travel completely within New York, and see lots of exciting places..even ones I’ve somehow managed to miss during my 30 years living here!

My friend Amy does this best. She’s an expert staycationer who both staycations and travels the globe. No matter whether she’s exploring Greenpoint, Brooklyn, or wandering around Tokyo, she always goes alone. It’s pretty amazing and inspiring. She always finds great places to see and new experiences to have.

Amy recently walked the the George Washington Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge in one day!

Amy recently walked the the George Washington Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge in one day!

So here’s how to save stupid crazy money on travel in your thirties and go on summer staycations instead:

1. Look for free or cheap summer things to do in your hometown

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I happened upon yoga in Bryant Park one day..I’d forgotten that it was a summer thing in New York. Pretty neat.

2. Find somewhere you’ve never gone in your city or hometown and go there.

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My friend Zach and I recently went to Governor’s Island- a little island off the coast of Manhattan- home to a bunch of museums, and gorgeous views and great picnicking areas. It cost me a grand total of $2.00 for the ferry.

3. Go to an area in your hometown/city you’ve been to but find a street or ave you’ve never seen before.

Saw fireworks on the boardwalks of Long Island City, Queens. Somehow I'd never been there before.

Saw fireworks on the boardwalks of Long Island City, Queens. Somehow I’d never been there before.

4. Go somewhere you’ve already been, but never appreciated as a vacation spot..and call it your vacation day!

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I love Fire Island beaches- and with 32 miles of beaches, there’s always more to explore.

5. Go somewhere in your hometown/city that just opened!

I went to the new Whitney museum off the Highline recently ..it's brand new!

I went to the new Whitney museum off the Highline recently ..it’s brand new!

6. Go to a place you’ve been to before but pretend you’re in Europe. Or Canada. Or America if you live in Europe or Canada. You know what I mean.

Ferry off the coast of downtown Toronto

Ferry off the coast of downtown Manhattan.

Ferry off the coast of downtown Manhattan.

7. Go nowhere, stay at home, and say you’re on vacation. Turn off your phone. Disconnect wifi. Call it ‘mental spa week.’

Ahhh, I’m starting to feel better already just thinking about mental spa week.

Doesn’t a summer staycation sound good? Give it a try! It’ll seem even better after you take a look at your bank account and still have all of your hard earned money left 😉

How To Move In Your Thirties- Part 1

July 9, 2015 By in Grab Bag Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

If you’re moving in your thirties, there’s probably something tumultuous happening in your life. At least that’s been my experience with moving. But then again, that was my experience in my twenties too. So I guess moving is usually accompanied by some kind of major upheaval, no matter what your age.

I hate moving. I hate it more than almost anything. I practically have to be dragged out of a place in order to leave it. Yet, I guess life is pretty good at dragging me out and keeping me moving, because I’ve moved 8 times since college (I actually had to count my moves multiple times because the number seemed so high). So I guess I should be quite the moving authority by now.

Since I’ve changed places so many times, I guess I have a couple of moving moves I use over and over, even if I don’t really feel like a total expert at moving because I hate it so damn much. I actually think that moving only felt harder in my late twenties and start of thirties, because I want so badly to stop and call a place home for as long as possible. So I’d like to share a few tips that will hopefully make your moves less harsh than mine have been…or at least somewhat smoother. Here’s a few I’ve learned the hard way:

1) The emotional part is hard- embrace it and move on

One of my moves happened because I went from living with roommates to living with a boyfriend. I loved my place with the roommates and was very attached to my huge room. My boyfriend at the time said to me: “But the room you’re in is only a box. It’s just a box of space. We’ll find a new box of space to live and we’ll make it home.” At the time, it felt like a harsh and almost cold thing to say. However, those words have stuck with me throughout my future moves. Where you live now is only a box. It was once cold and empty and it will be cold and empty again one day. You will find a new place to live and you’ll be the one to make a home for yourself. The place won’t be able to make you a home. It never could. it’s only a box.

2) Craigslist is awesome, but sometimes it helps to phone a friend

I love Craigslist. I used to use it for everything, even jobs (though now the jobs area seems to have become somewhat of a sketchy operation so I don’t recommend it anymore). I do still love the apt listings on Craigslist though, and I found all of my roommates through the site. For my last move, however, Jane actually gave me the number of her former broker, who was amazing and found me the place that I’m in now. I never would have found my apt without her. Let friends know you’re looking for a new place to live- a lot of times someone will have a recommendation, or a great broker, or at least know a friend of a friend who’s moving.

3. Get movers. Get movers. Get movers.

I can’t repeat this one enough. Moving is tough enough without having to drag your bed and dresser up 4 flights of stairs. This is one of those times where you need to throw money at the problem- budget it in. Even if you barely have much money (I’ve been very stressed about money in the past, but I still budgeted for movers because I’ve also moved without them before and it’s been AWFUL). Movers are worth every penny. Here’s a recommendation for my favorite movers if you’re moving to or within New York City.

4. If you’re renting, or even buying, especially in a bigger city, be ready to move fast

New York apartments are truly here and then gone in a New York minute. Other large cities are likely to be similar. If you really like the place, put down the deposit and say yes. I ‘ve actually looked at places with a check in hand for roommate situations. Shopping for homes is a little different with brokers and full apartments or houses, but you need to be ready to commit ASAP, or you can lose the place to someone else.

5. Make a top 5 list of what you’re looking for in a home.

Try to keep the list under 6 items tops. Your list should be what you REALLLY don’t want to compromise on in a home. There was one time where I was looking for an apartment and kept subwaying around to dozens of places and checking them all out in person. It was exhausting. A friend said to me, “you should narrow down what you’re looking for BEFORE you go and see the apartment. Try to make sure it has what you want as early as you can, and THEN go trek over and check it out.” This advice has helped me IMMENSELY…in fact, it might be the best tactic I’ve ever used to help me find a better apartment faster. Here’s my old list as an example:

  1. Must be near the subway (ideally under a 10 minute walk)
  2. Good size room (or good size full apartment if I was going the non-roommate route at the time)
  3. No mice or bugs (hard to figure out at first glance, but some places seem more likely than others)
  4. No crazy or bad roommates allowed (you can only use your best judgement with this one…until you eliminate having roommates entirely)
  5. Elevator building (I travel a TON for work and dragging suitcases up 3 flights of stairs 50 times a year SUCKS).                                                                         Then I had a bunch of preferences that weren’t deal-breakers, such as
  • Modern place preferred
  • Close to Manhattan preferred
  • Neighbors can’t hear me walking on floor preferred (I used to have a landlord that lived under me and would bang on the ceiling with a broom at night when I was walking to and from my desk. That was very unpleasant…I guess for both of us.

Anyway, I can go on and on with many more tips, especially ones for after you’ve moved and are figuring things out in your new space, so I’ll just call this part one and end it for now.

Meanwhile, I’ll simply link to Ikea. Because.

You’re welcome.

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What’s Been the Best Use of Your Money So Far?

June 28, 2015 By in Money Tags: , Leave a comment

Hope you’ve been having a great weekend so far! Mine has been pretty relaxing. My fiancé’s father was in town, so we hung out with him and enjoyed the city. We saw Spy on Friday night (amazing! who doesn’t love Melissa McCarthy?) and have been eating our way through West Los Angeles – highlights have included brick oven pepperoni pizza, graham cracker frozen yogurt and spaghetti squash sautéed in garlic. We’ve also been running long-delayed errands.

While we were wandering around in Bed, Bath and Beyond yesterday and I was fawning over expensive Keurig coffee makers, I started thinking about money. Specifically, how money makes us happy. Many of us have more disposable income in our 30s and we’re able to spend more money on things like rent for nicer apartments, clothing, electronics, trips and having children. Granted, I’m not as far along money/nest-egg wise since I was just in graduate school, but it seems fair to say that most 30-somethings are financially better-off than they were in their 20s.

So the question circling around in my head yesterday was: what’s been the best use of your money in your life so far? For me, it’s been anything education or writing related: writing workshops, grad school expenses, the cost of entering competitions and trips. All of these are experiences, which most research says make a person happier than spending money on material purchases. There’s a great article about this phenomenon in Fast Company, The Science of Why You Should Spend Your Money on Experiences, Not Things.

I found this particular aspect to the rationale of spending money on experiences fascinating:

You’re also much less prone to negatively compare your own experiences to someone else’s than you would with material purchases. One study conducted by researchers Ryan Howell and Graham Hill found that it’s easier to feature-compare material goods (how many carats is your ring? how fast is your laptop’s CPU?) than experiences. And since it’s easier to compare, people do so.

– Author, Jay Cassano

I guess it’s also because we all value such different experiences. I’m sure a ton of people would find spending $500 on a writing course that meets for three hours one night a week after work to be a waste. They might rather take a weekend trip to go sky-diving.

Looking back on your spending in your life thus-far, what’s been the most profound bang for your buck, so to speak?

 

Really Awesome Credit Bureau Changes You Should Know About

May 28, 2015 By in Money Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I just wrote an article about credit card myths, and right afterwards, big news broke about some credit bureau changes happening in 31 states in the near future. A lot of the changes will be very helpful to consumers 🙂

Now that you’re in your thirties, make sure you’re keeping your credit report in extra good shape by checking it at least once a year. You can easily check it on a site like http://www.annualcreditreport.com  Errors pop up in credit reports all the time and you want to catch them early before they damage your score. The new rules getting put in place among the credit bureaus should help stop these accidents from happening. Here they are:

  • If there’s an error on your file with one of the three agencies, that agency must notify the others
  • It will now take 180 days for medical debt to appear on your credit report. So if you have medical debt because your insurance is supposed to take care of a bill and things are still processing, the issue will get squared away before doing any credit damage.
  • The bureaus will closely track data furnishers who most often supply disputed info- so if an organization or debt collection agency is being disputed all the time by everyone, credit bureaus will get way more suspicious.
  • The bureaus have to educate consumers on getting access to free credit reports as opposed to paying for promoted credit reports.
  • You’ll get an additional free credit report provided to you if you’ve recently disputed a claim.

Thanks so much! Hope this all gets put into place! 🙂

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Credit Card Myths You May Still Believe In Your Thirties

May 22, 2015 By in Money Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

I feel like getting and keeping good credit is something that should be taught in schools. Otherwise you really have to dig to learn the ins and outs of the mysterious FICO score.

Then again, there are many financial topics that should be taught in schools but aren’t.

Sadness.

Just because I’m in my thirties doesn’t mean I was necessarily taught anything about the ins and outs of FICO. Most of my answers have been self taught.

So I’m here with some common credit card myths that I used to believe in the past. The only way to counter the misinformation that abounds about FICO scores is to provide some solid facts. Hope they’re helpful!

1. Applying for Credit Cards majorly damages your credit score

FALSE – Actually, applying for new Credit Cards will likely help your score in the long run because it will lower your debt-to-credit (or credit utilization) ratio and will increase your credit history. Applying for new cards temporarily lowers your credit score- but way less than you may think. The dip will usually be around 5 points. The long term gains you see will likely be much more than that.

2. You must carry a balance on your credit cards to build credit history and increase your score

FALSE- I really used to believe this one and used to wonder what the magic number was- should you carry a 5% balance? 1%? The answer is that you can pay off your cards in full every month and your score will only increase because of your better debt-to credit ratio.

3. Canceling your credit cards is good for your credit score

FALSE – If you’re an out of control spender, financial gurus such as Suze Orman recommend that you cut up your credit cards- but don’t cancel them. Canceling them will lower your all important debt-to-credit ratio, and will likely end up lowering your score. The only time you should cancel a card is when it has an annual fee that you don’t feel is worth paying anymore. It’ll still lower your score a bit, but it may be worth it.

4. Once you have a bad credit score, you can never fix it

FALSE- This is very untrue. Credit scores don’t really reflect how things are today- they’re a collection of happenings over the years. Missed and late payments and other score damagers will actually fall off your report in 7 years! So there’s likely very good FICO news in your future if you got off-track but now are back on.

5. Checking your credit report hurts your score

FALSE- I believed this one forever. But it’s just not true. If you check your own credit, it’s known as a soft inquiry, and doesn’t have ANY effect on your credit score. If someone else (a credit card issuer, lender, etc) checks your credit score, it’s called a hard inquiry, and that affects your credit score. But not by as much as you think (see Myth #1 above).

Hope this was helpful! These are the simplest myths, but I’ll be back with a part 2 very soon 🙂

3d rendering of a credit card cut into pieces

A Base Salary of $70,000 a Year for Every Employee?

April 14, 2015 By in Career, Money Tags: , 1 Comment

Have you heard about how Gravity Payments, a start-up company based in Seattle, is implementing a plan to give every employee a base salary of at least $70,000 a year? I just read about it today in this article, One Company’s New Minimum Wage: $70,000 a Year, and it made my heart do a little dance of joy. It’s a pretty incredible leap from the “Fight for 15” movement which is pushing for minimum wage bumps to $15 an hour at fast food companies.

Citing happiness research as his impetus for this new salary minimum, Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, said that the idea came to him after reading a study that said that for people who make less than $70,000 a year, extra money makes a huge difference in their lives.

Patricia Cohen, the author of the article, succinctly states the research here:

“The happiness research behind Mr. Price’s announcement on Monday came from Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist. They found that what they called emotional well-being — defined as “the emotional quality of an individual’s everyday experience, the frequency and intensity of experiences of joy, stress, sadness, anger, and affection that make one’s life pleasant or unpleasant” — rises with income, but only to a point. And that point turns out to be about $75,000 a year.”

So I guess we should all aim to make at least $75,000 a year? Easier said than done, I know. Because, if you’re like me, in a less traditional, perhaps more artistic or non-profit type job, that’s not all too easy to attain. And sometimes, if a job offer that pays that much comes your way, you may have to choose between salary or higher personal satisfaction? For me, I’ve often chosen the latter – which is why…true money confession…I’ve never made $70,000 a year. Not yet, at least. When I do make that amount, it will nice to not stress about going out to nice dinners with friends, or being able to buy nice gifts for people, or treating myself to something randomly without thinking too much about the financial consequences. Since my tastes are pretty minimal, I think I could do that on a salary of $70,000 a year.

Currently, the average salary of an employee at Gravity Payments is $48,000. So that’s a pretty sweet bump for those employees whose salaries are in the average range. One of the other reasons Dan Price instituted this change was because he felt the discrepancy between CEO/top leadership pay and regular employees salaries was absurd.

I hope the company continues to stay profitable and that the employees end up being more invested and productive in their jobs, so that perhaps one day this can be a model for other companies.

Tax Mistakes You May Still Make in Your Thirties

March 31, 2015 By in Money Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Did you guys file your taxes already? If you haven’t yet, there’s still time to comb your return for some of the most common tax mistakes. Even though we’re in our thirties, taxes haven’t gotten any more fun. Life’s weird like that sometimes.

Well, I guess we could make our own fun – let’s catch some silly little tax errors on all our returns. Good times.

So in the name of fun and happy times, here are some of the top tax mistakes you won’t make because you read OMGImThirty:

1. All names and numbers (such as your Social Security number) need to be absolutely correct. Make sure your name matches what’s on your social security card. Otherwise your taxes may get rejected or you may not be able to efile. The tax man doesn’t care that your cute pet name is Lollykins- he won’t appreciate you using it on your taxes.

2. Don’t file using a paper tax form- it’s a lot harder to catch any mathematical errors. Actually, are you really still using a paper form? Stop. Just no.

3. Make sure your filing status is correct. If you’re single you may qualify as Head of Household. Fancy stuff.

4. Make sure your bank account info is correct, especially if you changed banks recently. You want that tax refund to get safely into your hands, right? Yay, safe and sound tax refund- come home to me!

5. When  you efile, you need to sign your tax return with a Pin number. You can easily use the one from last year…unless you forgot what it was…like I did. If that happens, you can simply enter your AGI from last year. Unless you have no idea what that was…like I did. Just don’t lose your pin, ok? You’ll just keep needing it year after year. Just put it in a safe place already, ok? Ok??

6. If you file for an extension, remember that you still have to PAY. You didn’t think you’d get to collect interest on that tax money for months on end, did you? You know there’s no way Uncle Sam would let you do that without penalty, right?

7. Don’t lose your paperwork…receipts can be requested by the IRS for up to 7 years after you’ve filed! If you’re a hoarder anyway, indulge your habit and add all receipts to that random paperwork collection under your bed.

8. Don’t file late unless you get an extension! And make sure to actually file! Did you conveniently forget to file already? You may think you’re soaring under the radar, but the IRS will find you. Yup yup, they will.

9. Account for all income sources. Even if you don’t tell Uncle Sam that you worked part time at the circus, you can safely wager that the circus reported every fire-eating penny you collected.

FireEater2 (1)

 

Happy filing! And let us know if you think of other common errors you’d like to share with others. Thanks for reading!

Credits vs Adjustments vs Deductions, The Most Common Tax Questions in Your Thirties- Part 3

March 5, 2015 By in Money Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

On to the next one! The next tax question pertinent to those of us in our thirties, that is…

Yesterday, I wrote about Standard Deductions vs Itemized Deductions. Today I will attempt to explain Credits vs Adjustments vs Deductions in the simplest way possible.

It took me forever to understand the difference in these terms (they’re slippery). If you can grasp them, you’re miles ahead of the tax curve..so let’s start 🙂

TOTAL INCOME: So let’s say you’re single and you make $60,000 total this year in income, including every penny that goes in your pocket. That’s your total income. 

ADJUSTMENT (also known as ABOVE THE LINE deductions): Now, let’s say you paid $1,500 in student loan interest this year and contributed $3000 to a traditional IRA (retirement account). No matter whether you decide to take the standard deduction or itemize your deductions (both standard deductions and itemized deductions are known as Below the Line Deductions), you can subtract your student loan interest of $1500 and the traditional IRA contributions of $3000 from your total income! This is because they are adjustments. And adjustments are great! So your Adjusted Gross Income would be $55,500. ($60,000 – $1,500 – $3000 = $55,500). 

To clarify more regarding adjustments, let’s say you still made $60,000 in total income, and you still paid $1,500 in student loan interest this year and contributed $3000 to a traditional IRA. But you also gave $500 to charity and paid $1000 in medical expenses. If you took the standard deduction on your taxes ($6,300 this year for single filers), you would still able to subtract the adjustments (student loan interest and health insurance contributions) from your total income but couldn’t subtract the $500 given to charity and the $1000 in medical expenses because they count as itemized deductions. If you itemized your deductions, you could subtract the student loan interest, retirement account money paid, AND charity donations AND medical expenses. This doesn’t mean that you should itemize though- only itemize if your itemized deductions exceed $6,300 (the standard deduction) this year!

CREDIT: So far, we’ve only talked about subtracting from your total income. How about subtracting from your tax bill? Sound good?

So lets say you have to pay $6000 in taxes. If you have a credit, it will reduce that bill dollar for dollar. So if you have a $2,000 credit, your tax bill will be $4,000 (6,000-2000). Credits are the best to have but also the hardest to come by. Credits you could possibly take include the Credit for Child and Dependent Care expenses, the Child Credit, and education credits (like the Lifetime Learning Credit and the Hope Credit).

Let’s illustrate all of this below:

Total income (sum of all your income)
— Above the line deductions
=  Adjusted gross income ← “The Line”
— Standard deduction or itemized deductions
— Exemptions (you can always take an exemption for yourself, and then more for your dependents. Right now the exemption per person is $3,950.)
=  Taxable income

Here’s our example plugged in:

$60,000 Total Income
— $4,500 Above the line deductions (adjustments)
= $54,500 Adjusted Gross Income ← “the line”
— $3,950 Exemption
— $6,200 Standard deduction
= $44,350 Taxable Income

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions or comments! 🙂

Standard Deduction vs Itemized Deductions, The Most Common Tax Questions in Your Thirties- Part 2

March 4, 2015 By in Money Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

It’s still tax time! If you finished your taxes already, kudos to you!

For everyone else, lets get some more questions answered..(and for the record, I haven’t finished mine either, so don’t worry).  🙂

Also, if you didn’t get to read Part 1 of Tax Questions Answered, click here.

I do my parents’ taxes every year and just finished their 2014 filing this weekend. However, I recently realized that even though they always take the standard deduction, I still spend time calculating their itemized charitable contributions- even though that particular type of contribution (charitable) doesn’t factor in on your taxes if you take the standard deduction.

If the paragraph above made no sense to you, let me clarify below. We’ll start with some terminology I feel like I should know all of this now that I’m thirty, but some of it I actually had to dig into a bit, so I’ll explain it pretty piecemeal here:

Gross Income= What you make in a year, including EVERYTHING, from Jan 1 to Dec 31 (you, of course, probably already know this one).

Adjusted Gross Income= Your taxable income after you subtract certain ADJUSTMENTS but before you subtract either the Standard Deduction or your Itemized Deductions (you can only subtract one or the other of those two types of deductions)).

Standard Deduction= An amount you can always subtract from the gross income you’ll be taxed on, as long as you don’t subtract your itemized deductions instead. The standard deduction for the 2014 tax year is:

  • Single or married filing separately: $6,300
  • Married filing jointly: $12,600
  • Head of household: $9,250

Itemized Deduction (not the standard deduction kind)= These are deductions you can take if you decide NOT to take the standard deduction. These include but aren’t limited to: medical and dental expenses that exceed 7.5% of your AGI (Adjusted Gross Income), property taxes, your state and local income or sales taxes, charitable donations you make, work related travel, union dues. 

So if you’re trying to decide whether to take the standard deduction or itemize your deductions, you want to basically choose whichever one is larger.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you’re unmarried with no children and make $50,000…And you can itemize these deductions:

  1. $1000 in work related unreimbursed travel
  2. $500 in medical expenses
  3. $400 in state and local taxes
  4. $100 in clothes donated to goodwill

This equals $2000 in Itemized donations. If you chose to itemize deductions, you’ll be taxed on $48,000 (50,000-$2000). If you took the standard deduction, you’ll be taxed on $43,700 ($50,000-$6,300). So you’d want to take the standard deduction for sure, because you want to be taxed on less income and pay less money 🙂

I’ll stop here for now, but hope this was somewhat helpful! Next time, I’ll talk about Adjustments and Credits, and how they can reduce your tax bill even further!

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or anything to add. Thanks!

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Top 10 Money Mistakes to Avoid in Your 30s

February 21, 2015 By in Money Tags: , 3 Comments

In no particular order, here are 10 money mistakes to avoid in your thirties:

1. Only paying the minimum on your credit card

No. No. No. Avoid this, unless you absolutely cannot. The interest on some of these cards is bonkers (30% anyone?), and it’s just not worth it.

2. Not Considering the Benefits of a Company You May Work At 

Think about all the benefits a future company can offer you. Not just the job itself.

Choosing to work at a company that offers matching funds for your retirement 401K is an amazing perk and you absolutely MUST take advantage of it. Larger corporations often offer matching funds and it’s basically free money, so don’t let it pass you by.

Also consider how good the health benefits are, if there are benefits at all. How much will you have to pay monthly? Do they cover services like physical therapy and talk therapy?

Are there other benefits to consider? Like education or free daycare. I worked at a college for 4 years, and I was able to get a FREE MFA if I wanted. Umm…free Master’s Education, heck yeah! That’s worth like $40,000. I would have done this if they offered writing, but they didn’t. However, imagine if you worked at a school like Columbia, and could a Master’s program that would up your earning potential. Awesome. In many cases, you can also get your children free tuition down the line, if you’re still working at the school of course.

3. Spending too much on little things 

From your $3 cold brew iced coffee to your $1.75 Dasani cold water (guilty), all of these little extravagances add up. Sometimes, at the end of the day, I think about all the small fees and treats I could have avoided paying for, and usually it’s been $3 and $5. So let’s say I could save an extra $5 a day, that would be $1825 a year! Holy moly. That’s a lot of money.

4. Apartment Broker Fees

In NYC, it can sometimes be between 10 and 12% of the annual rent – which can be about one month’s rent or anywhere from $1100 to $2000, depending on what kind of apartment you rent.

I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve paid at least three broker fees when I lived in NYC. That was about $3000 lost dollars. There are ways to get around paying broker fees, and searching for these ways is the best way to go. It may mean a longer search time, or using more unorthodox methods (like asking friends of friends), but it’s worth it.

5. Not Picking Up Loose Change on the Street 

My mom taught me this one. Laugh all you want, but if you see a penny, a quarter, a nickel – anything, pick it up! Seriously. It’s not just about the money itself. I think it truly cultivates a sense of reverence towards money. Every time you don’t pick up change, it’s like saying “Oh, that’s just a nickel, who cares!” but what a terrible mentality. Let’s say you manage to pick up 10 cents a day everyday for 10 years (Which actually seems pretty likely considering how many pennies I see lying around), you’d have $365 dollars after 10 years. Not chump change.

6. Not Shopping Around for Groceries 

I adore Rao’s tomato sauce. It’s anywhere from $7.99 to $9.99 a jar, but man, that stuff rules. It’s absolutely delicious and tastes like you’re eating at a real Italian restaurant. Yum. But the point is that normally it’s on sale, recently Whole Foods has been carrying it for $7.99, and that saves me a whole $2 each time I buy it.

7. Not Choosing the Best Option between Renting and Buying 

I really don’t know how to describe the exact math here, but use this handy calculator to determine the best option for you.

8. Not Shopping for Clothing on Sale

Most stores have sales now that offer days when all items are a percentage off. In particular, Banana Republic and the Gap ALWAYS have their damn 40% off sales, at least once a week it seems. Why would you buy any full-price item that’s NOT 40% off? Those are the main two clothing stores I shop at, so I always wait until that deal is around before I purchase an item.

9. Investing in high-cost managed accounts 

Laura knows more about this than I do, but some investment and mutual fund accounts have fees attached to them, from the 1% fund management fee to the 1% financial advisor fee, you end up paying 40% of your returns (generally between 5 and 7%) to your broker.

10.  Having too many automated payments

I love my fiancé and he’s really good with money in most senses, but he has WAY too many automated payments. From paying monthly fees for Photoshop to Spotify, he pays a ton in monthly payments for services.  The problem with automated payments is that you forget about them. They become like financial wallpaper. And I think that’s dangerous. Again, it goes back to having a reverence for money.

BONUS:

11. Not Consistently Checking Your Credit Score 

I use the free service Credit Karma, and I check in every few months to see if my score has gone up (or god forbid, gone down). Having a high credit score can save you THOUSANDS of dollars in the long run, especially when you want to take out a mortgage. Staying above 760 is ideal. Even higher is better.

Hope this helps! If you have any tips of your own and would like to share, please do.

The Most Common Tax Questions in Your Thirties- Part 1

February 17, 2015 By in Money Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Oh man, it’s getting to be tax time soon. Has anyone already filed their taxes? If so, good for you! Kudos!

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I’m still working in Chicago right now and won’t be able to get all my 1099s together and ready for filing until I get back to New York. I have things moderately organized, and I even have an accountant, but my tax preparation still requires quite a bit of effort- especially since I sometimes end up with over a dozen 1099s per year (!)

In honor of the advent of tax season, and taxes starting to be on the forefront of everyone’s mind, I’ve compiled a list of common tax questions that are relevant to those of us in our thirties. The first few are pretty basic ones which you may have already figured out, and then they get slightly more detailed. Of course, tax answers are rarely simple, so you should make sure to triple check everything for your own personal situation. And I’m splitting this into sections, so you’ll get more tax question and tip articles as April 15th approaches.

1. Should I use tax software this year? Which program?

I used to use H&R Block’s tax software, which I think is pretty good. It’s about $20 for a basic program, and $65 for self-employed software.Turbotax is also quite popular- and it’s base cost is free. Once my self-employment taxes started to get really complex, I hired an accountant.

2. Should I get an accountant?

Only you know whether you need an accountant based on your personal situation. However, I think you can almost definitely make do with simple tax software if you are an employee with only one job and all you need to file is your w2. If you have side income from anything (rental income, side jobs, etc), you may want to consider an accountant- however, I think you still may be able to use tax software successfully. If you’re self-employed, I recommend considering an accountant, if only to protect yourself from accidental audit triggers. You can even find accountants on Yelp now. My goodness, I love Yelp.

3. How much do accountants cost?

CPA’s (Certified Public Accounts) charge anywhere from $150-$400 or more. But you can definitely get a great accountant for less than $400…read those Yelp reviews. A funny bonus of having an accountant is that your tax prep fee is actually tax deductible!

4. Does last year’s tax refund count as income this year?

The answer to this is almost always no if you took the standard deduction. If you itemized your deductions, it may count as income- look into it.

5. What documents do I need to do my taxes?

You need all your w2s (if you work only one job, you’ll have only one w2).

You’ll need all your 1099s if you’re self-employed or have side income.

Also, it’s important to have documentation of any interest you made on any of your savings or investments (you get taxed on this).

Additionally, you’ll need documentation of any interest you paid so you can deduct that from your taxable income (the interest paid on student loans, etc, is tax deductible). Also, if you’re itemizing deductions, you’ll need your receipts, or a spreadsheet of your receipts if you made one. (You won’t actually need to show anyone the actual receipts (except your accountant) unless you’re audited.)

6. If I made very little money this year, do I still have to file taxes?

Officially, for 2014, if you’re under 65 and filing as single and independent, you don’t actually have to file your taxes if you made under $10,500. If you’re married and filing jointly and under 65, the number is $20,300. Here’s a chart with more details. However, you may still want to file taxes for several reasons- one of which is that if you had taxes withheld, you can’t get your tax refund without filing. Here are a few other reasons.

7. What are some deductions I can take to help reduce what I’m paying on my taxes?

Have you deducted the interest you’re paying on your mortgage or student loan debt? Have you deducted your health care costs? Did you spend lots money to move for your job? There are some great deductions you may not be using to your advantage. Mashable goes into fantastic detail on this here.

Hope this has helped you with some of your questions- feel free to comment below with additional ones- I’d love to hear from you! Look out for more tax info here soon, and good luck filing!

Help! I Have No Money In My Thirties And Am Not Able To Follow Any of Your Money Advice

February 5, 2015 By in Money Tags: , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Somewhere around the second month or so of this blog, I’d written a few posts on finances-saving money and putting money into retirement accounts and wasn’t sure what people wanted to hear about next financially. I asked Jane, my co-blogger, what financial advice she might want to hear next.

Jane said to me, “I’m wondering what advice we can give to people who feel like they can’t follow any of the retirement account advice or the savings account advice. What about the people who are barely making ends meet? What about people who are just like ‘I’m broke and can’t do any of this?”

She told me about this teacher of hers who didn’t really want to save money and didn’t want to start a retirement account. He basically wanted to “live in the now” and said he didn’t have enough money to put away for any retirement account or savings account anyway. “All this money advice is BS for people who don’t have enough money,” he said.

At the time I was completely stumped. The topic filled me with fear. I was pretty new at following this financial growth advice myself and I told myself I’d simply get back to the ‘not enough money’ topic.

Then a few days ago I was talking to a coworker about how I put 10 percent of my money into savings, 10 percent into retirement, and 10 percent into additional student loan payoff.

In turn, he told me how he divided his money. He  had a pretty sophisticated system. He put aside 20 percent right off the bat for taxes (he’s self employed like me.) He had a separate account to hold that tax money. He also had multiple accounts reserved for different things- one for investments, one for savings, a special account just for spending money, another for classes (investment in learning.) It was a quite complicated and well laid out system and I felt mildly overwhelmed for a bit. He asked me what I might be investing in, and I was stumped. I wasn’t investing in anything in particular- not in a separate account anyway. I was ‘only’ investing in my Roth IRA…I hadn’t ‘gotten to the investment step yet.’ I’m still killing off my student loan that was originally over $100,000 but is now finally less than half of that.

I started to feel like I might not be as well-prepared financially as I thought I was, and I felt intimidated by how far ahead of me some people seemed to be. There was still so much  investment research I wanted to do- so much more money I still wanted to make and save. But then I started to feel proud of myself once again for all that I financially accomplished so far in just the last two of my thirty years. I was perhaps not as financially ahead of the game as I’d like to be at thirty, but I had made a major dent.

And I flashed back to a time when I felt absolutely overwhelmed by the killer student loan in my life. A time where I cried at the thought of  just getting by monetarily from month to month. Where I would have laughed at the thought of retirement or savings accounts, and could barely pay for a dinner out. Where just paying rent every month put true fear in my heart.

They say that money doesn’t buy happiness, but I’ll say very honestly that it can take away a huge amount of fear.

So if you’re feeling afraid and maybe even embarrassed that you don’t have enough money in your thirties to follow the retirement plan or savings account steps laid out for you by certain financial sites or advisors, let’s start with a simple first step:

1. You’re not alone. And it’s okay.

It’s really okay. The fear is real, but so is the truth. And the truth is that everyone moves at their own pace. Not everyone starts at the same point. Perhaps you have multiple student loans or have gotten yourself into some bad credit card debt. Or you’re making no money or are in school or have just declared bankruptcy. The most important thing is that you will change and want to change and grow your wealth.

2. You recognize that you want to change your finances and are ready to take small steps.

Dave Ramsey says this best with his talk of Baby Steps. Take things little by little. If you’re not making enough money to follow any financial advice, then your focus should be on hustling to make more money. It’s that simple. Dave Ramsey will sometimes tell people to ‘deliver pizzas for extra money’ when they call into his show and tell him they’re broke. That may seem below your sense of dignity, but sometimes you may truly have to hustle.

I’ve worked outside in the snow in the dead of winter, taught SAT prep in my spare time, sold insurance, traveled two hours to Staten Island to work gigs and much more in the past in order to meet the quota for money I needed to make that month. Hustling for money can be hard and grueling, but it can be done.

3. Do what you can. It does get better. Really.

I recently paid off a student loan that I wasn’t supposed to pay off until 2022. It was quite a feat, and I’m very proud of myself. Did I get it paid off early because I’m rich? Not at all- I got it paid off 7 years early because I got angry at the loan and I set my mind to getting it out of my life. My other big loan is still ahead, but you better believe I plan to attack it with all I’ve got. I don’t make a ton of money, but I try my best to take baby steps to get rid of my student loan debt and save as much money as I can. Right now I have a mini retirement account started and a small savings account. It can be done. It’s just little by little.

Times can be hard and finances can be scary. Please know that I understand and I’ve been there. Im still there sometimes. But I believe that I things can get better and they’ve been slowly getting there. And I know you can do it too. I believe in you.

 

2014-07-26 16.28.50

Can You Monetize It?

January 27, 2015 By in Career, Money Tags: , , , , , , , 3 Comments

My background is in theater. I was a drama major in college who started out as an actor and quickly discovered that I also loved to direct.

After I graduated, I went in search of lots of theater to work on. I quickly found myself directing friends’ plays and also acting in plays for theater festivals and readings all over the city. I was proud of my efforts, even when they took up all my time and didn’t pay anything. Sometimes I would get what’s called a ‘stipend,’ which is a small amount of honorary money for my time and effort. Usually, no money would be involved at all- other than the money I spent out of my own pocket on the production.  I balanced my paying job (working tradeshows) with working on as much theater as I could fit into the crevices of my time off.

Sometimes I would turn down paid tradeshow work because I was in the middle of rehearsals for a production I was directing. The irony of this is that I could sometimes make the equivalent of my entire directors stipend in one day of work at my ‘real job.’

But I found it hard to prioritize tradeshows because theater was my ‘true passion’ and what I ‘really did’…tradeshow work was just a filler job. Theater became this magical universe where being paid a decent rate for your time became something of a joke, and everyone just moaned ‘there’s no money in theater, we need donations’ and continued on.

n the dressing room before a show..I'm not exactly sure what we were doing here.

In the dressing room before a show..I’m not exactly sure what we’re doing here, but bananas were definitely involved.

Then there came a time a few years ago where I reached my breaking point. I needed to put more money towards my student loans and stop turning down paid work. I couldn’t work for free anymore. So I took a hiatus from theater. The hiatus has been going on for about 2 years now…in fact, I’m still on that hiatus.

Amazingly, I’ve been pretty happy during this time off. I still co-run a theater company, so I keep a bit of theater in my life, and I’ve been able to work as much as I can and not double book paid jobs with unpaid rehearsals. I really enjoy my career in tradeshows, so I’m happily going through my days. Things are good, but I sometimes wonder about my real passion.

Now that I’m thirty, I’ve been thinking a lot about paid ‘filler’ work versus unpaid passions. There are so many options here. I kind of turned my ‘filler’ work into my main work, but I could have attempted to monetize my passion. Contrary to what I might have you believe from this post, there are people making some money from theater or theatrical work. And there are lots of people who work on all sorts of passion projects that can be monetized, but haven’t been monetarily figured out yet.

Then there are other friends of mine who know there’s very little money in their passion projects, but are okay with that. When I asked my friend how he replies to people who question his choice to be a playwright even though there’s just about no money in it, he inspired me. He said, “I tell them that I’ve worked lots of jobs that paid me tons of money and none of them made me as happy as I am writing plays. Not everything is about money.”

There’s a lot to think about here.

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