Denver Weekend Spending Recap

My 2nd weekend getaway of June was awesome! I officially love Denver! The weather was amazing, the city was clean and very new, and the people were fantastic! A very social, active and young population. I stayed with one of my best girlfriends who lives there and we had a blast! On Saturday, we went to a bar and watched the World Cup game for a few hours, then headed to a park where a large group of us spent the afternoon hanging out before going out in the evening. On Sunday, four of us went on a driving tour of Denver, from Red Rocks Park to various neighborhoods and some of the nearby mountain towns. It was absolutely beautiful! Here's what I spent:

• Cash: $70 (I burn through cash when I have it! This was spent on food/alcohol all weekend)
• Saturday Bar: $9
• Sunday Brunch: $17
• Ice Cream: $9 (I bought it for my friends who drove me all over the city)
• Sunday Dinner: $7

I had $70 leftover from what I took out of my Travel Fund for both this and my Seattle trip, so I've sent that back to be used for future travel! :) Now, where to go next...

This & That

My life has been very busy lately, and I am loving it! :) I went home two weekends ago for my younger brother's college graduation and spent $18.50 over 4 days. Gotta love it when my parents spoil me on my few trips home every year!

My social life has been blowing up, which is exactly what I have been needing. Most of my best friends moved away after college and those I met while studying abroad live in other states, all around the country. Let me tell you: it's very difficult to make friends after college. I joined a book club last August through Meetup and I'm finally getting close to some of the girls. One of them has invited me out for happy hour and I've seen a movie with another. You know what's a great feeling? Becoming friends with someone where it's so easy to get together and you talk as if you've been friends for years! :) Now, if only I could meet some other single girlfriends?!

I also went to SeaWorld on Sunday with my roommates and spent $7 on dinner since our park tickets were free! On Monday I had a no-spend-day when I went to a free outdoors bootcamp in the evening. A girl I know from college is trying to become a personal trainer and wants to work with some women so she invited a bunch of us to her make-shift bootcamps... which are basically just getting together outside to work out. It was fun and really refreshing to be in the beautiful park at the bay since I'm always inside at the gym, even if it was just her, her roommate and myself! In fact, my legs are still sore from all the drills we did: sprints, lunges, and squats. We also used free weights, resistance bands and did some mat work plus 10 minutes of stretching at the end. She was really good and targeted all different muscles, plus she made sure we were doing everything correctly. She's going to offer the sessions 3x a week to start and eventually get up to 5-6x a week, for FREE until she gets her personal training certificate! :)

Last night I spent $13 for dinner at my book club meeting. A little more than I had anticipated, but I absolutely love the group so I'll pay that 1-2x a month for the wonderful company! Today my department at work had teambuilding at the local fair. Our tickets were comped but we had to purchase our own lunch, so I spent $7.50 on a delicious gyro. No fried poptarts/twinkies/butter for me! (Yes. You read that right: FRIED BUTTER. Gag!)

To top off my increased social activities, I'm finally heading to Denver this weekend! So. Excited. Since USA won their soccer game today, I'll probably end up watching the game with my friend at some bar on Saturday and she's going to show me all around Denver on Sunday. A quick 48-hour trip, but weekend getaways are one of my favorite things to do! :) I've budgeted $200 for it.

I've also started my apartment hunt! I'm seeing a second place tomorrow so I'll post about both places soon. Happy Wednesday! :)

June Vacation #1

Tonight I'm heading home to Seattle for a lovely four-day weekend with my family! My younger brother is graduating college; Sunday is the big day. Lucky duck is going to be backpacking through Europe for two months this summer, as he has not yet found a job in this still-dismal economy!

Since I'll be at home, I haven't figured out what to budget for this trip. My flight is right during dinner time, so I've pulled out some cash to cover a not-so-thrilling airport meal prior to departure. (Don't worry, Carrie, I won't be eating at McDonald's!) I know I'll be doing some shopping with my Mom... but mostly it will be a lot of family time and celebrating my brother's graduation! Plus, we are definitely going to be watching the World Cup. Yay! My Travel Fund is still happy with just under $750 in it. I'll just play it by ear and see what happens. :) Have a wonderful weekend!

Fully-Funded Emergency Fund!

It's official. My emergency fund has hit a HUGE mark!!

$15,000!!!!

I can't believe that in the two years that I have been working full time, I have been able to save such a significant amount of money! :) (Okay, so technically it's at $15,036...)

It's enough to cover 10 months of expenses. It's also enough to cover some of the items I outlined a year ago and probably things I haven't thought of, either! I am so excited to have reached this milestone in my personal financial journey.

Now the question is... what do I do with the $150 I was funneling into my E-fund on a monthly basis? I have some ideas that I'll post about soon!

New Neighborhood?

If you follow me on Twitter, I mentioned today that our lease at our current apartment is up in August. That's two months away! One of my roommates is planning on moving in with his girlfriend of a few years. The other is planning on buying a condo. So, that leaves me to my own devices!

Over the past month, I've started thinking about moving to a different neighborhood. I'm in need of a change! While I absolutely love my current location over the two years we've lived here (6 miles from work, across the street from a mall, walking distance to multiple parks and a library, near ALL grocery stores, very safe, etc)... there's something missing. And that missing piece is FUN! Our location is great if you're a college student or retired, but it's not a good location for a single 20-something like myself. Therefore, I'm thinking of moving to a popular neighborhood for people in their 20s and 30s. :)

My commute would increase a bit from my current location... double, actually, to about 12 miles one-way. Not too bad. Plus, I would still have a gym nearby, all my favorite grocery stores, tons of cafes, restaurants, bars and the beach within walking distance! The best thing? My rent would definitely decrease! I currently pay ~$880/month for rent plus utilities. Doing a quick search on Craigslist, the absolute maximum I would pay for rent plus utilities would be $800, which would be an immediate savings of $80 per month. I can almost guarantee that I would be able to find a room for cheaper than that but more importantly, I'll have to make sure I mesh well with the potential new roommates! I know I'll have to find some random people to live with, but I'm a friendly and outgoing person (and a fantastic roommate!) so I don't see that being a problem! :) And I'd rather pay a little bit more if it means having a comfortable and ideal living situation.

I wish it was July so I could start my search already! June is a bit early to be looking for an August move-in date...

May Networth

Can you believe it's June already?! I can't, but I'm SO excited about this month! I have two weekends away: one for my brother's college graduation (huh?! when did he grow up!) and another to Denver to visit a girlfriend! :)

Like most people, my networth decreased in May by 4.74%. This was due to the decrease in the markets and a lot of spending, including a staycation ($150 from my Travel Fund), just over $100 on clothes, buying my plane ticket to Denver (another $214 from Travel Fund), getting a much-needed haircut ($65) and lots ($70) of Memorial Day fun on a boat!

I know I need to reign in my spending this month, but we'll see how it goes since I will be traveling and now that it's summer, all my friends want to do a lot of outdoors activities... like spend lazy afternoons drinking and watching sports at the plethora of awesome local bars, going golfing, trips to Disneyland, etc! But hey, I'd MUCH rather have a social life, and I'm trying to expand my group of friends so therefore spending a bit of money is necessary. :)

Laptop Issues

My Dell laptop is having issues! It was my graduation present from my parents two years ago and it's held up well. I had to re-install the operating system a few months ago when I got a ridiculous virus, and I ended up putting Windows 7 on it. However, starting middle of last week I've been getting disk error warning messages. Yikes!

I back my computer up once a month, but I immediately backed it up again once I started seeing the messages. I'm fairly tech-savvy, so I know the hard-drive is probably dying. Sad! My roommate took a second look at the message and agreed with my conclusion. He's doing some research for me to try to find the best deal on buying a new hard-drive plus some additional RAM, which my laptop is definitely in need of since it's not really equipped to run the new operating system. (It used to have Windows XP... and I definitely did not want to put Vista on it!) This will probably run me ~$140, according to roommate. Not horrible and totally worth it! Plus I know how to do the installation myself. :) But, I *might* take the money from my emergency fund, as it IS a large expense that doesn't fit into my regular budget... We'll see, maybe I can finagle it into June's budget since I am going out of town for two of four weekends!

I mentioned the fact that I was having some laptop issues to my parents last week. They know I take really good care of all my belongings, especially my electronics. A few days later, they e-mailed me and said they'd be willing to split the cost of a new laptop with me in the near future if it came to that...but only if I become a Mac user! What! I did not expect their generosity, so I'm thinking within the next two years, or sooner if it really gives out, I'll save up half the cost of a new MacBook. My FIRST Mac computer!! (I told myself when I got this Dell laptop that, whenever it died on me, that my next computer would be a Mac.) :)