Hey hey beautiful people, how are y’all? I’m doing quite good, I am getting to the point of the school year where I’m DONE and I don’t wanna do school anymore. One of my last projects that I’m finishing up this year is a project called “Cost Of Living”. Now, this project in theory actually sounds quite fun. You decide what kind of job you want to have when your older, you find a place to rent, you figure out how much it would cost to buy groceries and food and how much your taxes will be-ya know, all that fun stuff. Well, that’s what I thought when I started it anyways. I will say that it was an enlightening project and I came away with a couple things
- You might not be able to drive that really cool, awesome, amazing, looking Toyota Tacoma that you dream about because it has horrible gas mileage and as a pretend 23 year old, you just can NOT AFFORD IT.
- Living as an adult (and I can not stress this enough) IS INSANELY STRESSFUL. I got so stressed during this project, partly because I wanted to but the really cool looking Toyota Tacoma mentioned above and my “paycheck” simply did not allow and partly because everything costs so much now a days! This project really opened my eyes and I can say that I am now putting a bit of my extra money (that I would usually spend) into the bank.
- Coming in under your budget and not living from paycheck to paycheck is an amazing feeling. When I had finished all my calculations and found out I came in under my paycheck amount, I was so relieved. I was worried that I may have used my whole paycheck up, but luckily, that was not the case.
It was still a fun project but it definitely had it’s ups and downs like many projects. Anyways, here is what I found while doing research!
I chose to do monthly costs instead of yearly because I wanted to see everything on a smaller scale. My monthly costs included housing, utilities, transportation, taxes, charity and tithing, food, clothes, and personal expenses (like going out with friends or out to eat).
This is my income information. My dream job is to work at a Black Rock coffee bar or really just to be a coffee barista anywhere. I love coffee and what better job than to learn how to make good coffee? I also love photography so a photography side job would be perfect. Honestly I don’t know if I could actually be good enough at photography to do 3 sessions a week but my mom thought so so I’m like “OK” 😂 Anywho, my overall monthly income is 2,851.02, which isn’t a ton but in my teen eyes it seems like a lot 😂
I “rent” this lovely little shophouse which, (fun fact) used to be my old house! We moved across the driveway into an actual house and now the shophouse is rented out. I rent it with my sister and friend or maybe two of my friends or maybe both my sisters-who knows. Anyway, I rent with 2 roommates and the house is a 3 bed, two bath, with a kitchen, dining room, living room, and office/entertainment room. Plus my parents will live across the driveway so if I’m ever bored, I could walk across the driveway and go visit ;)))
My landlord includes all utilities in rent, which is quite nice because it knocks a lot of money off my plate 😂
I do have a phone with unlimited data, and I also have a mobile hotspot so I can hook the hot spot up to my computer and watch Netflix with my handy dandy subscription!
Taxes: pretty boring, I just went and calculated my taxes for my brackets according to my income and such.
Charity and tithing: I tithe 10% of my paycheck, which I feel like is the golden rule of living, I feel like everyone does 10%? I don’t know. But I “sponsor” a child through Compassion International (which is a really cool program btw, go check it out!) and the rest of money I donate to my church or other charities.
“Funny” story: I actually first was going to drive a Toyota Tacoma because that’s my dream car and I think they’re really cool and awesome looking but my paycheck simply did not allow bc MAN TRUCKS ARE EXPENSIVEEEE. So I “bought” this nifty (wow what cool words I use 🤦🏼♀️ but no joke we should start using nifty more, don’t you think?) little Ford Escape hybrid which can be gasoline AND it can be charged electrically so its really cool. And it was cheap. so really cool. 😁
Pretty basic, for finding my food calculations, I went on to our local grocery stores website and I went and added all the food I would want to the cart and I used that total x4. For clothes I kind of just guesstimated a number, but WOW that means I’ll spend $600 per year on clothes and that seems like a TON. But I could do it 🤦🏼♀️
(Also, for a really interesting post, go check out my blogging friend Cassidy’s post about the fashion industry and who makes your clothes right here!)
Next is the boring part: Insurance. Pretty basic so yeah, let’s move on 😉
Entertainment: I have $170 to stretch over the month which should work, I don’t go places that cost a lot usually and I don’t eat out a ton.
A summary: I CAME IN UNDER MY BUDGET!!!!! I felt so happy when I calculated everything and it all came out good!
Overall it was a really fun project and I’m super glad to be done, I love the feeling of completion when your done a project. I’ll let you in on a little secret though: I’m almost sad to be done school. I have one more week (yep only one more!!!) and putting away some books last week I got sentimental and sad, it was weird. But I can’t wait for summer break, my one wish is that the corona thing doesn’t drag into summer, because that would be heart breaking.
Did you enjoy this post? I figured it was pretty interesting 🙂 How have you been? Whats your dream job? What’s your dream car? Talk to me in the comments, I love hearing from you guys!!
xx, Jasmin
The Writer of Letters 