On April-May this year, I have an upcoming vacation with two friends to the Philippines and Singapore but I seriously feel like canceling.
A little bit of background, I'm currently 28 years old. My monthly expenses is roughly ~$2750 plus food so around $3000. My monthly take home is ~$3900 after taxes. It was $3500 just before this month so I'm able to breathe a little better now. My brother also lives with me and pays me for $600/mo. My savings is sitting at $12,000. No retirement savings at the moment because employer offers no matching, plus I felt like I wouldn’t have enough left if I did contribute. There were some months when I didn’t received rent last year so I was only basically left with $500 after monthly expenses. My car has $10,000 ($345/mo) left, and $4500 ($80/mo) left in student loans.
According to /r/personalfinance, emergency fund should be roughly 6 months so my goal is to reach $15,000. Overall, I don’t feel financially secure yet, mainly because of the mortgage which I know is too large for my income. After HOA, utilities, insurance and everything, it’s about $2000. I love this condo though, I want to do everything it takes to keep it. I live in the San Francisco Bay area where housing is just getting worse. I see myself staying here for a very long time, perhaps the rest of my life. So it was the perfect time for me to purchase this 2 bedroom condo. I was afraid that if I had waited, everything would go up even further. In today’s martket, I’m not able to afford anything around this town where I live in anymore. I can’t even afford the 2 bedroom apartments that rent for over $2000 easily.
Ideally, I'd like to have $15,000 in emergency funds, have the car paid off (stupidly purchased it after college over 2 years ago), and student loans paid off in order to feel financially secure. Keeping this condo means the world to me. I keep to myself a lot so it’s important for me to have my own space. I don’t want to rent bedrooms anymore and live with strangers, I did that for 5 years. I’ve been living frugally so I can keep saving and pay for the mortgage. I’ve been happier with myself having my own space.
Ever since I became frugal though, I went out less and stressed about money quite a bit. I traveled quite a bit in my early 20s. Nothing out of country but mostly across the states and stuff. Looking back, I learned something about myself. I was never a big fan of traveling. I enjoy it but only if I enjoy the people I’m traveling with. Sometimes I’m even surprised with the things I forget, like I’ve traveled to a certain place but I forgot about it because the person I was with at the time was someone who I didn’t really care a lot for (like an acquaintance), or maybe just out of my life now. I surely wouldn’t mind taking those back if I could and take my money back. Sorry if that sounded harsh but I learned that I don’t really care too much about traveling. Plus there have been times when I got disappointed after seeing something from TV then in person.
But I guess that’s also the frugal side of me speaking and changed my way of thinking. The thing is with being frugal, there’s something very satisfying with building your assets and net worth. Seeing my net worth on mint.com feels awesome. I’ve never seen it this high before, it makes me feel like I have something to show for myself. So I'm tempted to cancel this trip. I already paid for the plane tickets for $500 but if I go, I can easily spend $2000-$3000 (I have some relatives there). I'm traveling with two friends. One is not really a good friend, he's more of a friend's friend. Back to my point earlier, I basically feel like I'm just traveling for that one friend so I'm not sure if it's worth it.
Sorry if it's a little long. But yeah, being frugal has changed me. It made me think about spending money wisely and only on the right people...not sure if that's too much.. but I dunno if it's something I can possibly regret in the future. Many old people would always mention how they regret not traveling enough when they were young. Certainly not my experience in my early 20s so I'm not sure.
February 02, 2017 at 02:37AM
