How much do you spend on a gift?

Miss M commented on my previous post that she spends much more on fewer people for her holiday shopping, and that I was “quite frugal”.   I was surprised — I thought that I spent a normal amount!

It got me thinking though.  I don’t set my gift price points out of frugality, but out of what seems to be a normal amount to spend.  My parents do spend a fair amount on us, but besides the parent-to-child gifts, most gifts exchanged in my family seem to be about $50.

However, I make significantly more money than either of my siblings (but one has some family money from her in-laws to help out).  I’m thinking 2-3 times as much, though I live in an expensive city.  But does that mean I should be spending a lot more on their gifts than they spend on mine?  Or would that just seem weird?  I mean, my little sister already gives pretty small presents ($10-$25 or whatever) and I don’t feel weird spending $50ish on her.  I enjoy  it.  So maybe I should take that further?

Maybe I’ve hung onto my college mindset of “$50 is a good amount for a gift” for too long.  Maybe “real adults” should be spending more.  I kind of thought $300 for a baby shower gift was slightly insane.  But maybe it isn’t.  Maybe I’m the one who is slightly insane.

I’m curious.  What do you spend on Christmas gifts? Please give me details!  How much do you spend for a significant other, sibling, parent, grandparent and a young kid (that isn’t yours, but you love)?

(photo by di_the_huntress)

November Budget

I haven’t posted a budget in awhile, so here is my November budget.  I’m really kind of curious to see if I can make it if I’m really dedicated.

Income: This is estimated based on 17% 401k, a heck of a lot of taxes, health and other deductions, and my new (small) raise.

Roth IRA: I contributed a lump sum in January, then a fixed amount each paycheck (including 3 paycheck months).  At any rate, it is on track to be maxed out by the end of 2009.

Student Loan:  I think I’ve mentioned this is in deferment at 0%.  I set a variable amount (usually $25) in a savings account to ofset the balance, so I feel like I’m making progress.  But it is a really low priority.

Restaurant:  This probably will be the hardest number to meet.  We’ve been way over this all year.

Clothes:  Already spent!  Eeep!

Fitness:  I decided against the gym for November.  Realistically, I knew I wouldn’t go.  I’m doing bootcamp one time a week for the strength training, and running with coworkers after work once a week.  I also hope to get in one weekend workout.  Bootcamp is $67, which is a lot, and probably more than I’m willing to spend long term.  But in the short term, it is what I realistically can handle this month.

Travel:  I’m hoping to have some left over to put in the Travel Fund, but I’m also going to Vegas for a weekend.

Everything else is actually mostly contributions to “funds”.  Some people prefer not to organize their money this way, but I like it.  For example, I don’t have car expenses, but I plan to contribute $250 to my car fund.   But if I have a $25 oil change, I’ll net $225 to my car fund.

Pillow fight!

At some point in the past year (or three?) I purchased 2 pillows for myself, likely for about $15 each on sale.  When T and I moved in together, I kept them and he brought his own pillows.   He’s been trying to steal one (or both) of mine ever since.

After months of playful battles  (and some all out war –while dead asleep T violently shifted in bed and landed his cheekbone on my sleeping head.  I’m convinced it was pillow related.),  he insisted he couldn’t sleep another night on his crappy pillows.  “I used to have a nice fluffy one from IKEA!  Where did that one go?  Maybe you stole it!“  I took his “crappy” pillow and showed him the faded IKEA tag.  Oh.

We found ourselves at Macy’s, squeezing the entire stock of pillows.  I was leaning towards a decent synthetic fill ($20), while he thought the down surround ones were nice ($30).  There was so little down that I preferred synthetic.  We both liked the fancy down pillows best, but $60 for a pillow?  Really?

And…  Here it goes.  We bought them.  Two pillows, $55 each after some couponing and tax.  Regular price (or rather “Insane Price”) of $120, it still didn’t feel anything like a bargain.  Even as Macy’s top rated pillow,  it felt insane.  It still feels insane. Who am I?!?!

I can justify it of course — what price can you put on a good nights sleep?!  A once every 5+ year expense!  But it isn’t about the ability to justify it.  I can justify anything if I really want.

It’s a splurge.   Which is ok.   But so many splurges have made their way into my life over the past few months that it is confusing me.     That doesn’t mean I’m not saving.  I am.  Quite a lot, actually.  But the ability to splurge on things, and still save is sort of mystifying.    My brain can’t handle it.  I can’t properly evaluate whether these splurges are worth the price.  If a pillow caused me to go into debt, obviously not.  But what if I siphon $50 that would have gone to the Travel Fund (which still gets plenty) instead?  What harm is there in that?

Maybe I need a break from splurges to reset my thinking.  What do you think?  It seems a lot of pf bloggers have had many splurges over the summer/fall.  (I’m not pointing fingers, but if you felt slightly guilty after reading that sentence — it’s you!)

Yes, I’m making a huge deal out of nothing too major– $55 is not the end of the world (but for a pillow?!).  This is the culmination of a lot of thoughts I’ve been mulling over lately, somewhat prompted by oilandgarlic’s comments and posts about pf bloggers making her want to spend.  (Did this make you want to buy a new pillow?)  I’m doing a lot of atypical spending (this month alone:  birthday party, concert tickets, pillow, bootcamp, and more), and it is freaking me out a bit.  Splurging is becoming typical?

November will be a quiet month.  Except that trip to Vegas….  Eeeep!

On the other hand… We slept GREAT last night.

Travel Fund Focus

Thus far my travel fund has largely been a revolving account.  I estimated how much I spend in a year on plane tickets home, small vacations, and backpacking trips, and I contribute 1/12 that to my Travel Fund each month.  However, I’m going to need to start building this account up if I want to take a significant vacation (honeymoon!) next year.

Here’s what’s on my travel agenda between now and then.

Vegas Weekend in November: The cost is dependent on our ability to split a room with another couple, but I’m hoping to come in under $400.  I’ll decrease this if we can get a hotel deal, but it should be doable if not.

Christmas ticket home: I should have bought this last month.  Or two months ago.  I’m looking at $400, or perhaps parting with some of my miles to knock it down a couple hundred.

Mini-moon: We have a (really tentative, perhaps not even going to happen) plan to take a very short and close-by honeymoon immediately following the wedding, then do a much bigger vacation later in the summer or fall.  I’m hoping we can do this for $400.

Honeymoon: We don’t have a firm plan or a firm budget.  The budget is essentially whatever it costs to do what we want (within reason!), but I’m going to try to have at least $2500 saved by the end of April.  That will give me a few months (and perhaps an extra paycheck or tax refund) to make up the rest.

This also neglects little backpacking and hiking trips.  I know I won’t have time for any until at least January, so i’m going to postpone thinking about them for now.

So… at the end of this month, my travel fund will be at about $900.  I’ll have 6 more months until April to allocate the remaining $2800 towards travel.  This means I need to be putting away close to $470 each month for travel for the next six months. I’ll make it $500 for good measure.

I’ll start working that into my budget in November.  This month I used part of my extra paycheck to boost my travel fund, but I’m still a long way from where I need to be.

October Extra Paycheck Allocation

I wholly agree with Always the Planner:  Budgeting is an important tool, and it isn’t just for personal finance “beginners”.  I get that budgeting may not be your style — that is totally acceptable, as long as your finances are healthy.

But please don’t tell me you don’t keep a budget because your finances are so automated and your spending habits so ingrained that you just don’t need one.   I’m never close to spending everything I take home, but that doesn’t mean i don’t budget for what I plan to save and spend..  Each month is a little different, and my budget is always adjusting as things come up.  And I guess it may not REALLY be a budget, because if i reach the limit in a category, I usually just adjust it up to fit my needs.  But if I’m constantly spending too much on things I don’t really value, I can spot it early on and fix it.

With that in mind, October is a 3-paycheck month, and here is my spending/savings plan for that “extra” paycheck.  Of course, 401k and Roth IRA are taken out automatically as usual.

Fitness Fund (for bootcamp):  $175
Wedding Fund:  $350
Student Loan Account:  $380
Big Dreams Fund:  $170
Travel Fund:  $350
Clothing Fund:  $25
Misc Fund:  $100

September Expenses

August was brutal, but I’m trying to plan ahead for expenses in September.  Unfortunately, I’ve already committed myself to things nearly every weekend, and most of them are a little on the spendy side.

• $45 performance at the Hollywood Bowl
• $75 ticket to a wine tasting event (not something I’d normally spend so much money on, but I was invited to a little girls weekend and it sounded really nice, and I’m on break from school… So i decided to just go for it)
• $50 for the hotel for said weekend
• Plus other expenses (food and fun)
• Dinner/out with friends when I go to my hometown
• Friends in town, staying with us, who I promised to go out (to clubs) with
• And they want to go wine tasting too (different weekend)
• Haircut before engagement photos

I’m going to try to counteract all that by eliminating all non-social eating out and alcohol with T, since it is obvious there will plenty of that going on with various friends.

Balancing retirement with NOW (and the near future)

Trent wrote a controversial post, suggesting that a reader was saving too much for retirement.  Most of the 128 commenters were concerned about the advice.  Frankly, there aren’t enough details to know if saving “31%” of his income is too much (some comes from an employer match).   Trent chimed in with a final comment saying he really meant that Haruki should be considering his other goals when deciding how much to save.  (He also added “I find it astounding that anyone would think it’s a bad idea to think about one’s goals before taking action.”  Which no one said, btw.)

I can’t even quite figure out the correct way to calculate what percentage of my income I’m saving for retirement.  Pre-tax 15% (but only since July), post tax another $5000, plus 6% matching (pre-tax).  This may be too much for someone who was unable to meet my other cash goals, but for now, it is a balance that works.  I’m still able to save for travel, wedding, honeymoon, and a car (though that has been slow going!) and to fully fund an efund.

I must admit, 15% has been a bit more of a push than I expected.  I could (and should) blame the new TV I helped buy for making July a difficult month.  But more than that, my budget has felt much more free since moving in with T.  That is natural, but it doesn’t need to be SO free.

In August, I’m going to be very very careful.  It isn’t a “no spend” month (which means no “extras”), but it is a month of limited extras.  My usually generous “misc” budget is cut, and I already bought a text for work that took up $50 of it.  And I’m 100% set on buying the $30 nike ipod sport kit.

So, I’m not reducing it now.  I’m going to strive to keep it at 15% through December, then reevaluate.  Will I meet my wedding/travel cash goals at that rate?  Do I want to save more for car/down payment?  What is the next step?  I don’t know, but six months of 15% is just the retirement boost I need right now.  I just need to be more careful with the spending.  [Says the girl who just got back from going out to eat totally unnecessarily on a random Tuesday.]

My $3,865 credit card bill

From June 20th – today, I charged a shocking (to me and my budget) $3865 on my Visa.

!!!!!!!!!!

This doesn’t include the $750 T and I charged on the joint card in roughly the same period (my share is half). This doesn’t include the $850 check I sent the wedding photographer as a deposit.

What happened?!!?!

• New TV, $1168.  T reimbursed me for $868
• New speakers, $678.  T reimbursed me for $678.
• Catering deposit for reception dinner, $1250
  
• New brakes and oil change, $296.
• REI.com sale, $170 (but I just returned $98 due to fit — i purposely ordered more than I planned on keeping in order to get the right size and styles)
• Eye Appointment, $110 (I can get HSA reimbursement, but I have to figure out how exactly)
  
• White House Black Market, $61, cardigan, purse.
• Gas, $120 (several separate purchases)
  
• Sushi, $50

And how is that ok?!?!

• Much of it was T’s silly electronic purchases that I was reimbursed for.  We used my card due to the warranty extender benefit.  I paid $300 towards the TV, nothing towards the rest.
  
• The other large chunk ($1250 reception deposit) was a planned purchase and the money (plus more) was waiting in the Wedding Fund
• I have a car fund to cover repairs, which smooths out the car spending to a monthly tab.

This is one reason why I like splitting my money into funds — a car repair bill doesn’t mean much, since I intended on spending the money eventually and set aside for it in months when expenses were low.  Wedding spending has been budgeted and separated from normal money, so it doesn’t affect my standard cash flow and savings.

I’d cheap out on almost anything

Honestly there are very few things I won’t attempt to cheap out on once or twice.  On the other hand, there are also lots and lots of things that I’m willing to spend a little extra on now that I’d suddenly start cheaping out on if conditions deemed necessary.  I think refusing to cheap out is, in most cases, a luxury.

But no matter what, here is what I’d rather do without than cheap out on:

1.  Location of Residence:  While I don’t know if I can afford to live in my current neighborhood as a property owner, I’d never live in a dangerous area.  I’d move back to the Midwest before living somewhere dangerous.  [I do realize there are plenty of nice neighborhoods all over L.A. to consider, many cheaper than mine.]

2.  Alcohol:  I’d rather have a drink at all than to drink really cheap beer or gross cheap alcohol.  Exceptions apply, but rarely.

3.  Running shoes, etc.:  I tried to cheap out on this and failed.  I need arch support.  I suppose I should put fitness and hiking gear in general.  Cheaping out is generally an idea that leads to discomfort.

That’s about it!  There are plenty of things I will splurge on, but for most things, I’m willing to give the cheaper versions a try first.

Failing at eating out less

I had a noble idea that we’d cut our restaurant spending this month, but judging by the first weekend… it isn’t happening.

We got take-out on Thursday, mostly because I was still a bit sick and thus low on appetite.  I needed something super delicious to entice me to get some nutrition in me (besides not feeling like cooking). Friday we baked some turkey sliders, then survived Saturday on alcohol and BBQ (so healthy!) at a friend’s place for the 4th.

We had the fabulous idea to bike 13 miles to his party.  It was nice, except for the fact that we had to bike 13 miles home the next day when we were no longer so energized after crashing doubled up on the couch without proper pillows.  So college-style.

Anyway, it was a good time — everything a California 4th of July should be.  In the midwest, the fourth was always about boating and lakes, family and friends.  Here it is about beach and bbq and friends.  Sadly no family around — looking at my sis’s pics /videos from the 4th make me homesick!  Nephew is the CUTEST.

Anyway, Sunday morning we went out for a mediocre post-party breakfast, then made the ride home.  We were so dead exhausted Sunday that no cooking was happening.  We ate some heated up turkey burgers, took a nap, then had pizza for dinner.  That’s three meals “out” in one week.  We split them all on the joint card, it came out to about $40 each for me and T.  For one weekend.  We are supposed to be spending about $35/week total!  Whooops!

The only non-food spending this weekend was a contribution to the party (beer and chips) for about $30.