Free (illegal) cable

When I moved into my first apartment in college, my roommate and I called the cable guy to set up internet and TV.  “You know,” he said, “you guys already had extended cable hooked up here.  The first thing you should do when you move into a new apartment is to plug in the TV and cable and check.”

My last apartment, I started out with cable + DVR + internet combo for $60 a month.  When that ran out I switched to internet only (at a $30/mo promo rate), but I still got channel 2 – 30 (network TV, half spanish/cantonese channels).  I could watch Grey’s Anatomy as it aired, but if we were bored and looking to kill time, there probably wasn’t anything on TV.

I called Evil Cable Company (I operate under the assumption that all cable companies are evil) and asked to have my service transferred to my new place, and it was no problem.  They charged me a $20 installation fee, which I’d typically whine about (because typically, they can activate your service remotely and the guy just comes to see if it is working — uh, I can do that myself, thanks). But he actually had to give me a new modem and run a new cable line and spent over an hour trying to get it up.  So, $20 was a bargain.  They didn’t touch the TV cable (I didn’t even have it moved at that point).

Last night T organized some of my furniture and we finally got the TV set up.  At the advice of the first cable guy I ever had, we plugged in the cable to see what happend.  I get the Discovery channel?  MTV? Bravo?  This is like… real cable!

For free.  Our plan was to skip the cable and just get a antenna (and converter box) for network TV if it wasn’t free.  Or just watch it online.  We don’t watch enough TV to justify paying for it.

So, what would you do?  Call the cable company and tell them to block the channels because I don’t want to pay for them?  Or enjoy the free goodness?

Moving Costs

In March, I was salivating over what I’d do with my “extra paycheck” this month.  After my Roth IRA savings were deducted out, I’d get $1615 to play with.  I could knock out my efund goal in one swoop!  I could push my car fund toward the top!  I could even have a teensy bit set aside for a splurge!  And top of my travel fund!

Enter moving costs…

• Westside Rentals:  $30 (my share, might get a friend to buy half as he’s moving later this month after a 3 week Asian vacation)
• Application Fee:  $20 (to run a credit check)
• Rental Fee:  $25 (no idea why they need this…)
• Extra rent for April:  $300 (my share)
• Security Deposit:  $900 (my share)    [I was warned about hefty security deposits, but what can you do?  Most of the places we looked at were just landlords with a few units and required 1 mo rent.  There were some complexes with smaller ones.]
• A few boxes from Home Depot:  $7
• Bribing strong friends to help move a few heavy things:  $35 for pizza and beer.  I tried to give them cash but they wouldn’t accept.  They deserved hundreds each, really!
• U-haul for the day:  $65
• Cleaners to clean my kitchen/bathroom for move out:  $100 (I might do this myself, but I really really really don’t want to, and I’m super busy lately with school/work/life.  We’ll see.)
• Craigslist Fridge w/Delivery: $155 (my half)

• Total:  $1607 (Yikes!)

Moving costs are eerily close to my extra paycheck amount (I think it is fate).  So that stinks, but the good news is I should still be able to add to my regular savings for April.  Slow and steady…  It is boring, but it works.

New apartment, new budget!

We got it!  We got it!  OMG, my our bedroom has a DOOR on it.  I have a dishwasher!!!!  A dishwasher!!!  We are signing the lease this week.  (No room for negotiation on lease start date, but they threw in 2 weeks free.)

Most of my “extra paycheck” this month will be going towards security deposits, some double rent ($531 extra dollars — my share is less), and other moving expenses (uh, we need a fridge).  Because of that, I won’t have to part with any of my savings to make this move happen.  The timing is perfect!  I knew I shouldn’t bother starting a moving fund! 

Here is my new and improved budget!  It isn’t as awesome as this dream budget, but it is way better than my current budget (see tab).

I moved my 401k back to 8%, even though my goal was 10% and I toyed with the idea of 12%.  I think we are going to need the extra cash this year — more to come on within a month or two… or three or four. But if not, I’ll put it back where it belongs.

I’m keeping my $125 misc money, which will keep life fun.  I expect it’ll go into dining out, entertainment, and sometimes clothes or home.  But really, for whatever.  And if nothing pops up, it’ll be funneled into savings.

Aside from my 401k  and maxing my Roth, this budget leaves me with about $1200/mo to funnel to various cash goals.  That also means my efund will cover roughly 8 months of exepenses, and to have a full years worth, I’d need $24,000.

Emotionally attached

If I, as a responsible pf blogger, were to write a post on how to responsibly search for apartments to move in with the boyfriend, it would go something like this:

1.  Discuss the budget up front:  How much to spend, who pays for what, and moving cost budget.  Stick to this!
2.  Start to look at listings about a month in advance to get an idea of various price points.  Don’t start to tour apartments that are “available now”, because they will want you to pay rent as soon as they can.  Feel free to tour a few that are available in a couple weeks.
3.  Two weeks before really step up your apartment search.  Tour as many as you can.
4.  Don’t fall in love with anywhere, and remember that there are a lot of great places to live.  Don’t get emotionally attached too quickly–there are many great places to live.
5.  Attempt to negotiate the rent.  The worst they can do is say no.

Now, what did I actually do?

1.  Picked a somewhat arbitrary maximum budget ($1500), and forgot to discus how we’d split it.
2.  Toured stuff way too far in advance.
3.  Fell in love with somewhere and got emotionally attached before we’d even submitted applications.
4.  Oh, and it is $95 above that budget we set.
5.  And they will want us to start the lease ASAP, if we get it.
6.  Got nervous about the negotiations in typical woman fashion.  The thing about negotiating is that it is most effective when you are willing to walk away…  [I think the unit is a good price--something in the same building rented for $1550 in 2001.]

Ug, I’m so glad I’m not home shopping.  I’m not good at this!  (BTW, also found a beautiful 2 bdrm condo I want for $699,000.  Assuming we had a down payment (we don’t), mortgage would still be over $3k a month.  Can not do it, yet.)

I blame T for the overbudget-ness.  He set up the viewings for that day and took me to three from the same company first.  After a so-so first place, we went to the second one and I immediately loved it.  “How much is it?”  “$1595.”  “What?!?!  Why did you even bring me here!!!!”  The rest pretty much sucked that day, except a gorgeous and larger place in a so-so location.

We hesitated a little on turning in our applications, because they said the lease will start the day we are approved.  We are definitely going to try to negotiate THAT–they are already giving a “two weeks free!” move-in special.  We’ll see.  T turned in his info Friday, so now our application is complete.   We are model tenants, awesome credit, ability to still pay the rent for at least a year even if I lost my job, have always paid our rent on time, quiet, T fixes the little things…

Anyway, I’m super excited about it, but I don’t want to tell anyone about it until it is for sure.  Because if it doesn’t work out, I don’t want to have to tell them it failed, even though it would be due to no personal failure of my own.  You know what I mean?  It is like, if I act too excited, like I want it too much, it is less likely to happen.  Hmm, maybe that isn’t normal.

Ok, well, I’ll try to stop talking about this, but it really is consuming my life lately!

Before Shacking Up

We got all the way to picking out an apartment $95 above our budget before I thought, “hmm, maybe we should discuss the financial stuff”.  Yeah, I know.  Take away my pf blogger badge.  As I drove home from a long day at work, I illegally talked to T on my cell phone.   [That apartment isn't for sure, but similar figures will be derived for future apartments.]

SP:  “So, how do you want to split the rent?  In half?  By income?  We never even discussed this!”
T: “I don’t know.  By income, sort of?  Like, you pay $900 and I pay $700?”

This pleases me, because it is exactly what I came up with on my own after running some numbers about 15 minutes earlier.  T makes about half what I do right now (he is still studying, but his earning potential is good).  To do an official “by income” split, I’d pay $1060, he’d bay $540.  This seems a little unfair to me.  But paying $800 each also seems unfair — his rent would only drop by $200, while mine would drop by $625. With 700/900 split,  I still am gaining the majority of the savings, but his rent is quite cheap.  Plus we are both gaining an awesome location (him more than me ).  I’m sure he would pay half if I asked, but I just don’t think that is the most fair situation for us.  [Yes, you read right, the apartment is $1600.  Since we may not be in L.A. forever, we want to live somewhere fun for at least a year.  If we were thinking long term, maybe we'd go cheaper.]

SP: “Ok.  And what month are you paying rent?  I know not for May, but what about June?  Or July?”  He can start moving his stuff in whenever, but probably won’t actually start to live there full time until early June.   He also offered to pay the differential between my apartment and new apartment for May.
T: “Yeah, I can pay in June.”
SP: “And moving costs… I was thinking I’d pay them up front and you can pay me once you move in.”  He certainly has  cash to pay his share.  But he also has had to spend a lot on various things lately (including taxes = $$$$$).  While these things were planned, I know how painful it is to take chunks out of savings all at once, so I think putting the costs off might not be a bad idea.
T: Sure.  Yeah, my finances are a little crazy right now, that sounds good.”

Whew.  That was easy!  Now if only our conversations about whether to try to negotiate, what to negotiate, and how and when to negotiate were as short.  We don’t really disagree, it is just… neither of us has a clue, so we’ve been going in circles.

The Great Apartment Hunt 2009, part I: How to do it wrong

I’m super excited to be apartment hunting this month!  I wrote my final rent check and turned in a 30 day notice yesterday.   Wooo hoo!

Our previous plan for housing seems like a no-go (this is like the 3rd plan we’ve had), so the new plan is to for me to move ASAP, and T to follow in June or so.  I will pay the rent alone until he moves in (though if it is over my current rent, we might make some sort of deal), then we’ll split it in half to start.  And figure it out from there, since for now I make significantly more.

In part I, I’ll list a couple of things I did wrong in picking out my current place, just in case anyone else is ever moving to a big city from the Midwest and is as clueless as I was.  Here is how to do it wrong!  To do it right, pretty much do the opposite of whatever I did.

• Didn’t know L.A. and the neighborhoods well enough
• Worried a little about those little signs that warn you the building might cause cancer
• Wanted to secure a place well over a month in advance
• Used free online searches that were mostly limited to complexes
• Only had 2 days to look
• Only saw a handful of places
• Started with an unrealistic price point
• Didn’t really consider roommates (though I probably would still have not got them)
• Signed a whole year lease instead of 6 mo
• Paid for amenities that I use only occasionally

But now I’m a savvy L.A. resident (ha) and I think I can do much much better!  After seeing just a few places, I have decided my apartment isn’t that bad for what I pay, and is nicer than I though (in comparison).  But still, I think I”ll be able to do beter.

I’m kind of a spur of the moment type blogger, so I’m not sure how many parts this will have, or what will be in each part.

Current status: We have looked at many places already, even though it is defintely too early for it and we’ll end up paying some double rent in April (well, triple rent!).  I was just too excited to wait a week or two. The places close to the beach are older and less nice (for our budget), but there are some really nice bargains in a few miles.  We fell in love with a beach side apartment.  The apartment itself is decent, larger than mine (but still smallish), but really, the location is what I love.  It is a bit over budget, but we might expand our budget to fit it in.  Currently I pay $1425 and T pays about $1000, so we are spending $2500 between us.  Yikes.  Almost anything would be a huge improvement over that!   We plan to continue looking this weekend and schedule a bunch of walk throughs, and maybe have decisions made within a week.  Eeek!

Taxes: The waiting game

I am still waiting on two tax forms: a W-2 from my job in the Midwest (where I worked for 2 weeks in 2008 ) and something regarding opening a rollover IRA.  I’m annoyed because I have all these forms and all this stuff that happened in 2008, but it was all tax neutral.  Yet I need to dot my i’s and cross my t’s and let the IRS know exactly what I did.

I have HSA forms for distributions from my two health savings accounts (federal tax neutral, but California still wants to tax me), a 1099-T for tuition (even though I had tax-free employer paid tuition), two 1099-R’s for a 401k to IRA rollover and a pension distribution (previous job).  Plus I have to file two state returns (turbo tax suggest they are $40 each–no thanks!).  I also moved for a job, but my moving expenses were covered and mostly tax assisted, so I don’t think I need to do much with that.

Though I’m fairly certain I know what the result of these actions are (no change in refund), it is complicated to list them all.

My plan is to go click through both TurboTax and TaxAct and make sure I get the same results.  I think TaxAct is less expensive for the state returns, and I’ve used them for a couple years now (turbotax seems much more user friendly).  Preliminary results project a refund of about $500-$1000, but I can’t be sure until I get that other W-2 and fill out my state returns.

October in California

I like the way this month is going.  While the economy may be horrible, my own personal economy is going well (for now).  I’m in budget (everywhere except clothing), I had a third paycheck to boost overruns from travel spending in Aug/Sept, and I’ve put $1000 in my efund.  If only all months gave me three paychecks!

I had a birthday and got fleece pants, a fleece hoodie (mainly for camping), a sleeping bag liner (my bag isn’t quite warm enough for cool temps), a university branded coffee mug, and some cool hard cash.   My grandparents sent me $10, to which I thought “what’s the point?  A card would have been fine!“  I like to write in my thank you note “Thanks for the $, I used it to buy …”  But it’s like, “Thanks for the $10, it disappeared into my pocket and probably bought a latte and a few loads of laundry.” They typically send $25, maybe they are nervous about the economy as well.

Aside from finances, this month hasn’t been all that great.  Work is stressful.  I’ve lost my appetite and motivation for cooking.  School is time consuming.  It was dark when I left work today, not because it was that late, but because “winter” is coming.  This is my first California winter, and while I’m sure it’ll be better than last winter (ice storms, lots of snow, power outages, COLD), I still wish it would stay light out until at least 7.

I think I’m going to use some of my travel funds next month for a short camping trip in November.  It’ll have to either be the week after midterms, or maybe around Thanksgiving.  I hate that I can’t arbitrarily pick a weekend and go.  I hate that I’ll have homework the majority of the weekends for the next 1.5 years.

But my budget seems to really be liking it.   :/

Checking my savings status

I ran some numbers and realized that if I want to be able to stay on track, I need to increase my travel fund by roughly $50/month for the rest of the year. This is assuming my airline miles card helps me get through the holdiay season. (They called to verify my identity due to my credit card fraud, but I’ve been approved.)  I chose the card I did strictly for the free bonus miles, and it is on one of the two airlines that flies into my hometown.  I will only use it through the holiday season, then I’ll cancel.

I’ve not even considered my cousin’s October wedding. It is within driving distance (yay!) but I will need a hotel for at least one night, if not more. I really need to put every last red cent into the travel fund.

There is some debate on whether or not it is truly mandatory for me to fly 2000 miles for my grandmothers birthday in September. My mom isn’t quite clear, and she’s been difficult lately. My dad is acting as a buffer between us, but it isn’t really his decision (her side of the family, not his). I’m confused. I don’t know what I’d do without my dad, and I don’t ever want to find out. I will probably go, particularly if I can score a ticket for under $300 using my miles as a discount. That is what pretty much everyone has said–see them while you can. Still, it is frustrating that they suddenly planned this (to me 1.5 months notice is sudden).

My gift fund also is going to be a little short for Christmas if I don’t increase it from $60/month to $75/month.

I’ll reflect these changes in my August budget. Things are going to be even tighter, at least until my student loan payment goes away. Or my side job starts up. Or I win the lottery.

In the good news, I am on track to easily meet my $13,000 efund goal. Actually, I’m on track for $13,550, a nice cushion, and I’m also a bit ahead of schedule on my Roth IRA contributions. My December contribution will be less than usual. That can save both my gift fund and travel fund, if my frugal efforts fail me.

(All this is assuming I don’t get laid off this fall, which hangs over my head constantly.)

I’m stressed out.

I feel so poor, yet I know my salary is quite good. It is obviously due to my rent.  And paying this rent is only temporary (january at the earliest, june at the latest), so I just need to remember that.  When I lived in the Midwest, I could buy what I wanted, do what I wanted, and plane tickets didn’t worry me much. I lived alone in a nice apartment.

And I had to scrape ice off my car regularly, there was nothing interesting to do, T moved a million miles away, and I do like it much better here. This is only temporary, and I’m still making progress. Just more slowly…

Starter City

Have you ever heard of a starter city?  Much like a starter house, it is not your dream city, but a city you can start out in before you can get to where you really want to be.

I am interested in the concept because I inadvertently picked a job in a starter city before moving to Los Angeles.   After loving life in a major world city for six months on study abroad, I settled into my first job in a small city (about 130,000) in the Midwest.   My reasons for doing so were personal: driving distance to my family, reasonably close to the boyfriend, and I already had friends there from my internship. However, there were many positive financial side effects.

Benefits of my starter city

• Very low cost of living. For $575 you could get a nice one bedroom apartment. If you wanted roommates, you could get by on $300-$400 a month rent.  People my age rented 2 bedroom apartments by themselves and used the spare room as an office, and others bought houses straight away. Salaries are slightly lower, it certainly isn’t directly proportional to cost of living. I could live better there than I can here, even though my salary is higher here. This allowed me to pay of all of my private student loans, and boost up savings from about -$500 to almost $10k. Gas was cheaper, insurance was cheaper, and even the movie theaters were cheaper ($4.25 during certain hours!)
• My company was much smaller (though still very much a corporate environment).   There were tons of opportunities for a young employee to jump in and get good assignments, and the competition was less stiff. I could have easily moved into management (eventually) and became a key member of my team and a top performer in just over a year and a half. I got a lot of great experience.
• The company had really good benefits in order to entice their young employees to stick around. They knew they were in a less desirable location. I had a full 5 more days of vacation at my last job and the bonuses were more generous.
• Much less traffic and much closer to work. I could easily get by on one tank of gas a month if I didn’t go out of town.
• Less fashion/image conscious. It was much cheaper to be one of the best dressed in the office!
• Lower cost of living = lower salary, which makes it easier to qualify for certain tax benefits that are based on MAGI (Roth IRA, student loan interest). I’m in no danger of disqualifying myself for a Roth, but I may not be able to claim the student loan interest deduction this year.  Even though I have considerably less money to spend on fun stuff.
• Clean air. Well come on, I had to say it. I live in L.A.

Disadvantages of my starter city

• Some may argue against this, but there are reasons for it being cheap: no one wants to live there! The weather was bad (I had to scrape ice off my car window regularly. The culture was lacking, even though they tried. Some people argue that there was more nature around… but while it has some nice parks, there are no mountains, no lakes and certainly no oceans.  Despite air quality issues, there is much better nature/outdoors things here.  [This isn't true for all less expensive cities, just the particular one I was in.]
• Better for families than young people. Most people were married, even a good percentage of those who were my age. Besides going out to the bars, there wasn’t a lot of entertainment for 2osomethings (though some argue there is if you are creative about it).  I have nothing against bars and I had some good times at house parties or tailgating at the college games, but… there just wasn’t that many options.
• Since salary was a little lower, any 401k matching was also lower since it is percentage based. However, the difference is less than 1k each year.
• If my company went under, job prospects were slim.

My move to L.A. was also primarily for personal reasons, at least the timing and the locatio.  I always intended to move FROM my starter city to somewhere more to my liking, but I really should have stayed one more year to get the most out of it. My savings could have been increased further, and more importantly, I would have been able to be promoted into the next pay grade for my new job (I fell short on experience).

I’m obviously coming out behind financially here, though I’m not struggling. Rent is the biggest increase, but gas and insurance aren’t insignificant either. Still, there is much to be said for loving where you live, especially when you are young.  Personally, I love it here and while my former city was nice, it wasn’t for me.  Despite the financial benefits.  There are a ton of factors that go into a person’s choice of where they settle, and money often turns out to be a pretty small piece of the pie.