Monday, 03 January 2005
On a budget
D and I worked on a "family budget" yesterday ... more New Years resolution-type stuff, sure. But actually, we've been procrastinating on this for months. We've been needing to do a budget, ever since I realized I blew about $3000 in the space of a month. Okay, sure, that was mostly for our wedding – and half of that was just getting our asses to Burning Man, in a rental RV, of course. And I know that that's hardly anything compared to what some people spend on a wedding. But we did what we could afford, and it was still the most beautiful wedding I've ever been a part of!
But anyway, ever since August, it seems like I've been really bad with money, not really keeping track of anything. And we went at least $1000 over our budget for our honeymoon, even despite all the gifts we got at TheHoneymoon.com. So ... yeah, we needed to start a budget.
So now I'm the family "financial planner," and am in charge of all our finances. In two months, D's unemployment is going to run out, and she's going to be living off of just DJ gigs, which is, quite frankly, pretty tight. I've allocated an allowance of $400 a month for her (and the same for me too), which still gives us enough money to cover our rent and bills. Ideally, I'd love to start an IRA for her, too. That can probably happen with some money from extra DJ gigs and things like that. "Bonus money," as I call it.
I've been covering a lot of expenses, and haven't really been able to sock away money like I used to. And if I ever want to buy that RV or Smart car, I'd better have a nest egg! So hopefully, this budget thing will force me to save some money. Maybe someday we can actually buy a condo or something ... although probably not in San Francisco.
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My Smart car
Here's the car I want! It's a Smart car, and I've wanted one ever since I saw them in Amsterdam and London four years ago. It's finally cleared for import here in the U.S., and it would be perfect for San Francisco streets (or parking spaces, actually). And it gets 60 MPG. (Can you tell that fuel economy is important to me?)
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My dream RV
Someday, I will own an RV ... and this is the one I want: a Vixen 21 SE. They only made 172 of them, and as far as I can tell, it gets the best gas mileage of any automatic transmission RV ever built – 21 MPG. (The manual transmission turbodiesel version gets 30 MPG – but we can't drive a stick shift.)
The Mysterious D and I could buy this, put our stuff in storage, and travel around the country doing mash-up DJ gigs. There's even one for sale for only $19,000 right here in the Bay Area. Mmmmm....
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Saturday, 01 January 2005
Goals for 2005
• Start a weblog.
• Clear out the clutter in my apartment. Sell it all on eBay or Amazon. Get rid of it.
• Organize what's left.
• Get on a budget. Stick to it.
• Eat healthier. Stay fit. Do yoga.
• Make more mash-ups. Learn how to kick-ass at Ableton Live.
• Sing more. Play more. Relax more.
• Go on more roadtrips with Deidre.
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