budget challenge

My 2016 Budget Challenge: Can a Paint Job Help an Old House Pass a Re-Fi Appraisal?

Max Wong — Fri, 13 Jan 2017 10:30:36 +0000

[Editor's Note: This is the latest episode in Max Wong's journey to find an extra $31,000 in a single year. Read the whole series here.]

We paid off our home equity line of credit two years early! It was a Festivus miracle.

Kind of.

Earlier this year, we failed to refinance the mortgage of Dinky Manor not once, but twice. We could not get our ramshackle, 1,000 square foot house to appraise for the whopping $640,000 we needed to get Mr. Spendypants out of his horrifically structured, pre-2007 housing crash home loan.

For all of you wondering about that $640,000 for 1,000 square feet…I guess you don't live in Los Angeles.

On Thanksgiving Eve, our friends Mary Ellen and Bob invited us out to dinner with Betsy and Murray (Mary Ellen's sister and brother-in-law). As Mary Ellen and Bob are both Wise Bread readers, they immediately started quizzing us about the 2016 Budget Challenge. They wanted to know all the sordid details — like how Mr. Spendypants puts up with my ever-increasing level of crazy. We were in the middle of whining about our underemployment and our ever more complicated real estate situation when Murray reached across the table and handed me his business card.

Murray is a mortgage banker.

We followed up with Murray at his office the following week. He had already looked at a ton of real estate data for our area and couldn't understand why the house hadn't appraised for over $600,000. He started crunching the numbers. He thinks he can figure out how to refinance Dinky Manor's mortgage.

However, Murray had two immediate demands. First, Dinky Manor needs an exterior paint job, stat. The fact that our house is the dumpiest on the block isn't helping our cause. Alas, we don't have the $17,000 it would cost to hire professionals to paint the house, so Mr. Spendypants and I will spend a relaxing winter holiday scraping and sanding 80 years of bad paint jobs off the outside of our home. Luckily, one of my best friends is a retired painting contractor. He has agreed to come out of retirement to help us rehab the house for the appraisal before the mortgage rates jump any higher.

Could we pay down the home equity line of credit? This was Murray's second ask. Although our debt-to-loan ratio is better than average, if we zap our HELOC down to zero, it would make us look much less risky as borrowers.

Conceptually, paying off the debt is a no-brainer. What the bank wants dovetails nicely with my goal of paying off the loan (that is due in 2018) by the end of this year. It's the actual execution of this goal that sucks. After a solid start in January, finding extra cash this year has been more difficult than we anticipated. Could we juggle the finances to pay off our loan at this later date without completely cannibalizing our emergency fund? Short answer: sort of. We took a $6,000 chomp out of our emergency fund. Since there is a small but real chance of us both being underemployed come March, and a somewhat larger chance that this mortgage refinance will fall through, this move makes us financially vulnerable.

Worst case scenario: We have to take out a new line of credit in March as a precaution. While this would not be the end of the world, that situation would not be ideal. I would like to avoid being that loser personal finance writer who can't kick her debt habit.

Best case scenario: The re-Fi goes through and we both find decent employment in March. If this happens we will be able to put the money we were using to pay down the HELOC each month toward replenishing our emergency fund and paying down the new, less expensive mortgage at a faster pace.

Fingers crossed.

Progress So Far

Although we did pay off a $15,000 loan with money we had socked away, I am not adding the $6,000 we pulled out of our emergency fund to the plus column of my 2016 budget challenge because we are going to have to pay our emergency fund back, as fast as humanly possible.

Panic is a really good motivator. If only we'd had that kind of "inspiration" all year long. We earned a combined $3,258.98 in the first two weeks of December. Here's how we did it.

Mr. Spendypants and I DJ'ed a corporate Christmas party. Although we did not win one of the flat screen televisions that were raffled off as door prizes, we did make $1,500 for five hours of work. Also, we ate at least $800 in foie gras cotton candy, spearified olives, and wagyu beef, so that was a great job perk.

To take advantage of the holiday shopping fever, I had planned to spend the first two weeks of December selling every single thing that is not nailed down in the house on eBay and Etsy. Alas, this did not happen, so my house is still filled with crap we don't need. Mr. Spendypants and I deemed it more prudent that I use every available second of daylight doing yard work and prepping to paint the house in advance of the looming mortgage appraisal appointment. We will save a lot more money if we can refinance the mortgage than I could ever make selling our stuff online.

Even with my new, yucky manual labor schedule, I managed to earn $1,758.98 on the side. In a previous incarnation, I was a jewelry designer. Mary Ellen and Betsy were nice enough to buy $243 in old stock from me for holiday gifts. I made $41 selling books to a second hand bookshop. I have been propagating succulent cuttings from my garden all year long. I made $124 selling little potted plants off my front porch to passers-by. I made $10.73 selling an old dress (that I had gotten for free) to a consignment store. One of my neighbors paid me $25 to run an errand for her, and another neighbor paid me $100 for pet sitting. I made $100 from writing jobs. I sold $707 in jam, honey, and handmade lip balm. Although I barely have any merchandise for sale on Etsy, I received a last minute order that netted me $363.25.

Phew.

Because I source holiday gifts year round, we actually managed to spend $0 on holiday gifts for friends and family this year. Just about everyone got homemade goodies that I had made in advance or gifts paid for through barter. This was a total win. Unfortunately, we did not get to wallow in our thrifty genius for long. We have spent $495 on painting supplies for the house so far…

Goal: $31,000.00

Amount Raised: $33,126.40

Amount Spent: $14,093.66

Amount Left to Go: $11,967.26

This article is from Max Wong of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

My 2016 Budget Challenge: What to Do With a Totaled Car

Max Wong — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 10:30:25 +0000

[Editor's Note: This is another episode in Max Wong's journey to find an extra $31,000 this year. Read the whole series here.]

Some stereotypes are true. People in Los Angeles suck at driving in the rain.

The Accident

Last week, Mr. Spendypants and I were driving down the center lane of the 110 Freeway. The road ahead was a multicar accident scene. Blocking the left hand lane was a smashed car facing oncoming traffic, its windows completely blocked by air bags. Blocking the right hand lane was not one, but two separate pileups.

As we approached the accidents, we were struck from behind. The driver of the car that hit us had swerved to avoid crashing into the stopped vehicle in the left lane and plowed into our car, instead. The impact of the crash sent us skidding toward the stopped vehicles in the right-hand lane. If the initial impact wasn't bad enough, the driver who rear-ended us tried to pull out of his skid only to drive into the side of our car, instead.

My first thought as we finally came to a stop on the wet pavement: Why did this have to happen to our nice car and not the clunker that I want to part out for cash?

The Aftermath

Karina, our 1993 Volvo 240 station wagon, did her job. We drove away from the accident without a scratch. Unfortunately, Karina didn't fare as well. The accident had smashed a rear door and quarter panel, and ripped off molding, a brake light, and a bumper cover.

The next morning we drove Karina over to our Swedish mechanic who put her up on the lift. Miraculously, she had not sustained any mechanical damage from the accident, just body damage. She is in perfect driving condition.

Even with this slightly good news, I knew at this point that Karina was totaled. Car insurance generally works off a very easy algorithm: If the cost of repair is more than 75% of the car's value, that car is declared a total loss even if the car is in perfect working order.

The Appraisals

The bodywork estimate: $2,000. Average value of a 1993 Volvo 240 wagon: $2,400. Boo.

Luckily, the driver of the car that hit us is insured (by Progressive). We had their adjuster give us an appraisal and got a second appraisal (and opinion) from State Farm, Mr. Spendypants' car insurance. Both companies called Karina a total loss. This means that instead of paying to fix her, the insurance company would cash us out on Karina's value and we'd drive home in a damaged car with a check in our pocket.

If we went through State Farm, the accident would go against our deductible and we would end up with a check for $3,199. If we went through Progressive, there would be no impact on our deductible and we would end up with a payout of $3,480.

By the way, we were totally shocked that Karina had retained so much value. We'd purchased her in 2012 for $3,500. We were anticipating that they insurance companies would give us $1,000 and we'd be stuck paying out of pocket to repair her.

Both insurance companies offered to buy Karina from us for scrap. Progressive valued Karina at $119 as scrap, and State Farm offered us a princely sum of $75 to take our totaled car off our hands. While all insurance companies offer to buy totaled cars — as a convenience to the customer — it should be noted that Karina's used parts are worth around $15,000. The rear door that we will have to replace on Karina sells for $450. And that's just for the exterior metal panel, not the interior of the door!

I have no idea why more people don't understand what a total money-loser this is.

The loss of almost $15,000 in parts value is not a convenience. Instead we will take our chances on repairing Karina. We accepted Progressive's check for $3,480.

The Action Plan

This is where owning a totaled car gets sticky. The moment Progressive cut us a check is the moment when we lost the original title to Karina. The state of California, like most states, revokes the original title on totaled vehicles to prevent damaged cars from being resold to unsuspecting buyers. The DMV will replace our original title with a Salvage Certificate. This becomes the new ownership document. Once we repair Karina, we can re-register her as "Revived Salvage." She will never get a clean title again, but we will be able to resell her if we want to down the road.

Yes. The process of re-registering Karina will be inconvenient, but not $15,000 worth of inconvenience. This is what my next week's action plan looks like:

Complete an Application for Reregistration.

Pull Karina's prior bills of sale to prove the chain of ownership.

Have California Highway Patrol inspect Karina.

Obtain smog inspections and other equipment certificates, if necessary.

Pay the $50 total loss salvage inspection fee, the $5 automated per year prior history fee, and the title and registration fees.

Alas, the body shop will not be able to repair Karina until the New Year. This means that we will be back down to one car for the entire month of December.

Silver lining: We can use the $3,480 to pay down our debt challenge in the meantime.

Progress So Far

Well, there are better ways to make money than getting double-tapped on the freeway, but I'll take it.

Goal: $31,000

Amount Raised: $29,867.42

Amount Spent: $13,598.66

Amount Left to Go: $14,731.24

This article is from Max Wong of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

My 2016 Budget Challenge: Three Lessons About Saving One Husband Learned in a Year

Max Wong — Fri, 30 Dec 2016 10:30:25 +0000

[Editor's Note: This is another episode in Max Wong's journey to find an extra $31,000 this year. Read the whole series here.]

Oh. My. God. Mr. Spendypants has been pretending not to read my Wise Bread articles all this time. How do I know this? It's only recently that he's become suspiciously competitive with me about my monthly savings. "I'm putting $1,000 a month into savings. How much are you saving?" And, just this morning he demanded, "Why isn't my name Mr. Saveypants?"

He is so busted.

To be fair to my husband, who had no clue what he was signing onto when I told him I was going to publicly out our personal finances to the world for 12 straight months with this series, he's been an excellent student of thrift this year.

Here are some of the big lessons that he's learned.

Stock Up on Basics When They Go on Sale

At the beginning of the year, I bought 33 pounds of Plugra, a fancy French butter, on sale. At $2 per pound it was cheaper than buying the generic store brand. Although Mr. Spendypants has been enjoying a superior butter experience all year long, he's feigned annoyance at how much freezer space is taken up by my Plugra stash. He uses this as an example of my minimalist hypocrisy. After all, how can anyone who complains about clutter as much as I do think bulk purchasing is an acceptable idea?

But recently, Mr. Spendypants had a change of heart. Earlier this month, we were in Whole Paycheck (our nearest purveyor of bulk dry goods) stocking up on pantry basics, when we discovered a huge sale on fair trade soap. Alaffia soap normally sells for $7.99 per bar on Amazon. Whole Foods was selling it that weekend for $1 per five-ounce bar. At that price, it was cheaper than buying soap with a coupon at our local grocery store.

After a ton of haggling, Mr. Spendypants agreed to buy two cases of soap, or 72 bars, for $72. "Soap doesn't spoil. I think we should buy more," I insisted as we waited to check out. No dice. I hauled my hard-won two cases, and only two cases, down to the car.

We were halfway home when Mr. Spendypants turned the car around. "How many cases of soap do you think we can fit in the house?" he asked. We returned to the store and bought another two cases of soap for a total of 144 bars for $144.

Yesterday Mr. Spendypants announced that we use five bars of soap per month. He's been keeping track of our soap usage in his personal calendar. According to his projections, we have 26 more months to find another soap deal.

Woah. Tracking soap usage is some next level thriftiness.

Compound Your Savings

Before I forced this experiment on him, my husband had never tracked his luxury spending. Mr. Spendypants considered whatever sum was left over at the end of every month after putting money into the retirement fund and paying the bills to be play money. His financial thinking went something like this: "Save money on butter? Great! Now I can buy more board games!" It was impossible to convince him that banking all the small savings throughout the month could lead to great wealth, even though I am a living success story of compound savings.

In an effort to help me make my goal of finding an extra $31,000, Mr. Spendypants has been dutifully monitoring his spending and has been shocked by the results. Specifically, he's shocked that he hasn't felt any deprivation, even though he's been socking away an extra $1,000 or so each month instead of toy shopping. He's now on my case about compound saving next year so we can afford to take a trip to Easter Island in 16 months for his 50th birthday. Crap. He's already being such a nag about it, too. What have I done?

Out of Time? Losing Things? Perhaps You Have Too Much Stuff

My husband is one of those people who believe that the house would look less cluttered if he could only find the right storage container. I can't tell you how many hours he's wasted rearranging the Island of Misfit Tools A.K.A. our garage.

In the meantime, he's constantly misplacing his keys, his wallet, his sunglasses, and his cell phone. You know, all those things you actually need for your life to work smoothly. If only he had the right system in place, then he would never forget his lunch, his keys, his wallet, his phone, or his sunglasses on the kitchen counter.

I have the perfect system for never losing the things I need to make my life work. It's called a purse.

But back to the 10 pounds of crap in a five-pound bag situation in our house…

I am not sure which lost key/phone/prescription glasses event precipitated the change of heart in Mr. Spendypants, but he finally bought a "satchel" (purse). More importantly, he's started sorting through his things looking for stuff to sell for money.

In the last month he's moved 10 boxes of potential merchandise out of his office and into the garage. He can't believe how much more productive he's been since he downsized. Hmmm…it's almost like taking care of all that extra stuff was taking up tons of time. It's like ownership is a job in itself.

Progress So Far

Mr. Spendypants made an extra $1,000 DJing a party, but we used $745 of that money to fund our Thanksgiving trip home to visit the Spendypants relatives. So he came out $255 ahead.

In addition to making $715 from writing gigs, I started selling everything that's not nailed down in our house. I managed to sell $55.76 worth of vintage hardware on Etsy, $122.49 worth of Tupperware (I used to be a Tupperware Lady) at a friend's house party, and $20 in books to my local used bookstore. At the end of this pay period I was able to pay down our home equity line of credit by $913.25.

Goal: $31,000

Amount Raised: $26,387.42

Amount Spent: $13,598.66

Amount Left to Go: $18,211.24

Like this artice? Pin it!

This article is from Max Wong of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

My 2016 Budget Challenge: Reduce Debt or Save for an Emergency?

Max Wong — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 10:30:31 +0000

[Editor's Note: This is another episode in Max Wong's journey to find an extra $31,000 this year. Read the whole series here.]

Uh oh. Mr. Spendypants' contract is up. We anticipated that he might be out of work in mid-October and have been putting money into an emergency fund all year long for just this occurrence. The situation is not completely dire, as his company has paying work until March 2017. We have a very minor reprieve.

Very minor.

As luck would have it I am also under-employed. I got furloughed this week by not one, but two jobs until a date that has yet to be named in 2017. Ugh. Really? I guess it's not just me who is strapped for cash at the end of the year.

The big conversation Mr. Spendypants and I have been having all week is this: Should we continue to put money toward the $31,000 Budget Challenge, or should we put that extra money into our emergency fund in the event that Mr. Spendypants is unemployed come March and I am still under-employed?

The Argument Against Staying the Course

Who knows what impact the new administration will have on the economy? We currently have slightly over $13,000 in our emergency fund, enough to live off of for four months. But what if the job market tanks and we can't find jobs for six months or a year? Putting all our money into the emergency fund is obviously the less risky move.

The Argument for Staying the Course

Mr. Spendypants is really good at his job in video games. He's had his choice of companies to work for in the past. Also, the video game industry is fairly recession-proof because games provide cheap entertainment for the out-of-work masses. We do trust that with his talent and his 20 years of connections in the industry that he has a 90% chance of quickly finding another paying job, perhaps even before his current job ends in March.

Naturally, the real financial wildcard in this situation is me, Mr. Spendypants' deadbeat wife. If Mr. Spendypants can't find full-time work quickly, will I be able to get a job that pays me enough to cover 100% of our bills? Probably not.

That said, if push came to shove, we could definitely cover the mortgage with my current collection of little jobs. I will just have to freelance that much harder, with no weekends or evenings off. And, even if Mr. Spendypants couldn't find a full-time gig, he could also rustle up some part-time freelance work to cover the rest. The worst case scenario: He goes on unemployment and we have to stop putting money in our retirement fund every month.

Also, if we continue to aggressively attack our $31,000 debt instead of putting all the extra money into the emergency fund for the next two months, we're potentially saving money in the long run on interest. Our debt load won't be so bad if we find ourselves in a financial pinch four months from now. It's much easier to weather a financial downturn, be it personal or global, if you have a small nut to cover.

How to Hedge Our Bet

After a lot of discussion and number crunching, we have decided to stay the course and continue to put money toward both the emergency fund and the $31,000 budget challenge.

This is the riskier choice. To hedge our bet, we've decided to sell off anything in the house we don't totally love to make some extra money. This is a win-win situation for both of us. I get the hated clutter out of my house, and Mr. Spendypants gets more peace of mind.

Initially, Mr. Spendypants wasn't sure that we could make enough money selling used housewares to keep us afloat. Unlike me, he hasn't sold a lot of stuff online. When a copy of Kuon, an old video game that I had listed on eBay for $199, was snapped up in under an hour, he was convinced.

Although I would love to systematically go through our house Mari Kondo-style, Mr. Spendypants doesn't want to have to look at a giant stack of merchandise in the middle of the living room. As a compromise, we're going to do a series of mini-purges where we only pull the things that we can sell that week into a common area for sorting and packing. Since I will be the one managing our online inventory and sales, this means a lot more hunting and packing for me, but I'm not going to argue about it. I have been trying to get Mr. Spendypants to downsize since we moved into Dinky Manor eight years ago. If a little financial panic is what it takes for him to get rid of belongings that have gone unused for years, I'll take it.

Progress So Far

I had the death flu for most of October. One of the suckiest things about the gig economy is that there are no sick days for people who work from home. If I don't do work, I don't make any money. Because I was sick in bed through the middle of the month, I only made $324 creating a database for my real estate agent and $199 selling Kuon on eBay. I am now, also, two weeks behind on all my work, which is kind of a nightmare. The only positive thing about getting the flu is that I was too sick to go shopping for anything, even food, so we didn't actually spend any money.

While I was suffering at home, Mr. Spendypants was suffering at work. His schedule was so crazy, that his bosses ordered dinners in to incentivize him to work late. Between the long hours and the catered meals, he was too busy to go shopping for anything, even food, so he managed to sock away $1,101 from his paycheck.

Goal: $31,000

Amount Raised: $25,219.17

Amount Spent: $12,853.66

Amount Left to Go: $18,634.49

This article is from Max Wong of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

My 2016 Budget Challenge: Where to Find Cheap Training for a New Career

Max Wong — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 10:00:10 +0000

[Editor's Note: This is another episode in Max Wong's journey to find an extra $31,000 this year. Read the whole series here.]

Yesterday, one of my friends asked: "So, what are you working on?" To which I responded: "Um, you know, stuff. All sorts of things. I'm so busy. Uhhhhh, It's kind of boring to explain."

For the past four weeks I've been grinding away at an increasingly long To Do list. It's always been like this. Or, to be accurate, I've always been like this. I always complete the majority of my projects during the last four months of the year. Perhaps it's because 24 years after graduation, I still feel like September is the start of a new year. Or perhaps it's the change of seasons… even though Los Angeles only has two seasons: vacation weather and unreasonably hot.

Or, perhaps I accidentally schedule all my deadlines for every project for December 31st. Regardless of the motivation, my completion panic kicked into high gear one month early this year.

I suspect it's the public shaming aspect of this writing exercise that has accelerated my inner clock. After all, it's September and I am still over $21,000 short of meeting my goal of saving $31,000 before the end of the year. If I want to make this goal, I will need to make or save an additional $5,280 per month. Uhn.

To that end, I have been working every moneymaking angle available to me from the confines of my house. I am canning my award-winning fig jam in advance of Holiday Craft Fairs, I have applied to every job lead that has come my way (including one that would require me to wear an abaya everyday for a month — but since I look weirdly cute in a headscarf, this is actually not a bad thing), and I am selling everything I don't completely love on Craigslist and eBay.

At the end of June, I got a really good job lead from my sister. If I can become an expert at Adobe Illustrator and pass her company's skill test, she can hire me for a freelance job that would easily make up my budget shortfall.

Access Free Job Skill Training Via the Library

Once I learned about the job opportunity, I jumped into action. I subscribed to Adobe Illustrator ($30 per month) believing that I would be illustrating everything by the end of the 30-day free trial period. "I totally got this," I told myself. "I'm going to spend the 4th of July watching 32 hours of Lynda.com tutorials that I can download for free using my Los Angeles Public Library card. Then I will give myself three weeks to cram for the skill test. My education cost will be zero and I can work full time starting in August."

Cramming Doesn't Work

I started watching the Lynda.com tutorials that same night. Two hours in I began to lose focus to the point that I had to stop and rewind the video several times because I kept spacing out. "Ugh. What is wrong with me? Why am I struggling so hard to learn this?" I asked my best friend. "Well," she answered, "there's a reason why most college classes are only two hours long. Your brain is actively learning, not binge watching Daredevil, you dummy."

Oh.

Now resigned to the fact that I cannot master Adobe Illustrator in one marathon study session, I've had to alter my schedule for total budget domination considerably. Not without a huge amount of denial, I have discovered that my brain can only absorb an hour of technical lecturing per day. So it was 32 days of watching tutorials, not three. I've also had to admit to myself that it's going to take a minimum of 100 hours of practice with the Pen Tool before I have any proficiency. So basically, my free self-education and accelerated learning plan now looks and costs the same as a semester-long class at my local community college, but without teacher office hours so I can actually get one-on-one assistance.

What is possibly worse than acknowledging that I am not the quick study I thought I was? The realization that I am now losing paid work hours to unpaid study hours. In order not to backslide into more debt, I will have to get a better-paying job to supplement my job training for a better-paying job.

Sigh. Lesson learned?

Progress So Far

My blood tests are fine. My teeth are fine. My boobs are fine. My OCD is…what it is. My savings this month? Not so much. My regularly scheduled doctors' appointments erased any savings from Mr. Spendypants this pay period as I'm on his health insurance. (Thanks Cutie).

Between my new study schedule and my doctor appointments, I only managed to turn in $90 worth in writing work this pay period. Luckily, my bees came through for me and helped me sell $150 in bees and $293.76 in honey. Because I've been under house arrest, and Mr. Spendypants has been working 16 hours a day, we still managed to come out $533.76 ahead, even with all the medical expenses.

Goal: $31,000

Amount Raised: $22,040.17

Amount Spent: $12,153.66

Amount Left to Go: $21,113.49

This article is from Max Wong of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

My 2016 Budget Challenge: How to Lose Weight Without Counting Calories

Max Wong — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 10:00:08 +0000

[Editor's Note: This is another episode in Max Wong's journey to find an extra $31,000 this year. Read the whole series here.]

One yucky, unintended side effect of my 2016 Budget Challenge is that both Mr. Spendypants and I have chubbed out in the last six months. Since most of our methods of saving and earning extra money this year involve sitting down, we aren't burning our usual number of calories to balance our power snacking. So now, in addition to finding an extra $31,000 by December 31st, we've added Lose 10 Pounds to our To Do list. Boo.

There's a reason why Asians dominate at eating competitions. Asian metabolism is real. The biblical plague of locusts looks positively junior varsity when compared to my Chinese family nibbling its way through the Beef Jerky Store in Las Vegas. In my family, eating through the pain is a mark of character. And don't even think about skipping Second Breakfast. Didn't your mother tell you that Second Breakfast in one of the eight most important meals of the day? No?

I'm just going to blame my poor food habits on my cultural norms.

What Is Hara Hachi Bun Me?

Luckily food sport isn't the only famous Asian eating habit. Hara hachi bun me, which translates roughly as "belly 80% full," is the Confucian practice of purposeful eating. The hara hachi bun me eating practice is based on a very simple idea: Stop eating when you are 80% full. Since it takes about 20 minutes for the stretch receptors in your stomach to tell your brain that your gut is at capacity, it's easy to overeat. So, if you put down your chopsticks while you still feel a little hungry, chances are that 20 minutes later you will actually feel full.

Why Did We Choose Hara Hachi Bun Me Over Other Diets?

Mr. Spendypants and I decided to try this method of weight loss for several reasons.

Budgeting Is No Fun

Counting calories is basically making a budget about food. What an unappetizing thought. With hara hachi bun me, we don't have to do any math. We just have to stop eating the moment we stop feeling hungry instead of the moment we start feeling full. It's super easy.

You Don't Need Special Equipment

Although I am sure hara hachi bun me tools exist, practicing hara hachi bun me does not require special equipment. We don't have to download an app, pulverize our food in a $700 Veggisaurus Rex blender, or use a Breathalyzer to tell us that our diet is working. (I know that my diet is working because my favorite dress no longer fits me like a sausage casing).

You Don't Need Special Food

We don't have to buy special food, either. We don't have to live for weeks on maple syrup and laxatives harvested by endangered Canadian squirrels. We don't have to ingest a choco-malt meal replacement — that smells like burned rubber and tastes like sadness — twice a day, along with a sensible dinner.

You Won't Become a Diet Humblebragger

Lastly, our friends won't hate us. Okay, let me elaborate about how not to lose friends when you lose weight.

Since I live in Los Angeles, the epicenter of every food-denying trend, I don't want to hear your opinion on what I should stop eating. I follow you on Instagram and already know about the unsweetened twigs you ate for breakfast today. People who tell me about their juice fasts are the worst. Really, stop talking about your diarrhea. Also, if you are a vegan who does CrossFit, how do you decide which lifestyle to talk about first? (Answer: neither). Because hara hachi bun me is based on portion control, we can eat out with friends, anywhere, without making the meal all about us.

So How Does This Save Money?

We went out to lunch with friends last weekend and split two entrees, two large salads, and two appetizers between five people, and we still had food left over. American restaurant portions are huge. So, when we go out to eat, we save around 40% by splitting meals. At home we immediately cut 20% off our grocery budget by eating 20% less food at every meal.

Progress Report

July was fun, but fun costs money. We just spent the weekend in Napa Valley commemorating my in-laws' 60th wedding anniversary. Although their six-decade marriage is a marvelous achievement, the dress code for the family portrait was not. "The color palette for the reunion photograph is gold, navy, and white, with touches of red," read the email from a relative who will go unnamed. Because I apparently don't know how to dress appropriately for important family events, a helpful reference photograph — of Mitt Romney's family — was included.

Since my closet is tiny, pretty much everything I wear is black, so I was forced to find something suitably Ann Romney meets the Naval Academy for the picture. I resigned myself to doing a little catch and release shopping. I went to the nearest consignment store to buy the first navy blue dress that fit me and looked moderately Republican. My plan was to wear the dress for the portrait and then sell the dress back to the store the following week to recoup 40% of the cost. As luck would have it, I found a brand-new, super cute (as in Zooey Deschanel owns this) dress for $28. Shockingly, the dress fits me so perfectly that I'm going to use it as a sewing pattern for future dresses. It's a keeper, but I'm out $28.

We also spent a few days at the beginning of the month in San Francisco for the baptism of Mr. Spendypants' godson. Luckily, we didn't have to purchase Catholic apparel for that event.

Although we lucked out with free housing from family and friends, the cost of everything from haircuts to food to airfare for those two trips cost $1500. When Mr. Spendypants finally got a chance to balance his books we discovered that we had a whopping $8 to add to the savings challenge. Uhn. At least we didn't have to dip into savings to pay for anything.

Better luck in August, maybe?

Goal: $31,000

Amount Raised: $21,506.41

Amount Spent: $12,153.66

Amount Left to Go: $21,647.25

This article is from Max Wong of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

My 2016 Budget Challenge: Does Taking a Regular Day Job Mean Giving Up?

Max Wong — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 10:00:05 +0000

[Editor's Note: This is another episode in Max Wong's journey to find an extra $31,000 this year. Read the whole series here.]

Although most people hate their boring job, there is something to be said for mindless labor — at the end of the workday, you can leave the job at the office. I am currently looking for a regular, turnkey job, and money is not even the first reason why.

I Am Tired of Thinking

I know. This seems like a stupid thing that only a stupid person would say. But I am really tired at the end of every day. Like, my brain is worn out. And, when I wake up in the morning, I don't feel mentally refreshed. In fact, my first thought upon waking is a rundown on that day's To Do list, which is basically the list of what I didn't finish the day before.

Other than having no benefits like health care or a 401K, the biggest drag about my current battalion of creative, freelance jobs is that I have to do 100% of the brainwork. I have to write the stories for Wise Bread. I have to organize the photo shoot. I have to make the jam. If I worked a standard service job, I would have time between customers for reflection or even daydreaming. With my current work, I have no time to work through complex problems or innovate. My creative jobs are actually preventing me from being creative.

Yes. This is a first world problem. Most definitely.

Getting Paid by the Gig Is Actually a Problem

I love beekeeping because bees are endlessly fascinating. There is rarely a day that goes by that I don't learn something new about bees or how to keep them. Unfortunately, bees wait for nobody. I have pretty much given up trying to schedule around beekeeping jobs. Also, depending on the size and the grumpiness of the hive, the simplest beekeeping tasks can take five minutes or five hours. While the master beekeeper I assist tells me that I will get better at assessing the work flow as I level-up as a beekeeper, right now I get paid the same for swarm capture jobs whether I get stung once or 20 times.

The days that I get stung 20 times are the days I wish I had a salary.

My Random Payment Schedule Is Annoying

I spend all day harvesting lemons and making marmalade on the assumption that I will be able to sell it. While my profit estimates are usually accurate, the schedule of payment never is. Sometime I sell out of jam in 48 hours and sometimes it takes months for me to sell 100 jars. I know that I will make $4,000 in profit if I sell my entire summer harvest of honey, but I might not make the brunt of those sales until Christmas rolls around. Meanwhile, I still need $423 by next week as the minimum payment on my bank loan.

Okay, thanks for letting me get all that whining off my chest.

Hooray! Three Job Offers

I had the most peculiar Monday. I got three job offers in one day.

I woke up to the first job offer. A tech startup wants to hire me to write content for their blog. It's an intriguing company — working in affiliate marketing — a white-hot space right now. Creatively I said yes, but financially, I said no. The company isn't funded, and I currently can't afford to take a spec job for someone else. If I am going to work for free, it has to be for me.

I am sure I am walking away from a million dollar opportunity.

The second job came through a knitting buddy who has created a probiotic cookie that Los Angeles foodies are going crazy over. She's never run a company and needs someone to be her factory manager. Although I have experience working as a private cook, I don't have the mass production experience she needs to make the jump to the big leagues. With my family's restaurant background, I feel like I could probably figure out what she needs to do to get her product into Whole Foods. Even though a salaried job is so tempting, I know that running any kind of food-based company is a 24-hour job that will take over my life and brain. I don't take her up on the job, but I do take her up on the offer of free cookies. I need probiotics. And cookies.

I am sure I am walking away from a million dollar opportunity.

The third job came from my sister who is an illustrator. The company she works for is short on freelance inkers. Since I have never worked as an inker, I am naturally worried that I will fail spectacularly at the job and bring shame upon my entire family.

Here's her assessment of my skills: "I think you're going to get this. Your obsessive tendencies and perfectionism…well, you are like a meth user without the meth. Those are the makings of a good freelance inker. How fast can you learn Adobe Illustrator?"

That's comforting, I think.

My sister hadn't considered me for the job before because she thought I would get bored with the assembly line aspect of the work. But then she discovered that her boyfriend's brother just made $50,000 in two months working as a freelance inker. Granted her boyfriend's brother is like a cyborg with a stylus and is super fast on Adobe Illustrator, but if that guy could make $25,000 in a month, I could at least manage that amount of work by the end of the year. This is my sister's plan to help me make my $31,000 budget challenge.

What makes me think this is the dream-come-true, turnkey job isn't even the pay, it's my sister's description of the work: "It's mindless, but never boring. It's relaxing, like coloring."

It's times like this that I could kiss my fine arts degrees. And my sister.

Progress So Far

My husband managed to save $600 from his last paycheck. I made $410 from writing gigs and $15 running an errand for a neighbor. While we didn't earn much this pay period, we managed to spend $0 in the last two weeks because we were both submerged in work.

Goal: $31,000

Amount Raised: $19,905.84

Amount Spent: $10,653.66

Amount Left to Go: $21,747.82

This article is from Max Wong of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

My 2016 Budget Challenge: How to Buy a House When You Live Paycheck to Paycheck

Max Wong — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 20:00:05 +0000

[Editor's Note: This is another episode in Max Wong's journey to find an extra $31,000 this year. Read the whole series here.]

Living paycheck to paycheck is a nightmarish financial treadmill. No extra cash means you cannot take full advantage of small financial windfalls that come your way by compounding your savings.

Compounding savings is a key financial skill to master. Too often, we try this or that money saver, but then we don't actually bank the money we save so that it can accrue interest for our benefit, or reinvest the money on skills or tools that result in even greater savings or earnings.

When I pitched this story idea to my Wise Bread editor, he responded with this personal tale of woe:

When I quit smoking, I stuffed $4 a day into a jar (because that's what that nasty habit was costing me) and kept that up for 90 days. I blew it on a big cocktail party with friends. Like an idiot, I stopped stuffing $4 a day in that jar, but if I had…Calculates…(4850 days x $4 = $19,400). Dang. I wish I hadn't done the math.

Not to rub it in, but if my editor had put his cigarette money in the bank and let the interest compound, he could have saved even more than $19,400!

I compounded my savings to crawl out of poverty when I was in my 20s and living paycheck to paycheck. At age 28, largely due to hyper-vigilant saving and strategic reinvesting on small items, I was able save the down payment on my house in Los Angeles. Here's a super simple version of how you can dramatically improve your financial future, even if you can only scrape together $100 in cash. By the way, the below case study is actually based on my real life.

My Five Year Plan to Buy a House Before Age 30

My goal was to buy a house before I turned 30. However, my first job out of college only paid $12,000. Since I could barely keep food on the table on that salary, the only reason why I had $100 in savings at the end of the year is because I dutifully recycled bottles and cans from the trash at work.

Total Savings: $100

Year Two

I use $50 from my savings to buy a used soy milk maker for $20 at a garage sale. Even though I spend $30 to buy a year's supply of organic soybeans, I use about five quarts of soy milk per week for cooking and drinking, so making my own soy milk saves me $10 per week. This weekly savings allows me to stretch my food budget because I now have the spare cash to bulk buy my staples when they go on sale. I save $520 on soy milk and an additional $500 on groceries for the year. I am still collecting bottles and cans…

Total Savings: $1,170

Year Three

I keep $500 in savings. Yay! I finally have an emergency fund! I spend $100 on canning jars and spend the remaining $570 on classes and tools to start keeping bees as a hobby. I make $700 off selling homemade jam and $960 from selling honey. My beekeeping hobby pays for its start-up costs in five months!

Total Savings: $3,330

Year Four

I put an additional $1,000 into my emergency fund. I spend $1,300 on computer classes. I spend $1,000 on a fancy Dutch bike to take the place of my car for commutes under five miles. Overshare: I spend $30 on a menstrual cup to replace tampons. My additional education allows me to get a promotion to a position that pays $40,000 per year instead of $12,000. The bike saves me $1,200 in gasoline and car costs. I save $72 in tampon costs over the course of the year.

Total Savings: $30,772

Year Five

I buy a house! I spend $25,000 on the down payment for my house and related real estate expenses. I use $4,000 to open a Vanguard IRA. I keep $1,500 in my emergency fund. I use the remaining $222 to pay for additional beekeeping equipment that allows me to expand my honey and jam business. I make $4,000 off of honey sales.

Total Year Five Savings: $5,500

Year Six

Rinse and repeat.

I neither invented nor perfected the idea of compounded savings. In fact, a number of financial gurus have calculated how much money could be saved in a lifetime just by giving up small purchases like fancy coffee or cigarettes. Banking small savings is such a common financial trope it even has a nickname: The Latte Factor. I originally learned about compounded savings from Amy Dacyzyn. Her newsletter and books taught me that strategically reinvesting tiny sums of money in the form of tools and education would improve my bottom line exponentially. It's not enough to put your money in savings. It's much smarter to use part of your savings to reinvest in you.

Here Are Some Tips To Keep You on Track

If you'd like to try compounding your savings, here are some hard earned bits of advice — and a few caveats.

Do What You Love

This type of savings plan is a multi-year commitment to living in extreme poverty. When choosing tools and skills, it's best that your purchases are related to a moneymaking activity you love, so you can stay motivated on the job over a long period of time. For example, if you hate the great outdoors, do not buy an axe so you can start your firewood company, even if you live next to a huge stand of deadwood and can harvest firewood for free.

Reduce and Reuse

Buy reusable replacements for expendable goods or tools that allow you to make DIY versions of your favorite things. For example, replace disposable diapers with cloth diapers to save on baby costs. Or, use cleaning rags, made from worn out clothes, instead of paper towels for gross chores.

Make Money From Your Pastimes

Look for opportunities to monetize low-cost activities you already do for free. I bought canning jars because I love to make preserves and knew it would be a pleasurable way for me to make extra money. If you are a parent who already has to babysit your own kid after school, why not babysit someone else's kid at the same time for cash?

Set Goals

Most importantly, set a specific goal for your money. I really wanted to buy a house before I turned 30. I was able resist the peer pressure to spend money I didn't have and resist the urge to buy pretty much everything for almost half a decade, because I wanted a house so badly.

Here are some other things to note about my case study.

My Strategy Was Conservative

If I were financially more sophisticated, I could have made much more in those five years by investing in the stock market or, at least, parking my money someplace other than a savings account.

I Failed to Take Advantage of Government Services

I was so financially unsophisticated, that I didn't realize that my low salary made me eligible for food stamps. That extra $100 each month would have revolutionized my life. If you are living paycheck to paycheck, make sure that you are using all the benefits that are available to you.

That Big Promotion Really Helped

While it is rare to get a promotion anywhere near $28,000, it's also rare for a college graduate to accept a starting salary of $12,000. Most people who have the time to read personal finance blogs are either totally unemployed or make wages that don't put them so far below the poverty line. If I had made even $15,000 a year those first few years, that would have given me an enormous advantage — for example, I could have opened a retirement fund much earlier.

I Trusted Education Would Pay Off

Since I paid for two entire years of my life by selling items that I had trash-picked at garage sales, I seriously considered buying a used pick up truck for $1,300 instead of taking computer classes in Year Three. It was a gamble: I knew that I could make an additional $12,000 each year trash-picking with a truck and didn't know if continuing my education would amount to a raise that was equal to that. Luckily, my extra schooling paid off in a huge way.

I Was Lucky

I was fortunate that I didn't have a major health crisis during my 20s. That would have wiped out my savings.

I Ate Well

To live on $12,000 a year I had to eat a near vegetarian diet. I rarely purchased meat and my big foodie splurge was buying 2% milk for my coffee when it went on sale.

Rental Housing Was Cheaper Then

Up until I purchased my house, I had never spent more than $550 on housing. Although living on $12,000 would now be much harder to do in Los Angeles due to insanely high rents, I am replicating a lot of strategies I learned when I was saving up for my house purchase for my 2016 Budget Challenge.

Progress Report

After five months of grinding away, I feel like I've finally gotten some momentum. In the past two weeks, I have created another job to my spectrum of part-time employment opportunities: bee dealer.

It's swarm season in Los Angeles. This sounds alarming, but really, when bees swarm they are just looking for a new place to live. I was lucky enough that three separate swarms took up residence in empty hive boxes in my backyard. When I mentioned my new popularity to the master beekeeper I am assisting, he told me that he has an orchard client that will buy bee packages from me for $150 per colony. He picked up the three boxes of bees the next day, and I made a cool $450 from free bees. The master beekeeper also showed me how to convince my bees to make extra queens so I can split my two huge hives into smaller colonies that I can sell to the orchard. I made two splits and made an additional $300. The orchard wants to buy 25 packages of bees this year, so potentially I could make $3,750 from selling bees over the next few months.

I joined forces with a fashion designer friend and my tea importer friend and hosted a sample sale in my house. I made $56 selling jam and honey and $458 selling random vintage stuff that I've been too lazy to put on Etsy. The sale was so successful for my two friends that we're going to do another sale in July. I took a bunch of items that didn't sell to a local consignment store that takes house wares. I got $100 in store credit that I used to buy presents for friends and family. While this $100 credit won't count toward my $31,000 budget challenge, it will save us on gift costs come Christmas.

I also gathered up every piece of old video equipment I could find in my garage that I am not using and sold it for $575. Although I'd originally spent around $1500 to buy the equipment used, in another year most of what I sold will only have value as parts, so I was happy to get the $575.

I managed to have a few little windfalls. I managed to sell a video game that should have cost $5 for $23 to a rabid collector who wanted a pristine copy of Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty. (I am not going to judge.) I also sold a book on half.com for $93 that had been up for sale for so long, that I had given up on selling it online, and stuck it into a box earmarked for the next garage sale. Also, it pays to tell everyone you know that you are looking for work. My friend Giselle paid me $100 to drive her to the airport. (She gave me the Uber's surge pricing rate! Sweet.)

Last but not least, I made $450 from writing gigs. In total, I made $2,505 in the last two weeks!

Alas, Mr. Spendypants has been working 18-hour days all week so he has not had a chance to do anything but sleep when he comes home. His savings will be added (or subtracted) from the total of the next pay period.

Goal: $31,000

Amount Raised: $18,880.84

Amount Spent: $10,653.66

Amount Left to Go: $22,772.82

This article is from Max Wong of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

My 2016 Budget Challenge: How to Turn Your Spouse Into a Money Saver

Max Wong — Fri, 20 May 2016 10:00:09 +0000

[Editor's Note: This is another episode in Max Wong's journey to find an extra $31,000 this year. Read the whole series here.]

My husband, Mr. Spendypants, grew up as the youngest of six kids, so he pretty much hates hand-me-downs of any sort. Except for food. He's like a coyote with leftovers.

It's not that he's fiscally irresponsible, he is just averse to stuff he sees as weird penny pinching. Like his refusal to use cornstarch to prevent jock itch — as opposed to the much more expensive baby powder — even though (as I have pointed out to him) the bottle of baby powder he uses reads: CONTAINS 100% CORNSTARCH.

(OMFG).

Even so, I have managed to successfully inch him onto my $31,000 savings plan this year through a variety of nefarious ways.

I Own My Crazy

If you have been following this series (and you can, right here!), it should be obvious to by now: I am the bonkers one in my marriage. Finding an extra $31,000 in the household budget is just one of my goals for 2016. I am also trying to downsize my personal possessions to just 1000 personal items. (FYI: This does not include shared tools or furniture. I count personal possession as items that I use 95% of the time, that I paid for, and that I brought into my house). So yes, it does pain me to come home to discover that my husband has gone out and purchased more stuff that has to be stored and dusted.

However, I know that my position on ownership is on the extreme side of extreme. My husband's desire for material goods is not more or less stupid than my desire to travel more. My fever to save $31,000 is exactly the same. It's my fever. Mine. His main motivation for even participating in this budget challenge is not financial independence. He's doing it to make me happy. Every time he puts more money into savings, I acknowledge this act of love.

We Share a Goal

Although my husband previously had no burning desire to pay down our debt this quickly, he does want to fulfill his lifelong goal of traveling to Easter Island. He wants to take this trip for his 50th birthday. Funnily enough, I also want to take this trip for his 50th birthday. Mr. Spendypants just turned 48. Neither of us will be able to afford to go to Easter Island in two years if we don't pay down our debt this year so we can save up the money next year for that adventure.

We Compromise

Compromise seems like an obvious solution, but more marriages end over money than any other reason, so clearly this advice is easier said that done.

I can cut my expenses to the bone. I have enough free entertainment in the house to last me for years. So does my husband. However, it would be very hard for me to sell him a cut-to-the-bone budget that doesn't sound like sacrifice to him. Instead, we created a budget for luxuries. We both agreed on the amount, but what is purchased out of the account is up to him. So, I never have to ask him whether this new guitar pedal or that lunch out is really necessary. My only question is: Will this fit in the luxury budget?

We Accept That Different Saving Strategies Aren't a Separate Vision

My husband and I both have similar retirement aspirations. We'd love to live abroad and spend our days on simple hobbies like listening to music, cooking, and reading. If I had my druthers, I would have moved to Rome six years ago, even if that means working as a janitor until I keel over. (Not that there is anything wrong with being a janitor, just that I hate dusting). But, Mr. Spendypants really loves his Los Angeles-centric work that also happens to pay well. I would rather be in a happy marriage and retire abroad at 65, than make my husband miserable and retire at 55. A decade more in Los Angeles won't kill me.

We Make the Cuts That Don't Sacrifice Lifestyle First

If we waste food or any other consumable, we really aren't spending money wisely. If we are wasting food, then we won't miss it at all if we don't buy so much in the first place. We can save money and the planet without feeling the slightest financial pinch.

Last year, Mr. Spendypants decided that he needed a tablet for work so he bought a refurbished iPad Mini. So far, the quality of his work has not been impacted by the fact that he spent $300 on a used machine, instead of buying a new iPad for $450.

Waste doesn't only apply to physical objects. I switched from a 12GB data plan on my phone to sharing 3GB with my husband when I realized that we weren't using close to 12GB per month even though I live on Instagram. If I go over the limit on the 3GB data plan, it still costs $20 less per month than the 12GB plan, even if I get dinged with a $15 overage fee. If I went over the limit every month, I would still save $240 a year on our phone bill.

Because I started our saving strategy by asking to cut the waste and not the fun from our budget, Mr. Spendypants saw that our huge savings in January had no downside. This was so exciting to him that he has tried to match that same rate of savings every month, even though that has meant making cuts that he can feel.

We Delay Gratification

Delayed gratification is not deprivation. I am lucky that my husband is not that guy who wants the coolest phone always. But even if he were, I still think I could get him to switch out his phone every 18 months instead of every 12 months and save 33% on phone costs.

Although it's counter-intuitive, recent scientific studies that show that anticipation actually increases the pleasure of consumption, especially when it comes to spending money on experience-based purchases. Instant gratification is just that — it gratifies for just an instant.

Mr. Spendypants has a wish list. At the end of year, if we've paid down the $31,000, he's going to buy the stuff on that list as his reward for being patient with his stubborn wife. I have a sneaking suspicion that as the months go by, his interest in owning some of the wish list items will wane because his savings account will look so much more attractive by comparison. Also, if he really wants to go to Easter Island, then that's where he should spend his money.

We Find Role Models

Our friend Martin and his wife work just the minimum amount necessary to maintain their health insurance. They aggressively worked to pay off their house in just a few years. Their kid goes to public school. Because they have both figured out how to work from home, they don't pay for childcare.

Because they made very smart financial decisions and continue to live below their means, Martin and his family go out to eat and attend more cultural events than pretty much anyone we know.

I recently pointed out to Mr. Spendypants that Martin's family actually lead a very decadent life of near leisure. Because Martin and his wife have similar jobs and interests to us, it's easy for me to show that my push for financial independence is do-able. If Martin can do it with a kid, we can certainly do it as two employed adults.

We Do the Math

Like many Americans, my husband didn't understand how compound interest could be a financial tool, not just the punishment for using a credit card. Once I showed my husband with a simple debt calculator how much money we could save if we got aggressive with paying down our debts early, he started looking for ways to reduce debt too. In fact, he's so on board with the math that he's currently trying to refinance his home loan to one where he actually pays more principal!

We Accept That Not Everyone Loves Spreadsheets

I have friends who are superhuman when it comes to Microsoft Excel. They use it for everything from tracking garden harvests to creating custom knitting patterns. Even though looking at budgets is a major part of my job, I hate making spreadsheets. I find them personally crazy-making.

More complex financial tools like credit cards and spreadsheets are actually overwhelming or just straight up annoying to many people. It took me a year of nagging to get Mr. Spendypants to get on Mint, even though it only takes 30 minutes to set up an account. If I could accrue airline mileage by paying cash, I would ditch my credit card in one hot second and use the envelope system because it's visual and completely concrete. There's no technology to master or hidden fees associated with zero based budgeting. Simplicity is my friend when it comes to keeping track of my finances.

(So, before you give up on your partner ever sharing your financial values, make sure that it's really the values they don't agree with and not the presentation they find troublesome).

We Aren't Jerks

There's truth to the old maxim: "Happy wife, happy life." I make a concerted effort not to roll my eyes every time my husband backs another Kickstarter board game campaign. Financial independence will not bring me inner peace if it comes at the cost of my marriage.

Life partners often have different values about money stemming from how they were raised. I have friends who grew up in dire poverty who value financial stability to the point that they would rather be single than in a relationship with someone who doesn't have a high-paying job. My bookkeeper is a scion of a bookkeeping family. She grew up thinking that everyone made spreadsheets to track their babysitting money. But, many people grow up in homes where money and money problems are never discussed. Because Americans are more likely to share information about their sex lives than their budgets, many people grow up financially illiterate.

My husband grudgingly agreed to support this experiment out of love for me, not out of a burning desire to understand the difference between a Roth IRA and a Traditional IRA. So, as much as I'd like to hustle our savings plan along at a breakneck pace, I'm making every effort to be patient with his learning process, which, to his surprise, he's greatly enjoying. Taking control of your personal finances is empowering.

Mr. Spendypants has, so far, enjoyed this public challenge more than we both expected, in part because the reader reaction has been so positive. He anticipated that we would be flayed by the commentariat and that has not been the case. Thank you, dear readers.

Progress Report

Uhn. The $31,000 budget challenge took a lot of damage this last pay period and most of the carnage was self-inflicted. For starters, we hosted a friend from out of town and spent four days eating our way through Los Angeles and going to movies. We did so much walking we also "had" to get professional foot massages…of course. Total cost of our mini vacation: $800.

Then, Mr. Spendypants bought several thousands of dollars worth in synthesizers and guitar pedals — guitar pedals that were not paid for out of the luxuries account — for $220 from a friend. A huge bargain on music equipment that he will use, but an unplanned expense nonetheless. Another unplanned expense: $300 spent to replace the master circuit board on my husband's Cyntiq monitor that decided to crap out for no reason.

Additionally, even though Mr. Spendypants is the math expert in our partnership, he had some kind of arithmetic breakdown while paying bills and managed to overpay our loan bill by $741. Overpaying just means that we will pay down our loan that much faster, which is great, but we had to take that money out of our emergency fund to make sure we didn't overdraw our checking account. While Mr. Spendypants has been saving between $1000 and $1500 per month since January by dramatically curbing his shopping habits, his April savings were wiped out by the very expected $1000 car repair bill. Yes, one of our cars is still in the shop.

On top of all the expenses, I also had a dismal pay period. I made $270 from writing gigs and $27.84 in Half.com sales.

While I did not expect perfect execution of this challenge, I am disappointed that we drifted so far from our goal. We are now $2,763.16 further away from $31,000 than we were when we started the month, and May is not even over! Will we be able to recover this loss?

Goal: $31,000

Amount Raised: $16,375.84

Amount Spent: $10,653.66

Amount Left to Go: $25,277.82

This article is from Max Wong of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

My 2016 Budget Challenge: Affording Education

Max Wong — Fri, 29 Apr 2016 10:00:09 +0000

[Editor's Note: This is another episode in Max Wong's journey to find an extra $31,000 this year. Read the whole series here.]

I am on the cusp of transitioning into a new dream career. Actually, two new dream careers. People keep approaching me for work as a documentary filmmaker and as an architectural photographer, so I have decided to take the leap and try to do both full-time for money. This is tremendously exciting and mind-numbingly scary for two reasons:

First, I am old. Well, not old-old. I am 46. So, I am certainly young enough to start a second career. However, at 46, I am too old for a long educational track and too poor to get training for a career that leaves me saddled with student loan debt that then leaves me unable to save for retirement.

Second, I will just say it: I am a luddite. In order to succeed as a documentary filmmaker and as a professional photographer, I have to learn how to use my motion picture camera and sound system, a film editing program, Lightroom and/or Photoshop, and a new digital camera system. And that's just what I have to learn this year. I basically have to go back to film school, but cram four years of learning into the next nine months.

So how am I going to acquire all these new-fangled skills without breaking the bank or, more importantly, breaking my brain? Here's how I am cobbling together some quality learning on the cheap.

Finding a Mentor

If there is such a thing as a professional meet cute story, I have it. Last year, one of my favorite photographers started following me on Instagram and subsequently hired me to work as his sometime assistant.

It is incredibly gratifying to have an artist, who I greatly admire, support me creatively, even if it comes in the form of terse texts such as, "If you take that photograph now, I don't want to hear any whining from you about how sucky it is later." And, "Do better." Because I know he is rooting for me to figure things out, it is easy to stay motivated and learn the technical side of photography, a process that involves failing repeatedly. To quote Henri Cartier-Bresson: "Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." With thousands of my worst photographs still untaken, I am glad that I have professional supervision and a safe space to crash and burn.

In addition to the self-esteem boost, a good mentor just makes everything easier. For example, after reading through approximately 556,373 camera equipment reviews, I still could not parse out what gear to buy, so my mentor wrote me up a custom shopping list based on what he thought would work best for me creatively, financially, and physically. Not only did this take some of the stress out of buying $2,288.94 worth of photography equipment, but he ended up saving me hundreds of dollars.

For example, the Arca Swiss Cube gear head is the industry standard for architectural photography. One of the reasons why my original gear budget is $10,000 is because the Arca Swiss costs $1,600. My mentor owns several different gear heads. The one he recommended to me is the one he uses the most: a $300 model that was not mentioned in any of the reviews that I read. Because I have seen what he can do with a $300 gear head, I feel confident that I can do professional work with the same model and save $1,300.

While mentors are always presented as white-haired, lions of industry (or Morgan Freeman) in films, I should point out that my photography mentor is actually younger than I am. Good teachers can be any age.

Interning

I am extremely pro-interning because it has worked well for me. I was hired as a film executive before I even graduated from film school. I never had to be an assistant or work in the mailroom, which are both standard entry-level film gigs. I graduated from college and the next day I went to work at my fancy production company job. I managed this feat by interning for a full year at the company that hired me. For them, it was just an internal promotion. I was already working 60 hours a week for them, so why not just pay me so I could afford better work clothes?

Interning while you are in college has become a huge drag. You either have to find a paying internship, which really don't exist anymore in a lot of fields, or you have to work an internship for college credit, which means you have to pay tuition for a job your school probably didn't even get you. It's tough. However, interning as an adult post-graduation is way easier. Plenty of companies have rules against hiring unpaid students, but very few companies care if a "grown up" volunteers to work for free. Interning is a great way to learn the industry culture, network, and discover the skills you actually need for a specific job.

I don't think of internships as just office jobs. In fact, I could probably invent an internship in almost any industry that does not require safety certification or security clearance. In addition to interning for my photography mentor, I am currently interning with a master beekeeper. I help him schlep heavy equipment around a farm once a week, and in exchange he helps me level up on my beekeeping skills. I am currently learning queen rearing, so I can breed and raise my own queen bees to sell to other local beekeepers.

For the record, I generally don't refer to my beekeeping arrangement as an internship. I am WWOOFing, which sounds endlessly more "authentic," "artisanal," and fancy. Kinfolk Magazine should just interview me right now.

Hiring an Intern

I bought my parents their first Apple computer in 1999. When they crashed it the first time, they called me in a panic. Since this was before Apple stores were in every big city, they had no idea who could fix their computer. "Pay the 12-year-old who lives down the street $40 to come over and show you how to fix your computer," I told them. "Which 12-year-old?" they asked. "Any 12-year-old," I said.

Like my parents, I am a digital immigrant, not a digital native. To this day, I am still more comfortable with analog technology than I am with the digital world. Just ask my editors at Wise Bread who are all half my age. I am clueless.

Right this second I'm trying to learn how to use iMovie to edit my documentary. It is going very slowly. It is not as intuitive as I had hoped. Or, maybe I am just extra dumb at this.

As luck would have it, my friend Cheryl called me the other day. She's trying to get a summer internship for her daughter who is applying to film schools in the fall. Could I use an intern on my current documentary? "Does your kid know how to use iMovie?" I asked. "Oh, sure. But she mainly uses Premiere to edit at home and she uses Avid at school."

Boom.

I now have a 17-year-old summer intern who is going to sit with me and walk me through the editing process.

See? Good teachers. Any age.

Visiting the Public Library

My friend Fareed is superhuman when it comes to Photoshop. Where did he pick up his mad skills? The Los Angeles Public Library. Apparently, you can access Lynda Lessons for free at some public libraries. This is how I am going to learn Lightroom and Photoshop.

RTFM (Reading the Fricking Manual)

My new tripod has an instruction manual. I am reading it. My new gear head has an instruction manual. I am reading it. My new tilt-shift lens has an instruction manual. I am reading it. My borrowed camera body has an instruction manual. I am reading it, even though it is 260 pages long and in Spanish because my photography mentor misplaced the English instructions. Not that I am complaining as the photographs are in English and I am learning a lot of good vocabulary words in Spanish for free. So, bonus?

I know. Reading the manual to learn how to use a machine seems like, well, obvi. But, apparently I am in the minority. According to a survey, 24% of women who call tech support hotlines in the United Kingdom have never bothered to read the manual before calling for help. And lest anyone believe that this is just a problem for women because we are mechanical simpletons who can't understand technology, that exact same survey found that 64% of men don't read the manual before demanding IT help.

Of course, Americans are even stupider, or maybe just more stubborn than British tech consumers: 95% of gadgets returned in the United States actually work.

Watching YouTube

Even though I am muscling my way through all the camera gear manuals, I am hating the experience. The diagrams leave a lot to be desired. Also, while paper manuals are very good at explaining how to use the various buttons and levers, text-based manuals are not good at explaining how to use the various buttons and levers to get the desired photographic image. Thank God for YouTube. Now I understand how to use my tilt-shift lens! Concepts that take 13 pages of explanation in the book, can be explained in one five-second close-up shot.

While many YouTube instructional videos leave a lot to be desired in terms of production value, the sheer number of subjects covered make YouTube my first stop when I am trying to learn new, random skills. Do I have a Small Hive Beetle infestation in my beehive? Found a video on how to make a no-poison Hive Beetle death trap from an old CD case and vegetable oil. Did I make the disastrous decision to cut my own bangs without watching a YouTube bang-cutting video first? (Yes). Found a video on how to hide my bangs inside retro hair-dos while I grow them back out.

Reading the Comments

Fact: Reading Internet comments can be as pleasant as self-surgery. However, I often learn more from the comments on how-to blog posts than I do from the original article!

Are you an autodidact? What tools do you use to learn new skills quickly? Please share in the comments section! I can use all the help I can get.

Progress Report

My husband managed to save $1,500 this month from his regular paycheck. (At this rate, I am going to have to change his nickname for this series from Mr. Spendypants to Mr. Saveypants). He also earned an additional $1,100 for creating all the original artwork for Desert Island, a Kickstarter-funded card game.

I am so relieved that the start date for my professional architectural photography job has been pushed back to May. After much discussion and contemplation, we decided that it would be better for me to purchase all the equipment I need for the job, with the exception of the camera body, so I could have a month to practice using all these tools. Also, although this is a big expense, it is cheaper to buy the basic tools needed for this job rather than rent. The total cost of camera equipment purchased this month: $2,288.94

Goal: $31,000.00

Amount Raised: $16,078.00

Amount Spent: $7,592.66

Amount Left to Go: $22,514.66

This article is from Max Wong of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

My 2016 Budget Challenge: Job Creation

Max Wong — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 11:00:14 +0000

[Editor's Note: This is the latest episode in Max Wong's journey to find an extra $31,000 this year. Read the whole series here.]

If there's one aspect of my personality that defines me as an American, it's my ability to convert desire into employment. I wanted to be a documentary filmmaker, so I started making a film and got a grant to complete it. I wanted to become a beekeeper, so I got bees, and now I own a tiny but profitable honey business. I am obsessed with brutalist architecture, and my pure, sincere love of misunderstood concrete buildings has led me to paying work as an architectural photographer.

Every job of value I've ever had, I invented. (This includes my job as a staff writer for Wise Bread!) The main reason why I have all these weird side jobs and businesses is that I am really good at finding solutions to problems. This is what people pay me for. This is why my editors challenged me to solve my $31,000 budget shortfall publicly, as a serial writing assignment. They know I will find a solution or, worst case scenario, provide a gruesome, yet entertaining, spectacle for readers.

You Can Be a Job Creator, Too

Although politicians constantly talk about job creation in the context of big business or big government, they never talk about the legions of babysitters, gardeners, anonymous YouTube stars, eBay antiques dealers, graffiti artists, cake decorators, breast milk dealers, and other everyday people who have quietly created income streams for themselves and others through talent and sheer force of will. There are so many niche jobs that need to get done everywhere. It's all about asking to be paid to do something that you are good at and already doing for yourself. Here are my two invented jobs of the week.

Invented Job of the Week #1: Car Parts Finder

Currently, two out of our three cars are in the shop waiting for parts. Because our mechanic is fantastic and he's so popular, there's always a wait time for him to get jobs done. A parts search only adds to the wait time

Here's a short list of what my mechanic likes to do:

Work on cars.
Drive cars.
Go to classic car shows.
Read Swedish crime novels.

Here's a short list of what my mechanic does not like to do:

Spend hours scouring the Internet for car parts.

After waiting weeks for him to find a reconditioned mass air flow sensor for less than $765, I had an epiphany about how to speed up the repair schedule on my vehicles: Although I cannot control the popularity of my mechanic or accelerate his workflow, I can speed up the hunt for replacement parts.

I called my mechanic and told him to email me a Most Wanted list of parts that he suspects I will need to replace in the near future. From now on I am going to source all my own parts, in advance, to prevent my current situation of three simultaneously broken cars from ever happening again. I am banking on the idea that buying reasonably priced Volvo parts in advance, as I come across them, will keep me from paying emergency prices for car repair down the road.

I "Earned" $720 on My First Car Parts Hunt

The local independent parts dealer has a reconditioned mass air flow sensor for $765. My mechanic and I agree that, even in my bad car situation, this amount is highway robbery. So I am very pleased that in just a few hours of searching online, I found a new-in-box mass air flow sensor from an overseas eBay seller for $45.

Not only did sourcing my own parts save me $720 in parts costs, but it gave me a possible new side gig idea — my mechanic was so impressed with my parts hunting ability that he told me that I should advertise my parts finding service to his vintage car collecting customers. While I'm not sure if I want to operate a boutique car parts emporium for the rich and famous out of my house, this self-sourcing of car parts ensures that I will get faster service from my mechanic and potentially save me a lot of money.

(At this point in the story, I must give a big thank you to friend and Wise Bread reader Bob who found me a new EGR valve for our Volvo station wagon for $285.07. Thanks, Bob!)

Invented Job of the Week #2: Photographer's Assistant

My mentor, the very fancy architectural photographer whom I occasionally assist, was shooting a job in Los Angeles last week. Although there was no money in the job budget for an assistant, I offered to work for free so I could have the opportunity of observing his workflow up close, especially since I have no experience using a digital, tilt-shift lens. I spent four sleep-deprived days lugging equipment, moving trash cans, fetching coffee, breaking parking laws, and generally living in fear that I was going to forget a key piece of equipment at a location, get us lost in the hills of Los Angeles, or run down my boss with the rental car. I constantly worried that I was screwing up the workflow I was supposed to be observing.

Apparently, I didn't suck at the job as much as I'd thought. At the end of the weekend, my boss loaned me his old camera body to use for my first professional architectural photography job.

The loaner is a 21-megapixel camera, which is far from the current professional architectural photography standard of 50 megapixels. However, 21 megapixels is vastly superior to what I am currently shooting — the eight-megapixel camera on my iPhone. Also, the 21-megapixel camera fits the same lenses as my dream camera, so I can immediately start practicing with a tilt-shift lens, a piece of equipment that has a steep learning curve. A full $4,000 of the $31,000 I'm trying to find this year is earmarked to purchase the 50-megapixel camera body of my dreams, so this camera loan will not save me from buying a camera. But, this equipment loan will save me $180 per day in camera rental fees, and allow me to start my first pro job with a lot less financial stress. I won't have to buy my camera package on credit in one fell swoop.

Progress So Far

While I wish that my two invented jobs of last week had provided me with an income, my sweat equity resulted in, at the minimum, $1000 in savings on car parts and camera equipment. A little house-sitting job for a friend netted me $100 in cash and a $100 Trader Joe's gift card. I used the gift card to purchase groceries for the month of March and used the $100 in cash to replace worn out equipment for our vegetable garden. My cash contribution to the $31,000 budget challenge: $0.

My husband, however, managed to save $1000 during the month of February from his paychecks and earn an additional $700 from a DJ gig. (Good job, cutie.)

Due to the broken cars we spent $373.07 on car parts and $56.75 for work-related Uber rides and $10 for work-related metro tickets.

Goal: $31,000

Amount Raised: $8,800.00

Amount Spent: $3741.82

Amount Left to Go: $25,941.82

All my savings aside, it's obvious that we will not make my $31,000 Budget Challenge if I don't start earning more income immediately. As it stands, we will have to make and/or save an additional $2889 per month to make our goal by the end of the year. It's time for me to start inventing jobs that pay me up front, and not down the road. I'll keep you posted.

What's your best job creation story? Tell us about it in comments.

Like this article? Pin it!

This article is from Max Wong of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

My 2016 Budget Challenge: Everything Breaks

Max Wong — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 11:30:05 +0000

[Editor's Note: This is the latest episode in Max Wong's journey to find an extra $31,000 this year. Read the whole series here.]

Everything breaks when I'm poor. Or at least, it seems that way. Maybe things break all the time and I just don't notice when I am flush with cash. But I do think it cycles. Every time I come off a big job I make a point to fix my house, fix the car, fix my shoes, etc. The longer I go without a big payday, however, the more time my material goods have to break down.

It's been a long time since I have had a big payday. And that's too bad, because my household needs to come up with an extra $31,000 this year. In this second installment of my 2016 budget challenge, I'll illustrate how much-needed repairs are eating into my progress.

When It Rains, It Pours

Let me explain my last 48 hours: I was awakened yesterday morning by my mortgage company calling to tell me that I am late on my mortgage payment (I already know). It's nearing the end of the month, and I am still about $500 short of paying this month's bills and will need another $528 for next month. Also, because I am late paying this month, I am sure that I am going to get stuck with a $100 late fee. So I need at least $1,100 by the first of the month. Which sucks. Because other than selling a ton of stuff on eBay, something I currently have no time for, I don't know where I am going to find that money.

But then, out of the blue, one hour later, the Hollywood studio that hasn't contacted me with any work for literally two years, calls me with a gig. It's an emergency job that needs to be completed by the first of the month! They will pay me $5,000 to do 100 hours of work in the next six days.

Even though the work offered is soul crushing, brain hurting, and extremely stressful, I take the job. I can suck it up because voila! Emergency cash has just fallen from the sky. I am elated.

A Television Is a Computer Monitor, Right?

But the elation only lasts 12 hours. My elderly laptop computer breaks. The screen literally fades to black in front of my eyes. I need my computer to do my emergency job. My computer is ancient. It's almost nine years old. At this point it's actually better to replace it rather than fix it because it is so old, I can't even upgrade it to the latest operating system.

After attempting every reboot known to mankind, I finally decide that no combination of button pushing is going to fix the screen. I suspect it's the inverter, a $15 part inside the hinge of the screen. I briefly consider experimenting with home computer surgery that could result in an even more broken laptop. I decide that this is one of those situations where I know enough to get myself into trouble, but not enough to get myself out. And since I am not 100% sure what part is broken, I could just be spending money on parts that don't need to be replaced and wasting precious work hours as my emergency job deadline ticks down to zero.

Instead of dismantling my laptop, I buy a $15 HDMI cable and a $13 DVI to HDMI adapter, with the hope that I can use my television as an external monitor. If this strategy doesn't work, I am only out $28 for standard accessories that can be used on other machines.

The cable solution works (phew). I am possibly sitting too close to the television for good eye health, but I am, right now, typing away on my dead-screened laptop keyboard and using my TV as a monitor. My living room has a new, inconvenient furniture layout, but at least I can stave off purchasing a new computer until next year, (or until the something huge like the motherboard breaks. Whichever comes first).

While the computer situation is irritating, I am comforted by the knowledge that I am now $3,872 up on our goal of paying down our $31,000 debt, so I can stop panicking about how I am going to pay my newly expensive house insurance costs.

Mr. Fancypants Takes a Break From Fancy Lunches and Saves Big

My husband actually shocked himself and saved $2,000 last month. He tells me that he did this mainly by being extremely frugal with food.

At this point, I have to ask: Up until last month, what has he been eating for lunch? Gold bullion?

All joking aside, he has been extremely frugal. Due to demented work hours this month, I've pretty much only seen my husband while he's sleeping. We ate dinner together just once in the last 30 days, a restaurant meal for my birthday. We also haven't had time to grocery shop in weeks, but he's been diligently eating through our pantry and scavenging leftovers from work lunches, down to the little packets of pepper from the office pizza party.

However, I suspect that part of the huge savings comes from the fact that he's been using his holiday gift cards to make purchases. If he can keep up this level of saving next month, I will be very impressed.

With my husband's extra $2,000 we are up $5,872 on our goal of paying down our $31,000.

Except we're not. Because everything breaks when I am cash-strapped.

Of Course the Cars Break Down Now, Too

We own three old automobiles. I will just say it: Owning a classic car is adorable in theory, but annoying in practice. Old car parts are hard to source and can be wildly expensive. We own three vintage cars. Three.

Currently, two out of our three cars are in the shop. The transmission of our 1960 Rambler Cross Country station wagon needs a complete rebuild. This will cost $2,000. Our vintage Volvo 240 station wagon needs a mass air flow sensor. Due to the notoriously cautious driving of Volvo 240 drivers, there are only three 240 parts cars in all of Los Angeles county and they have been picked clean. This local parts crunch has naturally led to price gouging. The local independent parts dealer who specializes in 240s has a reconditioned mass air flow sensor that he is willing to part with for a measly $765. I tell him that I will keep looking.

But I can only keep looking for so long before waiting for cheaper parts starts costing more money than taking the price gouge. Our third car really should be in the shop too, but we live in Los Angeles and need a car for work. Our third car is drivable…most of the time. She only fails to start once every 20 times we get in the car. It's like Russian roulette only completely tedious. I have to drive from Los Angeles to Palm Springs for a photography class next week and I have rented a car, at the cost of $54 plus $20 in gas, for the commute. Because if I had to bet on a time and a place where our third car will break down completely, it would definitely be 100 miles from home in the heat of the desert.

Progress So Far

So, two steps forward, one step back is still progress, right?

Goal: $31,000.00

Amount Raised: $7,000.00

Amount Spent: $3,202.00

Amount Left to Go: $27,202

We managed to reach 12% of our goal so far due to a surprise windfall, but near-future car repairs could completely eat up our surplus. The goal for next month: Figure out more ways to reduce our crushing car costs.

This article is from Max Wong of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

My 2016 Budget Challenge: Why I Need to Find $31K This Year

Max Wong — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 11:00:05 +0000

My editors at Wise Bread asked me if I would be interested in writing about my 2016 personal debt reduction challenge as a series. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity to share the gory details of my financial life with the reading public.

After all, I need the money.

It's the beginning of the year and already I'm an extra $16,000 in the hole, not counting the $15,000 loan my husband and I have been diligently paying down. That means my family needs to come up with an extra $31,000 this year. I'll be documenting my progress for you in this regular blog series. This exercise will hopefully not only share my learning and experiences with loyal readers, but also serve as a motivator for us both. It'll give me accountability, and it'll hopefully give you a little inspiration to improve your own financial situation this year.

So, how'd I get into this $31,000 financial mess in the first place?

How to Dramatically Increase Your Insurance Costs With This One Easy Trick

In November, my insurance agency called to ask if they could do a walk-through inspection on my rental property. I have 100% replacement cost insurance for the house, and the insurance company wanted to make sure that I had enough coverage given my home's value. Since I hadn't had the house assessed for years, I thought it was a good idea.

The good news is that my house has tripled in value.

The bad news is that my house has tripled in value, and that means my insurance costs have also tripled.

I discovered this information when I opened up my December 2015 insurance bill and noticed that my premium had gone up by a whopping $528 a month. I suppose this outcome should have been obvious to me as a financial writer. But sadly, I didn't connect the dots of how getting accurately insured would trash my 2016 budget until that hefty bill arrived.

Now, $528 per month (or $6,336 per year) may not seem like an insane amount of money. But it's a lot of money to me. A lot. I work freelance, so my income varies wildly from month to month and from year to year. And by freelance I mean I do odd jobs. And by odd jobs I mean more "odd" than "jobs."

How to Spend All Your Money by Making Your Passion Your Work

In the past year, my super-nerdy, architectural photography hobby has resulted in actual paying work. Last March, one of my favorite photographers started following me on Instagram and plucked me out of obscurity to work as his sometime assistant. This March I will be shooting the work of an architectural icon as my very first professional photography commission. Getting a paying job as a photographer — of anything — is nothing short of miraculous, especially since I've shot all the photographs in my Instagram feed portfolio with my very fancy camera phone.

The good news is that I got a plum assignment. I couldn't ask for a better debut as a professional photographer.

The bad news is that I am not Brooklyn Beckham, so I cannot actually do this plum assignment without a proper camera, tripod, and lenses. I'd actually been scrimping, saving, and stressing, stressing, stressing, about finding the oh, $10,000 it costs to buy the camera package I need to get to the next level as an architectural photographer.

Up until December, this stress was just an annoyance — not owning a camera was simply an obstacle that came between me and my best work as a hobbyist. I was planning on buying the camera elements, individually, over the course of the next year or two, using any surplus funds I had left over after paying all my bills (which, as of December, includes an additional $528 per month). However, now that I have a professional gig looming on the horizon, my cameralessness has become a financial emergency. I need to either immediately add $10,000 in debt to my books or figure out how I'm going to start working in March without actually owning the equipment needed for the job.

The good news is that $10,000 is a lot to invest in a favorite hobby, but as the start-up cost for what could be a second career as a photographer, $10,000 is nothing. At least this is what I am telling myself.

The bad news is that in total, I now actually need an extra $16,000 because my rental property has so much equity that it is financially preventing me from starting my dream job. Yes, cry for me. Cry for me, and my First World problems.

If it sounds like I'm whining or humblebragging or humblewhining about my success, believe me I'm not. One of the reasons why I am good at living on a really tight budget is because I know that my financial problems are not special. At its core, my problem is one that millions of Americans are facing right now — my house is too expensive for me, and the house costs are keeping me from making life changes that would improve my financial future. My problem is so common that I know there have to be solutions. At least one person out there has already been in my shoes and is now wearing better shoes. I just have to find the better shoe store. (Or, more likely, I will just have to make myself better shoes. Pulling up my own bootstraps and all that).

My Secret Method of Paying Off a Loan Early (If Only He Would Behave)

My husband works as an environment artist for video games, has a radio show, and does wildlife rescue in his free time. I know. If you saw my husband in a movie as a character, you'd roll your eyes at the ridiculousness of it all. This is me bragging: he's pretty much perfect.

I say pretty much perfect because my husband has one flaw: he loves to shop. He can go into any store, and regardless of how esoteric the merchandise, still find something to buy. I am trying to make my husband save money. He is terrible at scrimping. He is also the breadwinner of our household. Alas, I cannot simultaneously stomp my little foot and demand more fiscal responsibility from him while also asking him to bail me out, especially considering that he already pays for 70% of my life.

Yes, my husband would happily give me the $16,000 now, but that would come out of his not-nearly-enough retirement savings that I'm already worried about. Also, my husband's work contract is up in October, so we've been socking away cash in an emergency fund in the event it takes him six months to find a new job. While I am willing to bet $10,000 that I can make money as a professional photographer, I'm not willing to bet that I could make more money next year as a photographer than he could as a video game artist. The emergency fund has to come before my camera.

All that said, I could still push him to help me pay down some of our debt — a five-year, $21,000 loan — two years ahead of schedule. In our first twelve months, we've already paid down the loan by $6,000, and that was with us also putting money into our emergency fund. I think if we really focus on saving money wherever we can, and get really lucky, we will be able to completely pay off the loan by the end of the year, even if my husband loses his job. My husband does not think it's possible to find that much money (a whopping total of $31,000 when you add it all up) in one year, as it's more than 30% of our household income before taxes. However, in the two years before I bought my now problematic rental property, I managed to save $30,000 for the down payment on just a $40,000 a year salary. But even with this past achievement, my husband still doesn't believe I can do it again.

In short, 2016 presents me with the following financial challenge: Find an extra $31,000 in our household budget, or find some magical way of making a lot more money this year. That's in addition to growing our emergency fund sufficiently by the time my husband's current work contract ends later this year. It's a double whammy of a challenge that's sure to stretch our budgeting creativity and willpower to the max.

Will I succeed? Stay tuned and see for yourself.

This article is from Max Wong of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: