First job out of college (part 4)

The money made it all worth it. I had to save as much of it as possible because I really didn’t know how long the opportunity would last. By the time November rolled around, the company brought me on as a full time employee. They set me to work 40 hours a week as a salaried employee and I was making $500 a week. After taxes, I was taking home $406 each week which total out to me taking home $1600 on most months and $2000 on the months that had 5 Fridays. This was good however my boss mentioned that the current contract would only last three years. After September of 2013, I didn’t know what would happen. Rob may find another contract for us to work on or he may not. At that point in time, I didn’t know how easy or difficult it would be to find another job. I’d have much more work experience at the time however I didn’t know if the job market would get any better in three years.

For this reason, I made sure to keep my spending to the absolute minimum. In November of 2010, I spent about a total of $500. In December, I spent about a total of $600. Using those two bits of data, I made it my bench mark to try to spend no more than $550 a month. Getting by on $550 would be unthinkable for most Americans however since I don’t pay rent or owe anyone money, I could do it easily.

My biggest expense was car insurance. I had just crashed my car in October and my parents insisted that I get full coverage so I was paying more than $200 a month for coverage. After that, the next biggest expense was gas which ran between $100 and $120 a month. My commute wasn’t far. It was only 16 miles one way and heavy traffic usually wasn’t much of an issue. During that time period, I spent roughly $80 a month on fast food. There was a fast food joint close to my office that is famous for serving sliders. I went there mainly because it was easier to fill up the whole lunch hour. Unfortunately for me, the place didn’t really have a dollar menu so I would spend about $7 on each meal. Each month, I would also spend about $50 dollars on groceries. Even though I was very frugal, I did spend around $50 to $100 a month on miscellaneous stuff that I enjoyed.

I didn’t move into my own place. I didn’t spend money going to bars or clubs to pick up girls. I didn’t spend money on smartphones or expensive gadgets. I didn’t buy a luxury car. I didn’t spend money on going to vacation in Europe. I didn’t go out to fancy restaurants every night or see the latest movie every weekend.

November 2010

This was the first full month when I kept records of all my expenses. I spent a total of $478.20. At the time, my auto insurance cost $222.75. This was the cost of full coverage after a rate increase due to an accident in the month of August 2010. Somehow, I only spent $61 on gas. While driving to South Carolina for a family visit, my dad paid for my gas on both ways so that he didn’t have to drive. I spent $51.79 total on four or five visits to fast food restaurants. I ended up spending $48.50 on going to two sit in restaurants with some friends. I spent a total of $35.53 on one DVD and one audio CD. Since this was the first full month I was keeping track of expenses, I did my best to spend as little as possible. There were several days where I spent no money on anything.

December 2010

For December 2010, I spent a total of $595.79. Auto insurance of $222.75 was automatically debited from my checking account. I spent $108 on gas by filling up a total of 4 times. Gas was about $2.20 per gallon and I bought regular unleaded. I only needed to fill up my tank once a week. I spent $100 on buying a skateboard deck and some extra parts. It was the first big thing I bought for myself. I spent $43.50 on 9 visits to fast food restaurants. Usually, I bought items from the dollar menu. I spent $19.99 on prepaid phone minutes. I could get a total of 120 minutes because my phone gave me double minutes for life. I spent $30 on beer for a party with some friends that month.