If I thought May was bad, well, June did not get any better. It has been absolutely full of madness. I’m so glad I have this 4th of July long weekend to take a breather.

Work has been absolutely crazy. You really don’t know the consequences of what you wish for until you get it.

What I thought was just a transition into the new team doing what I was already doing turned out to be much more. Somehow I ended up receiving a new fancy title, but it came with a lot more work while base salary is still in negotiation.

I honestly could care less for this title. But if they are going to ask me to do extra work associated with this title, then I expect the pay raise. Luckily, my new manager has been receptive and on board to raise this issue with HR but I am still concerned that this process could take long knowing how long it took them to even approve my switch into this team.

June Budget

Budget is still not completely set this month. There are still some moving pieces like having to pay some bills double to make up the previous month or some haven’t come in yet. So it’s still a work in progress.

Fixed Spending

A minor change to my budget column is I’ve removed Netflix as a line item. It is now incorporated into my Bills + Utilities category. 

This category will include water, gas, electricity, internet, and subscription services (only Netflix at this time). We have a DirecTV Stream subscription for watching Live TV which my mom is paying for as she’s the only one that uses it.

I’m considering switching to Hulu + Live TV which is pretty much the same price as DirecTV Stream but will actually include the Hulu and Disney+ subscription.

Variable Spending

Gas – Barely left home. Only filled up once this month.

Entertainment/dining out – Between just coming back from vacation, being busy with work, and fixing up the house, I pretty much did not have any social life this month which meant very low spending on entertainment and dining out.

I wanted to keep all my travel expenses together so I already captured all the dining out expenses from my vacation during last month’s update (since my vacation spanned from end of May into beginning of June).

Groceries – I focused on getting rid of food in my pantry and freezer this month that I discovered during the move hence very low grocery bill.

Shopping – None! I decided to clump all my housing related shopping into the Home Improvement category.

Miscellaneous

Auto Insurance – It’s that time of the year, auto insurance renewal. This is the rate for 2 cars and 2 people as I am paying for my mom as well.

Home Furnishing – Bought a new mattress as my old one is coming on a decade old. I also bought a ceiling light for the living room.

Home Improvement – A lot of miscellaneous expenses for the house. Not shown in this category is the $950 my mom spent for a moving service! I went with a local company which was a bad mistake. I thought I was being kind as I am only moving less than 10 minutes away so I figured I’d get a local-based company so they wouldn’t need to drive far to my area. 

They billed per hour and took 7 hours to move 20 pieces of furniture and boxes that I had already packed in my garage and just needed to be moved to the new house’s garage!

I learned from my aunt that my mistake was letting them schedule me for an afternoon appointment which meant the movers were in no rush to get to their next appointment as I was their last appointment. Plus, I could tell they were already exhausted from their last job.

I should have made them move the furniture from the house first. Instead, they suggested they move the stuff in the garage first which they completely took advantage of me not being there and spent over two hours moving packed boxes to their truck that was literally 10 feet away.

By the time I realized what they were doing, I couldn’t back out as the furnitures were the most important things that needed to be moved and still hadn’t been.

This should have taken them only 3 or at most 4 hours to do! I can’t believe I caved and still gave them a bit of tip at the end of the day. Lesson learned.

Savings

Still no savings this month.

Student Debt

Student debt paid this month: $880.77

Student debt remaining: $31,666.64

I figured now that I have another loan (mortgage), I should be specific in naming this my Student Debt Statement. 

I’m slowly inching closer to under $30k which I will get there in August so nothing exciting this month.

Goals for Next Month

I am happy to say I met my goal from last month which was to complete the move and be able to put the old home up for rental. We hired a property manager and are now hoping for the best as the listing is up!

As for next month, I don’t really have any set goals. I’m hoping to get settled in and hoping work gets easier.

I can’t believe the year is half over! I have a crazy real estate idea that is for the not-so-near future, but I will work through it in my head first before putting it in writing!