There are many categories of things I spend money on, but in light of making this not a crazy long post, let's take stock of my housing, transportation, and food situation. Which according to the internet are the big three things most people spend the most money on.
Housing
Current situation: I live in a lovely-but-not-luxury little apartment. My building is very quiet, the maintenance staff is super responsive, there are no infestations and everything is in good condition. I pay for electricity (which includes air conditioning and heat) and water. My rent is $1100/month which is less than 1/3 of my salary and I live alone. I can walk to work which is awesome. I have not been paying much attention to how much electricity and water I use or trying to save money there.
Value added to my life by spending $ here: Huge, totally worth the money, which is an affordable if not frugal amount. I have lived in terrible apartments before: Basement with barely any daylight, ant and cockroach infestations, loud and filthy neighbors, landlords who wouldn't fix problems, less-than-safe areas. This is when I was in school and lived in cities with a much higher cost of living, and the cost to my mental health was significant.
Where I can change: Utilities! I'm sure I can cut down on those bills if I pay attention and try to conserve. It does not add any value to my life when I have all the lights on or turn on the heat instead of putting on warm socks. I also fuck up fairly often and don't open my mail or forget what day it is and end up having to pay a late fee, and there's that one time I totally forgot to pay my rent until I got an angry email and I had to go get a money order and it was embarrassing. So, I could change that.
Transportation
Current situation: The good is that I don't have a car. (This makes me a total weirdo in my mid-sized Southern city. I've never owned a car, which was perfectly normal in NYC, and to me getting one seemed more like a hassle than the hassle of figuring out public transit, which I'm totally used to.) Also good is that I take the bus and it only costs $1.70 here. Public transit here isn't great but it's slowly improving. The bad is that I have gotten lazy since I got a smartphone and take Uber a lot, rationalizing it by saying it costs less than a cab and I'm still saving money overall by not having a car.
Value added to my life: I like not owning a car. I like walking places and taking the bus. There's times when Uber is worth it, like the rare occasions when I'm out late and need to get home from a party. But it's not worth it when I take it just to save a little time or not wanting to plan a bus route. I feel lazy, not happier.
Where I can change: Take Uber less, take the bus instead, walk more; ask myself what the cheapest way to get there is and do that, as long as it's not a tremendous hassle.
Food
Current situation: Not good, this is seriously one of my biggest sources of shame. It's mental energy and planning thing. Do I go out to fine dining establishments? No. But grabbing a breakfast sandwich at a cafe on the way in to work, getting a $10 lunch out during the day, ordering delivery a couple times a week, adds up so, so much. I just want to get home and do nothing and have dinner magically appear.
Value added to my life: More like negative value since I feel so shitty about it! Going out occasionally with friends is nice, but that really only happens every couple of months and is not the source of the financial waste.
Where I can change: Everything. Cook more. Just stop what I'm doing. The "how to do this" is my current major project and assuming I'm organized enough to keep writing this blog, that will be the subject of future posts!
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