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Spending Ban: final week!!!

Posted on Sunday, at • • 355 views

Tomorrow is the last day of the #90daysnospending ban: no makeup or beauty purchases unless you're replacing something. I've found myself in a new habit, that of not Buying All The Things even though I have money; and I've -=still=- got items to review daily (except Sundays) through the end of 2014. All in all, I'm fairly happy. I've also decided that I absolutely fucking loathe living in an HOA, and want to get out. And, knowing the price of new houses…and knowing that most of them are in HOAs themselves…I'd rather buy a quarter-acre of residential-zoned land and build a house that has what I want it to have. It actually costs less money to do that, believe it or not. I just have to save up the money for the land, find and buy a suitable plat, and start building. Doing some really quick calculations, I estimate it's going to take me a few years to save up enough to have at least a 60% downpayment for the land. I haven't yet spoken to a banker, I don't know if I can get a mortgage for a piece of land that I hope to build on. I might be able to, but I kind of worry about having two mortgages simultaneously, even if one of them will be a couple hundred dollars a month.

Spending Ban: final week!!!

I've been on a no-buy since January 1, 2014. I've broken it once - to get the LE Maybelline Nude Color Tattoos when I finally found them - but not since then. I've gotten so out of the habit of beauty-buying, that I did not make a reservation for the Sephora VIB Rouge event because I couldn't think of anything to buy. (Then yesterday I remembered that I wanted to get some of the new shades of Stila Smudge Sticks…but I can wait.)

I had also begun making a list of nail stamping plates I wanted to get…but, again, those can wait. I barely use the nail stamping plates I do have, not a whole lot of sense in buying more.

After seven months of searching, I've been employed for seven weeks. The job isn't necessarily the one I would have chosen, but the team kicks ass and I'm not being railroaded into doing a whole bunch of dev. I'm getting to do a little bit more project planning, and they've turned the documentation over to me - I love writing it, and everyone else utterly hates it, so it's a really good division of labor. The pay is good, lower than some of the short-term jobs I'd had in the past two years but higher than my last real long-term gig (which I'm hoping this will turn into. If I have a team and activities that keep me happy and productive, I'm quite content to stay at the same place for a long period of time. Several years. This actively pisses off all the recruiters who keep trying to hit me up with “a really great senior dev role at a scrappy start-up - and we'll pay you in equity!!”) I'm not totally financially stabilized yet, but I've paid down all of my credit cards (all…yeah. All three. Not a huge amount.) and paid one completely off. I estimate that it's going to take another two months before I'm at zero credit card debt. On the one hand, for someone with only three credit cards, that sounds like a long time…but on the other hand, I'm paying health insurance, mortgage, HOA dues, car insurance, gasoline and regular bills all during that time. And buying groceries.

Oh, and about that gasoline? The commute isn't hideous. And I can flex my hours, which means I don't have to drive during peak commute time, which makes said commute even shorter. AND the drive is counter-commute. So yeah, I'm having to buy gasoline weekly again. But not nearly as much as I could have to buy, if I was driving further and/or had to drive during the heavy-traffic hours.

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