Welcome back to Racket’s Money Journal series, where you can snoop on the finances of an anonymous Twin Cities neighbor. Interested in submitting your own? Email jay@racketmn.com for instructions on over-sharing the monetary details of your life! H/T to Refinery29 for pioneering a tremendous concept that we’re excited to localize.
Personal Information
Job: IT project manager
Age: 45
Neighborhood: Lyndale
Education: Computer networking, diploma 2001
Salary: $150,000
Partner’s salary: $180,000 (unmarried, separate finances—we split food, house, and car expenses)
Dependents: N/A
Estimated net worth: $1.4 million ($2 million combined, the house happens to fall into mine)
Debt
$0
Credit Cards: Delta AMEX, paid off every month
Education: Neither of us went to college. We both started our careers right after the dot-com bust and at the rise of e-commerce.
Assets
Retirement accounts: $800,000
Non-retirement cash (spend and savings accounts): $102,000 (4% APY at Happen Bank). I know people won’t like this, but I do.
Non-retirement Investments: $80,000
House: Purchased in 2011 for $227,000, paid off in 2021. To each their own, but we have zero regrets on this. After 2021? Fence: $13K. Concrete: $17K. Furnace/AC: $12K after rebates. Raising/bracing the first floor: $6K. EV charger/electrical upgrade: $5K. Tree trim: $1,800! Houses are expensive to keep up.
Vehicle: We share one 2022 Polestar 2, paid $14K cash after trade-in in 2024. Charging the car costs about $30 a month. We don't drive much.
Monthly Income
Paycheck amount: $3,500 twice a month after taxes, health insurance, and 401(k) deduction. $1,600 in tax per check. Paid in $2K this spring (i.e. no refund).
Monthly Expenses
Mortgage: $0. Taxes, insurance, and utilities come to about $1,100 a month, total.
Retirement: $2,040 a month 401(k) (maxed out), $800 a month non-401(k) investment, IRA is maxed over the course of the year. The non-401(k) investment amount will go up now that I’ve hit $100K cash.
Groceries: Monarch tells me I’ve averaged $160 a month since January 2020; I do roughly half the grocery shopping. On the “Food & Dining” category, which is groceries, restaurants, and alcohol, it’s average of $495 a month since 2020.
Subscriptions:
- Netflix ($22)
- YouTube Premium ($17)
- Peloton app ($26)
- Les Mills app ($7)
- I gave up my gym membership in 2020, bought non-Peloton equipment, and use the apps four to five days a week on a TV.
- Monarch $100 per year
- Annual Delta AMEX fee: $695 per year (pays for itself)
(Editor's note: Tsk tsk—9 out of 10 financial advisers recommend you join Racket.)
Monthly donations: Joyce Food Shelf and Our Streets, monthly. I donate $100–$200 a month to various things.
Annual expenses:
- Health insurance: $2,400
- Car: $1,600 insurance + $700 tabs (we split this)
- House: $3,600 insurance + $6K taxes (we split this)
Money Talk Q&A
Did your family talk about money growing up?
Not specifically. We rarely ate out, and we didn't do things that cost a lot. Growing up in northeast Minneapolis, we did Northeast things: Rhythmland, A-Field, J&J Video, Discount70. Lots of time at Bottineau and Marshall Terrace parks and the NE and the downtown libraries. This was how it was with everyone I knew though; I didn’t really know the difference until high school.
Did you worry about money growing up?
Worry, no. But I knew what was available to me and what wasn’t. I didn’t shop at Express or Nordstrom, I didn’t have Nikes. We didn’t vacation. The treat was going to Ren Fest, not shopping at Ren Fest.
At what age did you become financially independent?
Like, my parents weren’t paying for things? Nineteen.
How did you learn how to budget your life?
I ended up with about $8K in credit card debt in my 20s (mostly travel) and got a little freaked out about it. I kept a spreadsheet of the payoff timeline and haven’t let myself accrue debt since. I used Mint (money management site) from 2008 until it folded in 2024 and use Monarch now. If I’ve spent too much going out in a month, I’ll try to rein it in for a bit.
I shop secondhand, go to clothing exchanges, use the heck out of the library and little free libraries, and I love my neighborhood's Buy Nothing group. I get frustrated that my partner will go to Lunds or Whole Foods because the experience is better but the food costs 25% more. On the other hand, I’ve spent an average of $240 a month on gifts over the last six years (Monarch is really coming in clutch for this exercise). I average about $5K in travel a year, and about $3K a year in entertainment, concerts, theater, classes, movies, etc. Gifts are generally to bring friends/family along in these categories.
Have you ever received inherited income, major financial gifts, or large insurance payouts?
Nay.
Do you worry about money now?
I don’t worry about today, but I do I worry about being able to pay to grow old. My grandmas lived in old folks homes that made me so sad, seeing what so many people’s lives culminate in. Shared rooms and smelly bathrooms; yelling coming from down the hall. I worry about THAT.
I do worry about losing my job. The market is hard out there.
How much do you think a person or household needs to earn to live comfortably in the Twin Cities?
As a DINK household, I think we stopped thinking about money at a combined $200K a year. But it’s completely subjective. If we didn’t travel or drink? Way less! If we were younger and house-hunting and thinking about or had kids? Way more! I want to scream for people looking to buy a house today.
Money Journal
Day 1
- 4:30 p.m.: $16 for two happy hour beers at Dreamstate
- 5:45 p.m.: $7 for one more happy hour beer at CC Club
- 6:30 p.m.: $12 (my half) for a backpack full of food at Aldi
- 7 p.m.: $11 for a six pack of Deschutes Fresh Squeezed
- 7:30 p.m.: $70 for two tickets to Peter Rabbit at Mixed Blood
Day 2
- 11 a.m.: $65 for an unexpected trip to the St. Louis Park DSW as partner wants sandals. He did not find sandals (I told him to set a reminder for March 1, 2027), but I found shoes to wear to a wedding next month.
- 11:30 a.m.: $12. It’s rare to get near a Burger King and an Impossible Whopper is a nice treat.
- 12 p.m.: $8 (my half) for four 12 packs of bubble water at Aldi. Couldn’t carry that home on the walk the day before, and Aldi SLP was right there…
Day 3
- 12 a.m.: $17 for YouTube Premium autopay bill. I’ve had this for so long as a music service (previously Google Play) that one day in the last few years I ended up on YouTube without being logged in and got ads. I didn’t know there were ads on YouTube, I thought I was just paying for YouTube Music but I’ve been paying for ad-free YouTube for longer than I can account for! I will never give up this subscription. Both are used daily.
- 11:00 a.m.: $28 at for nail polish remover and allergy meds at CVS
- 11:15 a.m.: $32 for brunch at Wrecktangle
Day 4
- 3:30 p.m.: $7 at Sencha
- 5:30: p.m.: $24 at Leaning Tower of Pizza
Day 5
- 3 p.m.: $10 for a ticket to “Steven Hyden in Conversation with Steve Gorman the release of Is This It: The Never-Ending Rise and Fall of the Strokes (and Rock 'n' Roll)” at Turf Club
- 8:30 p.m.: $53 for dinner and drinks at the above. Getting cozy in the Clown Lounge with 30 people made me forget that I was in a First Ave venue where beers are $10 each.
Day 6
- 5:30 p.m.: $110 for dinner at Saffron. This was a known upcoming expense; we made reservations a few weeks ago. Got to wear my new shoes!
- 9 p.m.: $121 for two tickets to Dogstar
Day 7
Nada!
