Money Journal: 1 Week in Minneapolis’s Lyndale Neighborhood on a $53K Salary

How far do the dollars of a 41-year-old shipping manager go?

2:22 PM CDT on October 7, 2025

Igal Ness via Unsplash

Welcome 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! (And gang? Let's keep the very popular series going following a long period of dormancy.) H/T to Refinery29 for pioneering a tremendous concept that we’re excited to localize.

Personal Information

Job: Shipping manager at an environmental testing lab
Age: 41
Neighborhood: Lyndale in Minneapolis
Education: Master's, for all the good it does me
Salary: $53,000
Partner’s salary: ~$55,000 per year, though we keep things pretty separate
Dependents: Two aging, demanding cats
Estimated net worth: Between student loans and my retirement account, I think this zeroes out exactly—har har

Debt:

Student loan from graduate school (big public university): $39,000. Like many history undergrads, I was told to go into library science, and then that job market became saturated with all the other humanities types who heard the same thing and the predicted mass retirement wave never happened. A lot of jobs now, especially in my area of focus (archives) are chopped up into part-time and/or temp contract jobs. I have worked a few of those and really enjoyed them, but as a grown adult who does not want to depend financially on my partner, well, not sure I want to do contract hopping anymore. The pay usually isn’t much better than what I make now and in the current political and economic climate, even the rare permanent jobs are in danger from funding cuts.

If you’re going to say I should have gotten a paraprofessional job first and had my workplace foot the bill: YES. YES I KNOW. NOT MUCH I CAN REALLY DO ABOUT THAT RIGHT NOW, UNFORTUNATELY.

Credit card: ~$1,200. We just put in a couple big-ticket items (vet bill for one of the idiot cats/plane tickets for vacation next spring), so it’s a bit higher than usual. I generally put larger stuff on here to build my credit score and accumulate travel miles.

Assets

Savings account: $1,400. Most of my savings are in a retirement account so this is a combination of unexpected expenses/our one-vacation-per-year fund. It’s at a bit of an ebb right now, obviously, but I’m hoping to build it back up over the fall and winter.

Retirement account: $40,000. I kick in 8% of pre-tax income, employer matches 25% of that, and I generally try to forget this exists. I figure it’s best to have this amount of money in the type of account that slaps my hands away if I try to use it. I still fully expect to work until I die, but who knows, maybe this country’s going to get a functional social safety net someday. What? Why are you laughing?

Other stuff: All our furniture is IKEA or thrifted. We don’t own a house, and our bikes are around 10 years old… I don’t know, my record collection might have some valuable stuff? I should go on Discogs I guess.

Monthly Expenses

Rent: $650 ($1,300 split two ways)

Utilities:

Gas: varies a lot with the seasons, average is about $43 ($86 split two ways)
Electric: also variable but average is around $55 ($110 split two ways)
Phone: $35
Internet: $32.50 ($65 split two ways)

Transit: $65 monthly pass

Gym: $240 total. $150 for Brazilian jiujitsu, $80 for aikido, ~$10 for the at-home weight training program I use. I realize this probably looks like the “candles” section of this tweet:

Food $200
Data $150
Rent $800
Candles $3,600
Utility $150
someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying
— wint (@dril) September 29, 2013

But I do train six to seven days a week, it keeps my mental and physical health at an adequate baseline after years of struggling with both, and at my martial arts gyms I get to socialize with people I wouldn’t normally meet otherwise.

Student loan: $94. I am in what is apparently the least politically controversial income-based repayment plan, and I’m hoping to keep it that way *defeated sigh*. This was up to $260ish when we filed taxes jointly. Filing taxes separately fucks me a bit at refund time (I usually get around $200ish), but on the plus side it means the government doesn’t make the bizarre assumption that my partner doles out all my student loan money to me while I sit on my ass eating bonbons or whatever.

I am aware I could maybe pay this off if I lived like a rat for 10 years or liquidated my current retirement fund, but deep-frying my mental health for a decade (either now or when I’m older) doesn’t seem worth it to me. And I know it’s childish, but part of me absolutely thinks: “Why should I make myself miserable? I paid the higher amount you wanted for three years and the number barely went down at all, and anyway you’re the ones who sold me a bill of goods about this being a ticket to a decent career.”

Currently I qualify for forgiveness after 12 more years, but given the current administration, I imagine they’re going to chuck that whole aspect of income-driven repayment and not only have me pay until I’m dead, but dig me up afterwards and kick me in the stomach repeatedly in the hopes I spit out some loose change.

Subscriptions:

HBO: This is a “there’s currently a show or two on here I want to watch” thing, I usually cancel between seasons
YouTube Premium: I also use YouTube Music, which has somewhat iffy sound quality but also weird/rare user uploads. Anyway half the stuff I love was recorded for like $10 and a sandwich.
Racket (Editor’s note: hell yeah)
A few Patreons
My language learning app (currently Memrise but I’m open to suggestions)
Currently debating whether I want to spring for the $40 per month unlimited sessions at the sauna by my work, that was a godsend last winter

Groceries: My partner buys most of the staple items with the understanding I’ll do most of the cooking, an arrangement I’m fine with. That being said, I’ll still spend like $75-100 per month for additional produce, ramen for quick weeknight dinners, and little treats.

Cats: ~$55 ($110 split with partner) averaged out, they’re both getting older and require more medical attention. BTW, if anyone has pet insurance recs for two little angels, aged 11 and 13, I am all ears.

Insurance:

$236 health ($118 per paycheck): The options from my job keep getting more expensive and worse, but since they don’t offer any kind of matching contribution to HSAs, this is my best “don’t go bankrupt if you’re sick” option I guess. $1,000 deductible and $4K out of pocket maximum. I could maybe swing the crappier plan since I’m relatively healthy but I’ve been a little paranoid about this ever since I had to wait a week for the free clinic in my uninsured 20s and almost died of a kidney infection. I almost got hit with a $17,000 bill for that too, but when I brought in proof of income HCMC’s billing dept basically just threw up their hands and wrote it off. Insurance covered about 80% of three prescriptions and a couple of urgent care visits I had earlier this summer, so there’s that?
$28 dental and vision ($14 per paycheck): The dental/vision insurance are through separate entities than the health insurance and actually not too bad, which is great considering I just found out I need glasses.

Money Journal Q&A

Did your family talk about money growing up?

Hmm, sorta? I was aware we weren’t wealthy and I needed to pick and choose little treats, and I was encouraged to find work as a teenager. But most of our little Maine community was working class so the fact that we lived in a trailer and didn’t have a ton of new stuff didn’t particularly stand out. I got some general “don’t spend money on foolish stuff, save for what you want” talk but no big-picture budgeting advice. I don’t really fault my parents for that, as I now know that a lot of adulthood is just winging it.

Did you worry about money growing up?

No, my parents didn’t make much, but were pretty good at budgeting and creative about finding fun stuff for me to do that wasn’t expensive. I remember it being a pretty big deal that they bought me a Super Nintendo (well worth it, I played the shit out of some Star Fox). To be clear: I think they worried about money, but they didn’t want me to be anxious about it when I wasn’t at an age to be doing anything about it.

At what age did you become financially independent?

I’d say I was semi-independent in college after my parents started dealing with some health stuff and couldn’t really give me much money beyond token gift amounts. Then I became fully independent when I graduated… in 2008, right into the recession. Ha, ha, ha—wheeeeee!

How did you learn how to budget your life?

When I find out I’ll let you know. Kidding (somewhat), but it was two things: 1) overcoming the financial nihilism I learned in my 20s (fuck it spend everything, who cares, the world is hell); 2) working a stretch of very very low-paying jobs in my late 20s/early 30s, where I’d end up calculating that I could feasibly spend like $5 per day after necessary expenses. I still think the world is hell and I spend more than I should, but I’ve got a retirement account now so I guess that’s something?

Have you ever received inherited income, major financial gifts, or large insurance payouts?

I got almost a full ride to undergrad (all my debt is from grad school). My dad sold me his car for way less than it was worth when I was 17. Other than that, not really.

Do you worry about money now?

Yes and no. I don’t really sweat day to day stuff but I sometimes worry about me and my husband’s long-term future. We’re fine for now, but what if a major disaster strikes? Especially with the “fuck you you’re on your own” death spiral this country seems to be in, well, it does keep me up at night.

How much do you think a person or household needs to earn to live comfortably in the Twin Cities?

I'm not sure, honestly. My income works for me in terms of taking care of both basics and treats, but I have very few expensive obligations and living in a cheap neighborhood and splitting expenses with my partner helps a lot. I'd say ballpark $70K if you want to live alone and maybe want some more conveniences than me (a car, for example). If you have kids, oof, maybe ~$80K? I just know I'm at the age where I have a fair few parent friends, and they have all told me two basic facts: "You're going to get puked on more than you think, and it's going to cost WAY more than you think."

Money Journal

Day 1

11:15 a.m.: $66 to ThredUp—three pairs of pants and three shirts for work.

Day 2

7:45 a.m.: $500 credit card payment.
12:50 p.m.: $28 chainmail jewelry supplies. It’s nice to have something to do with my hands in my spare time, and I’ve actually made a little money selling pieces to friends for ~$35 each. I should be able to get two or three pieces out of this, I think?
1:15 p.m.: $65 for monthly bus pass.
3:30 p.m.: $7.25 ($13.50 total, split) for gas, probably the last reasonable bill before we have to turn the heat up.
5:35 p.m.: $26 for soup ingredients, wine, and snacks at Trader Joe’s.

Day 3

4:15 p.m.: $26 six beer assortment from Omnibibulous. These are for the beer review Zoom call I do every week with my friend, and Omnibibulous is a bit out of the way so I grab enough for a few weeks when I go.
4:45 p.m.: $9 rotisserie chicken from Whole Foods. Don’t feel great about shopping at Bezosmart but I can turn this into two or three meals plus stock from the bones.
5:15 p.m.: $19 for Tampopo on Criterion Blu Ray, on sale.
6 p.m.: $8 for a movie at the Trylon.
9:45 p.m.: $10 for post-movie pint plus tip at Arbeiter. They gave me a free pretzel since it was close to closing! Score!