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: Management analyst
Age: 31
Neighborhood: North End
Education: Bachelor’s in business
Salary: $83,000, and I make around ~$2,500 in a side gig
Partner’s salary: $50,000 but our finances are not combined
Dependents: My partner has a 7-year-old son, I do not have any dependents myself
Estimated net worth: It’s negative, I’ll tell you that much.

Debt

Credit cards: $1,200 being paid off

Vehicle: About $10K left on a 2020 Nissan Altima I bought for $20K a few years ago.

Home: I do not own property.

Education: Around $41,000 in student loans.

Assets

Retirement accounts: $4,000 in a pension—I fucked around and found out in my 20s, and put about $70 in a deferred comp plan that I just started.

Non-retirement cash: I am building a savings account as we speak—currently it’s around $40. 

Miscellaneous things: I have a patent that, in theory, I could license use of but I don’t think there would be any takers. 

Monthly Income

Paycheck amount: I take home about ~$4,300 after taxes. Side gig is ~$200 after taxes each month. My main paycheck takes out taxes, health insurance, union dues, etc. 

Monthly Expenses 

Mortgage: I rent for $400 a month (lol I live at a house my mom owns and she gives me a deal, but ya know, she stops over every day because she runs her business there).

Vehicle: $330.75 on my car loan.

Loans: I pay around ~$400 toward student loans each month.

Utilities:

They are “covered” in my rent.

• Phone: $110/month 

Insurance:

• Medical (before tax): $53.12
• Vision: $0 (paid by employer)
• Dental: $0 (paid by employer)
• Employee HCSP (before tax): $63.70
• Short/Long Term Disability: $0 (paid by employer)

Retirement: 

• PERA: $415 
• Deferred comp plan: $70
• Both of these include employer match

Transportation: An average of $50/month for gas. Can be higher or lower depending on how much I drive.

Groceries: $250

Subscriptions:

• Spotify: $13.17
• Racket: $5 [personal note: hell yeah]
• Substack: $10
• Google: $1.99 
• Apple storage: $2.99 
• Meetup: $44.99—if you know an alternative PLEASE LET ME KNOW THIS IS SO EXPENSIVE
• Dropout: $6.59 monthly
• F1 TV: $14.99 monthly
• Patreon: $5 monthly
• Tiller, a budgeting tool ($79 yearly)
• Occasionally I shill out for Libro.fm if I am in need of a good audiobook

Gym: $30 yearly, the city of St. Paul has a sweet deal for its fitness centers if you’re a resident. [Lifelong Minneapolitan editor’s note: Seriously?!]

Personal Care: My haircuts are $80 every 12 weeks. I am spending a little more lately because my brother is getting married and I have to get nails done and keep up the skincare routine.

Donations: This varies, I like to treat my friends to coffee or little ways to say, “Hey, I’m thinking of you.” I will also look for mutual aid and GoFundMe campaigns to contribute to when I am able. Maybe $30 per month.

MONEY TALK Q&A

Did your family talk about money growing up?

Hardly ever. One time I asked at Don Pablo’s in Roseville (RIP) how much money my parents had saved up. They declined to answer. My parents also insisted they would pay for college. They got divorced and that did not happen. I don’t blame my parents necessarily for my lack of financial literacy in my 20s, but I definitely did not have a good base of understanding. 

Did you worry about money growing up?

No. We were middle-class fancy, had nice dinners occasionally, and went on vacations every other year. I also have been working since I was 16 and always had spending money. I feel very lucky to have had the privilege to grow up the way I did.

How did you learn to budget your life? 

Extremely painfully and with lots of trial and error. When I was 27, my credit card debt peaked at around $30,000 accumulated over a few years. Who gives 22 year olds an Amex with a 19K limit??? Vultures. I have tried every budget trick in the book. Cash, YNAB, not budgeting at all. I feel like I finally understand what I have and what I do not have. I got rid of all credit cards except one with a small limit and use my debit card for everything. I essentially have to use sheer force of will to not spend. I have gotten pretty good at monthly expenses, but it’s the ones I’m not expecting like car maintenance or concert tickets and flights that trip me up. I was also unemployed for six months last year, and it’s taken me a while to come back from that financially. 

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

In college, I received $100/month from my grandma which was stipulated in my grandfather’s will. I also received a payment of $10,000 to eliminate the rest of the credit card debt from my mom, which she received from my grandma when she passed. I was also gifted my first car, a 2001 Volvo, when I turned 16. I feel a little embarrassed to admit that I have a small amount of debt right now when I got money to eliminate the rest of it, but I don’t think I fully learned my lesson until later.

Do you worry about money now?

Yeah dawg, I live at my mom’s house! It was only supposed to be temporary, but alas. Also, my partner’s financial situation is not the best as well. He’s going back to school, paying child support, and also does not have much of a retirement plan. I know some may see that as a red flag of not having your life together, but frankly up until last year that was me so I can’t fault him too much for being in that situation. I will say since we started dating and he realized how important finances are to me, he has made remarkable strides in his financial literacy.

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

I think there was a study done that after you make a $79,000 salary your happiness does not increase. Whether that is true, I am not sure. But I think we could probably adjust that for inflation. Maybe $85,000 to achieve your financial goals, buy a house, travel, give to charity comfortably.

Money Journal

Day 1

• I rise at 8:30 a.m. to donate blood at 10 a.m. We are in a blood emergency due to the shootings at Assumption and I feel it’s the least I can do.
• 10 a.m.: A Patreon charge for $5 comes out of my account. I’m trying the cash envelope method of things where subscriptions come out and the rest I pay for in cash. So far so good. (It has been five days.)
• 11:30 a.m.: It took me almost nine minutes to donate a pint. Feels slow, I must work on that.
• 12 p.m. and beyond: I roll around with tummy troubles and a headache all day. It could have been the wine, the Ren Fest food, the State Fair food, or a combo of all three this weekend but I am hurting. I don’t like getting older.

Day 2

• Oh man I looked back at the older Money Journal examples and maybe you don’t care about my day and just want the money. Sorry!!
• 11:45 a.m.: $12 for Panera (if Panera has no fans, I am dead).
• 3 p.m.: I contemplated buying a book but decided to source from a library.
• 4:15 p.m.: $25 for therapy copay wahoo.

Day 3

• 10:35 a.m.: $4 gas station snacks, my guilty pleasure.
• 1:20 p.m. $13 for Jersey Mike’s.
• 6:50 p.m.: $27 at Gabe’s St. Paul.
• 9 p.m.: $10 for Powerball tickets. Didn’t win because I’m still writing this.

Day 4

• 12:35 p.m.: $13 for Cosetta’s—when did it get so expensive? Realizing at this point I am eating out a lot this week!
• 3 p.m.: $4 for parking at my doctor’s office. He said I was healing well from surgery and then proceeded to ask if he could show my recovery to a patient next door who went to a different surgeon because she wasn’t progressing well. Slay I guess lol.
• 7:15 p.m.: $16 for a bottle of wine.

Day 5

• 4:45 p.m. $10 on Powerball tickets (I so rarely gamble, this is very unusual).

Day 6

• 10 a.m.: $22 at Dollar Tree, but I forgot literally the one thing I went there for. I buy a lot of pantry staples at dollar tree because frankly it is the same and I am cheap.
• 10:45 a.m.: $35 on books that I was supposed to use on accessories for my brother’s wedding. Oops!
• 11 a.m.: $1.25 for distilled water I forgot at Dollar Tree the first time.
• 9:50 p.m.: $5 for a tip, boyfriend paid for drinks.

Day 7

• 9:30 a.m.: $45 on accessories at TJMaxx.
• 7:30 p.m.: $31 on alcohol for my partner and I.

Total: $278.25.

I’ll admit I spent way too much on dining out this week. I slacked on buying groceries and paid the price. The Gabe’s charge was for my Meetup group, otherwise I probably would not have eaten out twice in one day. Don’t roast me too hard in the comments; I’m sensitive.