What I Spent in March 2021
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It's that time of month again! It's time to get into my monthly recap and overview. It's not only the end of the month of March but it's also the end of Q1 which is a big finance month—dividend payouts, lots of good stuff. I’m excited to share with you a look behind the scenes of my March spending.
March Money Wins
Let’s start off with some money wins in March. First, I had my contract extended! I'm a contractor. I've been at a company for a year now and I really, really love this job. I love my boss. I love my team that I'm on. I have a really great work-life balance and it’s a six-figure contract. I really wanted it to be extended for another year. You can be extended for up to a two-year cycle when you contract.
I had two weeks left and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be extended or not and you can't talk to your boss about it. They have to talk to the agency who talks to another agency who talks to your agency about extending you. So I couldn't ask her directly, but I was like, hey it's coming up on a year. I know you can't talk to me about extending, but let me know if I should take a 3 month vacation. *wink, wink*
She was like take PTO if you need, but don’t go anywhere! So that's how I knew I was getting extended. Then, I finally got the official confirmation a week before it was over. So that was super exciting, which brings me to my next point.
I maxed out my 401k! Since I got this extension I could finish contributing $19,500 to my 401k for 2021. I was concerned that potentially this contract would be over and I would not have a 401k at all until I found my next job, which who knows how long that would take. That’s why I front loaded it as much as possible in the case that I did not get this extension. However, I got it and was able to max it out in March. Big money wins!
Income
Let's dive a little bit deeper into my actual March numbers.
💰 Paycheck: $8,409.08
I had a high paycheck this month due to an extra paycheck with the way the calendar and pay period fell. Therefore, I had a little bit more than I usually do at my regular nine-to-five job.
👗 Resale: $25
I sold two items on Poshmark this month, but I really don't do that much “poshing” as they call it. You're supposed to actively re-share stuff, constantly post new items, and like and engage with other members.
I don’t know how people do it as their full-time job. Frankly, I don't see how it's worth it hourly because it's so time intensive. For that amount of effort and that low of return, it's not worth my time. Plus, I don’t find it fun.
I leave things up and periodically I'll send out offers if I see there's been a bunch of new likes on an item. I try to sell it by dropping my price to the likers and offering discounted shipping. Overally, my Poshmark sales are pretty sporadic.
🎨 Freelance: $0
I did $0 this month. I have one more job that I'm still slowly wrapping up from 2020. It has been dragging on. I've been building a company’s Squarespace website. For freelance stuff I’m only taking on jobs over $3,000.
If you know of anybody who wants me to put together their Squarespace website at that rate, I’m happy to do it! It's very time intensive to go back and forth and deal with clients when I do design work all day at my day job, so I’m only taking extra projects worth my time.
💵 Cash back: $52.28
I randomly checked my Dosh App (link for your first $5) and I had over $30 sitting in it. I like it SO much more than Rakuten, Fetch, or Ibotta because it’s so passive. No browser extensions to click or receipts to scan. All you have to do is link your credit card and shop as normal, and eventually you’ll build up cash in there. Might as well take advantage of free money! The minimum cash out is $25 and it goes directly to your Venmo.
I like that they have a lot of local restaurants that give you 5% cash back. When you order directly from the restaurant it helps them more than ordering from Postmates, Uber Eats, or that type of app. I heard it’s best to order directly and if it’s on the Dosh list, you can get some money back too. Win, win!
The Drop app is also good for this. It’s very passive and has some big name brands you can shop at and earn cash back though card linking.
📈 Interest: $4.71
I keep my 6 month emergency fund in Ally high yield savings account and I also have a high yield checking account at Wealthfront. Collect all the interest!!!
🤑 Dividends: $229.82
Big dividend payouts typically happen at the end of quarters. So dividends were extremely high this month!
🍯 Millennial Money Honey: $16.34
The majority of this was from my my Etsy shop. But also this month someone bout me a coffee on Buy Me A Coffee, which goes to support all the free content I put out. I’ve love Phils Coffee and recently tried this rose latte, which was amazing. I love floral tasting things. (Lavender Salt & Straw ice cream ::drools:: IYKYK) I so appreciate everyone who has supported my work AND fueled my caffeine addiction!
🌟 Other: $5
My uncle sent red pocket money for Chinese New Year last month and I just got the money now. Gong Hay Fat Choi!
Expenses
For some context, I know you're probably not new here, but in case you somehow landed on this article and you are, hey, what's up!? Go subscribe to my Youtube channel 🙃. I live at home with my parents. Mom and Dad don’t make me pay rent or utilities. I love and appreciate them SO much! It's been really great and I 💯 recommend living at home if you get along with your parents. Not like we can go anywhere anyway right now, so might as well hang out with fam.
So that being said, yeah, I don't pay anything in housing or utilities.
🏡 Rent: $0
⚡️ Utilities: $0
🚖 Transportation: $0
Not going anywhere!
🥦 Groceries: $40.07
🍽 Food: $175.45
I was still down in Los Angeles this first week or so in March. It was there that I learned about my contract extension and splurged on taking myself and a friend out to sushi dinner to celebrate. It was so worth spending on!
🍹 Drinks: $0
👩💻 Work: $36.98
TubeBuddy to help grow my YouTube channel made my work expense pretty steep last month, but this month it was just my usual cloud storage and Bonsai.
Bonsai is the best freelancing software. It puts together contracts, has templates for project proposals, and makes invoice for clients very easy to pay. Bonsai makes me look so professional (read: EXPENSIVE). I highly recommend checking it out if you're a freelancer or solo entrepreneur.
🍿 Entertainment: $58
I almost forgot about this expense! I went to the Huntington Botanical Gardens over in Pasadena and paid for a ticket for me and my friend. Not only was it beautiful to walk around the Japanese and Chinese gardens, my friend also took a bunch of pics of me that I’ve been using excessively as thumbnails for Youtube and on my Instagram. He’s a great photographer!
✈️ Travel: $0
🚙 Car: $0
🏥 Health: $0
🛍 Shopping: $45.26
I went thrifting and got myself two tops, a black crop button up and a white silk button up, and a pair of black strappy heels that I’ve been looking for. They miraculously fit my wide duck feet, so I had to get them.
I also somehow ended up paying for all of my little sister’s stuff. If you saw what I Spent in a Week in LA, you’ll know my sister finesses me to pay for stuff. She’s doing a no spend year for clothes, but it doesn’t count if others buy stuff for her…so I did. She’s a smart cookie!
💝 Gifts: $20
I donated some money to my girl, Cinneah, over at @fly.nanced and Gigi, of @firstgenmoneymusings for putting on an Instagram Live about black creators in the personal finance space. It was extremely informative and kind of them to take the time and energy to educate other on this, so I supported them monetarily.
❓Miscellaneous: $0
Savings
👵 401K: $4,189.18
I maxed all $19,500 of this out, so it will drop to $0 next month!
🏦 Savings: $3,300
I’m saving up a little fund to pay my taxes, which I still haven’t paid yet. Fortunately they got extended. I am definitely going to owe because I did not pay anything on the $20,000 I made doing freelance design work last year. 💰IRA: $0
📈 Brokerage: $0
💵 SEP IRA: $0
I’m working with a CPA to help me file my taxes for 2020 since I had some complicated things I messed up on. He said I’ll be able to still contribute to a SEP IRA for the freelance work I did. We shall see. In April I’m going to really get it together!
🏥 HSA: $0
I don't actually have an HSA this year 😭. I don't qualify for one, which really sucks.
💸 Checking: $425
Checking is my income minus the rest of my savings accounts. I don’t have a separate category for that under my savings column in my money tracking spreadsheet.
Monthly Totals
🤑 Income: $8,742.23
💸Expenses: $365.78
🏦 Savings: $8,376.45
📊 Savings Rate: 96%
This is the highest rate I've ever saved. It's insane. Again living at home and being in a pandemic, I'm saving so much money. Bless my parents. I really truly could not do this without them.
The whole no rent was never really discussed when I moved in. I asked my mom the other day if she felt comfortable with that. Her response was, “If you were to pay me rent I’d save it all for you so that you could put it towards buying your own house.”
I really think that is a reflection of my parents values. They want to set us up for even more success than they had. I feel the same way about the future I’m creating for my unborn children. They know the housing market is insane in California and they're really trying to help me. I'm so appreciative of that.
This was such a fire month for me. I really owe it all to my parents, truly. All of my saving is really only made possible thanks to them. Overall, Q1 was good to me. I achieved all my financial goals (although I failed at my non-financial ones)…more on that next week!
I hope you guys found this March Money Recap useful, insightful, interesting or at least pleasantly voyeuristic. If you haven’t already subscribe to my channel below so we can all get rich and retire early together!
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