So I got to thinking about what I wrote last week—this whole saving up for a weekend vacation to Catalina Island and I thought, “Wow, I sound like a spoiled little brat!” Here I am writing each week about saving money and being thrifty, meanwhile a main incentive for me to save money is so I can blow close to all of it on a weekend in paradise. How many adults do you know who can go on vacation, spend there money wining, dining, boating and snorkeling, come home broke and still be OK? None that I know of, that’s for sure! But see the thing is, I’m in a completely different situation and I have not completely realized until recently, but it’s one that is necessary to recognize in order to understand my perspective on saving money.
See, I have all the support I could ever want or need from my parents. My parents didn’t even pester me (too much) about spending less—I chose on my own to stop using my debit card. In addition, nearly all of my college expenses are paid for by my athletic scholarship for tennis. Being on a scholarship also lessens the burden for my parents to pay for out-of-state tuition. Trust me, it was not easy to earn this scholarship, I had to work my butt off and sacrifice a lot when I was in middle school and high school. But if I hadn’t put in the work back then, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Athletes are not just dumb jocks—in fact that notion might as well just be put to rest because it is so far from the truth. I can specifically speak for the tennis team when I say that being “dumb” would get us as much as a friendly, “thanks for showing your interest in this team, but get your grades up and better luck next time.” Of course this is the reason the women’s tennis team has one of the highest G.P.A’s in the athletic program. On top of maintaining good grades (which by the way if our grades slip we are assigned mandatory study hall hours), we practice three hours a day after a long day of classes—except for the winter when it’s too cold to play outside so we practice at 6 a.m., and then go to class. We also have a jam-packed schedule of competitions throughout the entire year even though our main season is technically spring. It literally feels like there is never any down time, so to have a job on top of a schedule like that is almost impossible.
I consider myself a determined, hard worker like the majority of student-athletes at Mason and I would love to have a job if I had any more time, but I simply do not. I understand that some people it may think I’m spoiled for getting $150 each week. I am aware that at the end of all this budgeting, if I have nothing saved I will still be OK. I won’t have to take out a loan or file for bankruptcy. I will still be taken care of by my parents. The important lesson to learn after all is said and done however, is that it is the fact that I want to budget my money and I don’t just want to take, take, take from my parents. I’ve realized early on that this money will not always be there for me and that this is a unique time in my life when I still have this safety net. At least I won’t be diving head first into the real world because I am trying my best to start by getting feet wet.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Summer Vacation
There is something I haven’t yet talked about as to why I decided to start budgeting and saving my money this semester. In May I will be heading to Los Angeles to intern for my second summer in a row at Dick Clark Productions. Needless to say the cost of living in LA is outrageous. The cost includes a round-trip flight from Philadelphia (my home airport) to LAX, an apartment, groceries, transportation money and entertainment… just to name a few. So each week I’ve been putting $5 into my savings immediately after I take out my weekly $150. I carefully spend only the money I need to spend on groceries, gas every other week, cable every month, weekend fun, and any other small items that I purchase on campus each day like milk, coffee, and fruit, etc. At the end of the week I take what money I have left and I put it in my Los Angeles summer fund. There have been weeks when I’ve had $50 left, some when I’ve only had $5 and others I’ve had none at all. But I always have the $5 that I put in the fund at the beginning of the week.
I am fortunate enough to have parents who want to take care of me while I am still in college. They want to cover my rent and flights to-and-from LA, but I will have to budget my money each week in order to afford groceries and bus transportation each day. Another aspect of the summer that I am saving up for is a weekend getaway with my boyfriend to Catalina Island. We’ve discussed a few options: a cruise from Tampa, FL to the Caribbean, a cruise up the west coast, a road trip to Seattle and a weekend on Catalina Island. Once we mulled over the idea of Catalina Island, it was hard to say no.
We’ve already worked out our expenses so that we can camp for 3 days and 2 nights for under $350. The ferry ride from Newport Beach, CA to Catalina Island is $68 per person, snorkeling at lover’s cove is $39 per person, parasailing at 900ft. is $35 per person, and nine holes of golf, including the green fee, pull cart, balls, and full set of rental clubs is only $65 per person. As for housing, we are opting for camping because the way we see it, there is no reason to be indoors when you’re on an island like Catalina! Renting a 2-person tent in the summer months is only $10; a sleeping bag with a pad is $12, and a lantern with propane and a bundle of wood cost only $20. That brings us to a total of $250. All we have left is the cost of meals and we already plan on bringing small items that we can cook under a fire outside of our tent. Don’t get me wrong though, we will absolutely spend money on the outstanding seafood, authentic Mexican, ice cream and pizzerias that Catalina Island has to offer.
Where are you going on vacation this summer? Have you thought about the activities you’ll do, expenses, and ways you want to save?
I am fortunate enough to have parents who want to take care of me while I am still in college. They want to cover my rent and flights to-and-from LA, but I will have to budget my money each week in order to afford groceries and bus transportation each day. Another aspect of the summer that I am saving up for is a weekend getaway with my boyfriend to Catalina Island. We’ve discussed a few options: a cruise from Tampa, FL to the Caribbean, a cruise up the west coast, a road trip to Seattle and a weekend on Catalina Island. Once we mulled over the idea of Catalina Island, it was hard to say no.
We’ve already worked out our expenses so that we can camp for 3 days and 2 nights for under $350. The ferry ride from Newport Beach, CA to Catalina Island is $68 per person, snorkeling at lover’s cove is $39 per person, parasailing at 900ft. is $35 per person, and nine holes of golf, including the green fee, pull cart, balls, and full set of rental clubs is only $65 per person. As for housing, we are opting for camping because the way we see it, there is no reason to be indoors when you’re on an island like Catalina! Renting a 2-person tent in the summer months is only $10; a sleeping bag with a pad is $12, and a lantern with propane and a bundle of wood cost only $20. That brings us to a total of $250. All we have left is the cost of meals and we already plan on bringing small items that we can cook under a fire outside of our tent. Don’t get me wrong though, we will absolutely spend money on the outstanding seafood, authentic Mexican, ice cream and pizzerias that Catalina Island has to offer.
Where are you going on vacation this summer? Have you thought about the activities you’ll do, expenses, and ways you want to save?
Monday, March 15, 2010
A Spring Break From Spending
It was an easy week in the world of budgeting. The tennis team went on a spring break trip to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. I took out my usual $150 on Saturday before our early departure Sunday morning, and the trip was already looking bright when our coach gave us $30. We were to spend the money on breakfast that morning and breakfast food for the rest of the week. After breakfast, we drove south on the open road and in no time it was already lunchtime.
We stopped at Subway and our lunch bill was again taken care of by our coach—making the trip look even brighter. We arrived in South Carolina around 5 p.m.; we went out for dinner because we hadn’t bought any groceries and in case you haven’t noticed a pattern, our dinner was paid for, too. All university-sponsored athletic trips are typically always taken care of meal-wise, but we did have a limit this week since we’d be gone so long. Every meal wouldn’t be paid for, but for all that was paid for definitely helped my budget.
I spent my $30 on groceries the first night, but even though it wasn’t my own, I still spent my money wisely. I purchases two boxes of Special K cereal—one box of Red Berries and one box of Blueberry; Honey Nut flavored Special K cereal bars; Fat Free Lactaid milk; a bag of grapes; four oranges; and six bananas. I also covered the cost of Piggly Wiggly brand flip-flops for my teammate who forgot to bring her own. With a week ahead of university-sponsored meals and only three meals of our own to cover, I knew this week would be a piece of cake to get through.
We were only left alone to pay for lunch on Monday and Thursday and dinner on Wednesday. Except one of my teammate’s parents came into town and took us out to dinner at an amazing Italian restaurant on Wednesday night—they were so gracious.
Rewind back to Wednesday afternoon and that’s when the personal spending happened. Seven of us girls made our way down to the shops by the beach and also to the infamous tiki hut that sits itself right on the sand next to the beach volleyball courts. It was nice and sunny when we first arrived so we sat ourselves under an umbrella at the tiki hut and ordered some smoothies—all non-alcoholic of course since we were on an athletic trip. There was an assortment of flavors we wanted to try and they were rather small in size so each of us ended up ordering four smoothies. My grand total was only $26—and it was well worth it!
It started to get cold and rainy, as we were finishing up at the tiki hut, so we decided to walk around the shops. I browsed for a bit and chose to splurge on a $25 tie-dye hooded sweatshirt that reads: Hilton Head Island.
I have to admit—I’m very proud with how much money I saved: $99, the most I’ve ever had at the end of a week since my budget started. And when I got home late Saturday night, I took that $99, and put it right into the summer vacation fund.
We stopped at Subway and our lunch bill was again taken care of by our coach—making the trip look even brighter. We arrived in South Carolina around 5 p.m.; we went out for dinner because we hadn’t bought any groceries and in case you haven’t noticed a pattern, our dinner was paid for, too. All university-sponsored athletic trips are typically always taken care of meal-wise, but we did have a limit this week since we’d be gone so long. Every meal wouldn’t be paid for, but for all that was paid for definitely helped my budget.
I spent my $30 on groceries the first night, but even though it wasn’t my own, I still spent my money wisely. I purchases two boxes of Special K cereal—one box of Red Berries and one box of Blueberry; Honey Nut flavored Special K cereal bars; Fat Free Lactaid milk; a bag of grapes; four oranges; and six bananas. I also covered the cost of Piggly Wiggly brand flip-flops for my teammate who forgot to bring her own. With a week ahead of university-sponsored meals and only three meals of our own to cover, I knew this week would be a piece of cake to get through.
We were only left alone to pay for lunch on Monday and Thursday and dinner on Wednesday. Except one of my teammate’s parents came into town and took us out to dinner at an amazing Italian restaurant on Wednesday night—they were so gracious.
Rewind back to Wednesday afternoon and that’s when the personal spending happened. Seven of us girls made our way down to the shops by the beach and also to the infamous tiki hut that sits itself right on the sand next to the beach volleyball courts. It was nice and sunny when we first arrived so we sat ourselves under an umbrella at the tiki hut and ordered some smoothies—all non-alcoholic of course since we were on an athletic trip. There was an assortment of flavors we wanted to try and they were rather small in size so each of us ended up ordering four smoothies. My grand total was only $26—and it was well worth it!
It started to get cold and rainy, as we were finishing up at the tiki hut, so we decided to walk around the shops. I browsed for a bit and chose to splurge on a $25 tie-dye hooded sweatshirt that reads: Hilton Head Island.
I have to admit—I’m very proud with how much money I saved: $99, the most I’ve ever had at the end of a week since my budget started. And when I got home late Saturday night, I took that $99, and put it right into the summer vacation fund.
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