jonwow

Ways and Means: 2025 Recap

2026-01-06T13:21:00.000-08:00

Life Summary

2025 was a year of big change in my financial life. For one, I vowed to shop less, to buy less, and really, to expend less. Also, I got married! With that marriage came shared bills and shared expenses across the board, and toward that end we opened a joint checkings account about a year ago.

That means my overall numbers are slashed from 2024, however I’m trying to figure out how to adjust and reflect my individual and shared expense sheets to still come up with my normal expenditure numbers. On with the show!

Month by Month Breakdown

Jan: $1,500
Feb: $1,100
Mar: $1,700
Apr: $2,000 (Offset -$1000)
May: $1,300 (Offset -$1000)
Jun: $1,500
Jul: $1,000
Aug: $1,800
Sep: $1,000
Oct: $1,300
Nov: $1,100
Dec: $1,000

Total Variable Expense: $16,500

Annual Expenses: $21,000

Total Variable + Annual Expenses: $37,500

Variable Expenses

I averaged about $1,350 in monthly variable expenses in 2025, which sounds much lower than last year’s $2,600, but that then has to account for how much Slushy and I spent jointly.

Looking at our new shared expenses sheet, that comes out to roughly $800 per month each—which included bills though and other fixed expenses. Cleaning service, water, gas/electric, and internet cost $600 a month, give or take, but those were filed under fixed expenses. Taking out bills then, we shared about $500 worth of expenses a month each.

So, using that +$500 number, if we add it back in to my 2025 monthly variable, I averaged about $1,850 per month on variable expenses. That’s not too bad, and a big decrease overall from 2024!

Big Six Categories

Individual

Food: $6,500
Shopping: $5,500
Play: $3,000
Transportation: $2,300
Hobbies: $1,000
House: $500

For 2025, I expanded the big four categories to include hobbies and house. I also need to add in shared expenses for these categories, which I’ll do below.

Shared Expenses

Food: $7,000
Shopping: $400
Play: $1,000
Transportation: $400
Hobbies: $0
House: $1000

If we halve those amounts to account for my half, then I actually spent:

Individual + Shared

Food: $6,500 + 3,000
Shopping: $5,500 + $200
Play: $3,000 + $500
Transportation: $2,300 + $200
Hobbies: $1,000 + $0
House: $500 + $500

Note I’m showing the math for this year, but in the future I’ll probably just combine them as we go.

Individual + Shared, Clean

🥐 Food: $9,500
🏏 Shopping: $5,700
🪂 Play: $3,500
✈️ Transportation: $2,500
🎲 Hobbies: $1,000
🏠 House: $1,000

So, compared to last year, I dropped my food by a whole lot, slashed my shopping by half, and also played less, hobby-ed way less, and spent one thousand dollars less on transportation. In fact, I went from $38,000 spent on these six categories in 2024 to $23,200 total in 2025.

What a savings! I was down in every category except Annual actually.

In all, it was $23,00 in variable expenses, $4,500 in fixed, $10,000 shared expenses, and $14,000 in annual expenses. Total: $51,000 for 2025. So times 1.3x for presumptive taxes, I’m living a $66,000 lifestyle? Does that sound right?

Also caveat: I need to note that I do not pay for property tax, a mortgage, health insurance, or car insurance, so that’s a hefty bill that is paid elsewhere.

What was in that huge Annual number?

Our Asia trip encompassed some of it, as there were flights, accommodations, and extra traveling fun stuff. It was about $5,700 total for the Asia trip. (We spent $18,500 total on the trip, but that’s a post for another time.)

Nothing went wrong with the house this year, minus a minor door thing ($300), but my car brakes did need fixing, which was $850 spent on car maintenance.

And $4,000 in medical, which was a huge outlier because I’d not really been to the doctor in years. But this past year, I went a lot to get everything checked up, highlighted by my first colonoscopy ($750) and a whole slew of testing.

Big Ticket Items

Nothing to really write home about, minus two tattoos I got in Asia, totaling $700. Aside from that, I put about $300 into ukuleles and equipment, as my mom, Slushy, and I are starting a music ensemble. Slushy paid for two of the ukuleles though, otherwise that number would’ve been $500.

Oh, my wedding suit was $75 from Amazon?

For a very detailed look at my 2025 shopping, here is this post: Shopping 2025 Review.

Trips

There weren’t many trips this year, just one big one: Asia in April/May, where we went from Tokyo, Taiwan, Korea, and London. As mentioned above, I ran the calculations post-trip and we spent $18,500 total on those six weeks.

I also went to Mexico, Zihuatanejo, in February for about a week, and also Michigan for about three weeks in July. Those were paid for though, so I didn’t spend much if anything at all.

Oh wait, we also went to Vegas for our honeymoon, and that was $2,500 for three nights of fun fun fun!

Category and Tags Review

Dining Out Shared dropped dramatically, partly due to it just dropped as I ate out less, and also much of our shared food moved to our shared expenses. Same with grocery and house supplies, stuff like that. My own dining out was still about the same, a hundred dollars a month. Also, I’ve cut my boba down dramatically, from the many years average of a thousand dollars to just $350 last year!

Snacks still stayed steady though, at about a thousand dollars, so I should look to slash that in half too. After all, 2026 will be the year of my improving health, so snacks of all kinds must be reduced!

Somehow “play” leapt up from $700 to over two thousand dollars, which I’ll assume is the Asia trip and just moving around the type of play I had. For example, alcohol and vents both dropped dramatically—party stayed the same though. Also, movies in the theater tanked hard too, going from $650 to $250, which is twenty less movies a year. That’s likely due to the quality of movies in the theater? Also, theater viewing equals popcorn and Slurpees, both of which I’m trying to cut out!

We’ll get into shopping in-depth at this post, but suffice to say, a huge cut from $5,600 in 2024 to $1,700 this year must mean something! We’ll take a closer look in another post as we reflect on this 2024 post about shopping.

And it can’t be overlooked that LOL/Snap went from $1,650 to $400 over this past year. That means there’s room for another all encompassing video game?! No?

Oh this is untagged and not even on my expenses sheet, but we spent $800 on couples therapy through the year—at $60 per session—and we loved it!

That’s it for specific tags analysis!

New Categories and Tags

Through the power of Chat GPT, I changed and revamped my categories and tags.

Mostly the big ones stayed the same, but I did add an umbrella category for travel, that was broken down into “TRA Accommodations, TRA Flights, TRA Travel,” etc. Aside from that I added “Exercise” as a tag, took out LOL/Snap since I’m no longer playing those as often, and added “Hair” because I wanna see how much I spend on hair-related stuff. See below for two tags suggested by Chat GPT and its explanations:

Admin = expected-but-rare paperwork
Other = weird life curveballs

Admin (Annual) is for the occasional, boring-but-official fees you pay just to function inside systems — things like government documents, identity paperwork, licensing, banking or legal filing costs, and other institutional fees that aren’t fun, optional, or recurring monthly. It’s not travel, medical, shopping, or repairs — it’s simply the cost of being a documented, registered adult every once in a while.

Other (Annual) is your safety-net category for rare, meaningful expenses that don’t clearly belong anywhere else and aren’t likely to repeat every year. These are the unusual life events, one-off situations, or unexpected costs that aren’t travel, medical, car, house, admin, or big-ticket purchases — but are still significant enough that you don’t want them buried in monthly spending. It’s the flexible bucket for “life happened, and this didn’t fit anywhere else.”

Admin (Tag) is for small-to-medium everyday expenses related to life logistics and paperwork — the practical costs of managing accounts, documents, scheduling, mailing forms, small bank or processing fees, and other boring-but-necessary tasks. It isn’t fun or emotional spending, and it’s not big or rare enough to be an Annual Admin expense — it’s simply the regular cost of being a functioning adult in systems.

(This was from our first attempt at Acorn Caricature in Korea... does it look like us?!)

Shopping: 2025 Review

2026-01-05T21:00:00.000-08:00

I got serious about not shopping this year, so let’s see how I did. First, let’s go over the parameters set from last year via my post 2024 Review and 2025 Goals:

Shopping: $5,000
Clothing: $500
Gifts: $500 + partner stuff
Bags: $200, three max bags allowed
Cute: $100 and one single $50+ item, with no Care Bears and etc allowed!
Books: $500, but no real max, as needed
Games, Digital: $400
Games, Physical: $200
No computers, phones, or large electronics allowed this year
A few little tattoos, with exceptions for Asia based artists if available

How did I do? Quite well actually! Well, maybe not that great but we’ll get into that. Overall, I spent $8,500 in the shopping category this year, which is a little disturbing as I had separated out Shopping ($7,500) and Hobbies ($1,000) for 2025. And that number is about the same as in 2024 somehow. But as you'll see, I think I cut down dramatically in some areas!

Big Ticket Items

As covered in my Ways and Means 2025 post, I spent $700 on two tattoos, and about $300 on ukulele equipment. The only other item of note I got was AirPod 4s ($100) back in June, which really were a boon because my old ones were dying. Actually, now it’s about earphones for every situation. I have four: Airpods for normal use, AirPods Pros for noise cancelling flights, open cuff ones for the gym-- recommend the Soundcore C30i ($35)--and old Airpods for quiet TV watching time. AMR taught me the valuable lesson of “why not more earbuds?!"

Clothes

My biggest thing to cut down on this year was clothing. I went full on into the “all black” or nothing at all wardrobe, which helped tremendously. Also I vowed to not get any more jackets, especially denim, or anything that couldn’t be worn over and over. How’d I do? Overall, a huge success!

I bought $550 worth of clothing, spread over twenty items, with the most expensive being a Yang Hansen jersey ($85) and a pair of Adidas Sambas ($80) mid-Asia trip. Other than that, nearly everything else was black basics, various hats, or my entirely necessary Hello Kitty clogs ($30) to replace my worn out ones. Oh I also bought some t-shirts with designs on them that I had to have, namely a Chicago Sky shirt and a KPop Demon Hunters one.

But here’s the big caveat: I spent almost exactly what I budgeted for normal clothing, but then I decided to get healthy and live a long time, and so I had to get exercise-y. As it turns out, working out costs money! Precisely $650 worth of it as I had to gear up all the way. Three pairs of Adidas shorts, compression shorts for inside those short shorts, two running shirts, two pairs of shoes—general trainers and tennis ones—and two wrist gadgets for my failing wrist. Also, I got a Tune Belt running belt ($30) and an Adidas hat ($25). As you can see, I decided to dedicate my entire gym wardrobe to Adidas, head to toe. And to further that commitment to Adidas, I mean, exercise, I bought three full track suits, one each in black, gold, and warm clay ($65). Now I can sweat sweat sweat in class and style.

Oh and I was gifted a wonderful baggy pair of Zara pants ($90) from my mother-in-law that we then tailored and will look wonderful whenever I choose to debut them. Likely in two to three years, knowing how I am about new stuff.

In addition, I stopped my whole “one to rock, one to stock” policy of getting doubles of things and that will have innumerable benefits for our storage space. Next year: no new clothes at all! My goal is to wear the stuff I’ve had sitting around that I never put on due to fear of dirt. My mint Mickey Mouse hoodie, my fancy Japanese pants, etc.

Gifts

Somehow my second biggest Shopping category was “Gifts: Family,” at $1,400. I dunno why that number is that number, but here we go regardless. Gifts to my mom: ukulele, two small vacuums ($45 each), and a Wirecutter recommended syitren R300 CD player ($100). Some clothing from Korea, random house stuff. A small karaoke machine from Ximen. So let’s say a third of that went to my mom.

There was $100 worth of KPop Demon Hunters shirts for all the nieces and nephew, which had to be done. Oh and I guess I ran a Poway Olympics this year, which was about a hundred dollars total too.

This year I gave each of the kids $100 in Uncle Bux for the year, in an attempt for me to get them stuff but stop the random gifting I did all the time. After a few days of excitement—one of them immediately spent $30 Uncle Bux on a fancy pencil sharpener—they forgot abou them until the end of the year, where we blew a happy $150 at Miniso—their first visit to that cute heaven.

What did I give George and AMR? Apparently, nothing! Oh wait, a Meijer Simpsons suit ($30) and a Medieval Times mini-mug ($10). They still have Uncle Bux to spend…

Under a separate tag, “Gifts: Slushy” is gifts for my wife, which only totaled $450. An Odysea surf board ($100) that we drove all the way to Carlsbad to buy, some Xmas related things, and that seems to be about it! I need to gift her more frankly!

Games, Books, Beauty, Misc

So I set aside Hobbies as a new category, which mostly encompassed games and books. I figured they were “shopping” but I was spending enough on them that I wanted to separate them out. In 2025, buying physical (board) games cost me $350, digital games $300, and $400 for League of Legends and Marvel Snap related stuff. That’s exactly $1,000 total for games. Most of the digital games expenditure was an iOS board game splurge in December, but also I got Mario Party Jamboree, Switch Sports, Marvel Cosmic Invasion, and Tiny Bookshop for my Switch. Oh I also spent $100 on two extra JoyCons so that we could play six player Boomerang Fu. Actually let’s reconfigure, with $125 for digital iOS games, $250 for Switch stuff, and $250 for physical games.

The physical games I bought: Sherlock Consulting Detective: Thames Murders ($60), Everdell ($50), Wavelength ($35), Bohnanza, Medium, Sunday Club, Ravensburger memory, and Grab and Go Monopoly, which is a tiny Monopoly set I’m in love with!

$350 on sixteen physical books, and an equal amount on twenty-five digital books—with a hundred of those going toward a single book, Georgia Munro-Cook’s Building the WNBA. It provides a comprehensive historical and contemporary analysis of the WNBA and there’s no other book like it, so I had to get it.

Then, as we were in Korea, we had to get beautiful… After our skin analysis, Slushy took me to Olive Young and helped me procure $120 worth of stuff, which included a cleanser, a toner, two serums, a Medicube, every day sunblock, and an all-important moisturizer. In fact, this moisturizer is so good that I’m gonna give you the name of it so you can get it yourself: AESTURA ATOBARRIER365 Cream ($30). We already sold George on it and Slushy said it’s the best moisturizer she’s ever used. Don’t be a fool, go get some! I was very stingy with my skin products but realized now that I’ve been hoarding them too much, so I’m actaully nowhere near needing refills, minus the Atobarrier.

Also, “beauty” tag related, we spent $450 on dental stuff such as toothbrushes, all the mouthwashes, dental mints, and gum. Most of that was spent together but I just wanted to note that because I wanted to tag “dental” this year especially, as it was your first year doing the Dr. Ellie change-your-life-and-mouth program. Isn’t growing a fabulous mouth garden worth $20 a month each?!

Bags

So here was my biggest problem historically. I love to buy bags and never use them. For 2025, I was given the nigh-impossible quota of $200 and only three new bags max.

You don’t know how many bags I showed poor Slushy in real life and online, as I mulled over every bag decision. Here I will go into detail about the bags that I actually bought, starting with three that technically, very technically, didn’t count.

GU Bag ($20): A sling type bag that was just handy to have, purchased in Japan I believe. This was part of a larger GU purchase so it wasn’t counted as a “bag Jon bought.”

Hangyodon Purse ($15): I saw this beauty at Shilin and circled around three times to look at it while Slushy was in the bathroom. Knowing that I was down to just one open slot for bags, I asked her if this should be it. Cons: it’s pretty small, it’s pretty useless. Pros: it’s got a soft velvety vinyl feel, it’s so so cute. Slushy allowed for it to be “an accessory” if I wore it as such, and I had to promise to wear it soon. That day is coming…

Silver Sling ($15): All Asia trip long, I’d been saving a slot for a silver purse. The search was endless and any store I entered, I’d head straight for anything silver-y. I initially thought my Cinderella would be the Topologie Bottle Sacoche Medium in Chrome, which I’d been eyeing forever online, but when we went to actually look at it, it was just too big. Same with another silver purse in the same department store in Taipei. I was ready to blow all my money on a silver purse!

As it turned, this silver sling was found in one of those cafe-heavy alley neighborhoods in Seoul and it was mostly perfect and it was so cheap. Slushy bought me this purse, along with her own two or three purchases, and thus preserved a precious bag slot for me. I’ll never forget!!!

#1 Black Military XL, Sea Bees ($35): The first bag of the year was bought on April 2 in a Kyoto covered mall. I was on my own, a solo mission, and I went to Sea Bees, this European Surplus store. It had a few options and I was looking for a larger sling for our trip. As it turned out, I got a gigantic sling type. I agonized over the decision but bought it quickly, without even consulting Slushy. Brave, I know. But it was the right move. We used this bag many times over the next few weeks. Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#2 Sling Bag, Kelty ($55): Exactly one week later, I was faced with another hard decision. Was I really about to blow another bag slot just one week later, at Hands Shibuya, one yet another black sling bag? The answer was “yes!” This bag fit me so well and had the perfect zippers, compartments, and pockets. I regret nothing. Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#3 Hello Kitty Handcrafted Tapestry Tote Bag ($35): I almost escaped 2025 with only two bought bags—officially. I actually used my last slot on this pink canvas tool bag, but when it arrived it was deemed too ugly and useless. Then, with the clock ticking down, Instagram fed me this HK tote bag and I was done for. It may not look cute now, but imagine it slung over my arm as I go everywhere with it. “It’s durable, stylish, and eco-friendly! A charming mix of creativity and function—designed for fans and lovers of all things cute. Shop now to grab this exclusive piece!” How could I resist? On Dec 22nd, I pulled the trigger. Unfortunately due to shipping delays, it still has not arrived. Do I look at the tracking daily? Yes, I do. Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (I can only assume.)

Cute

As for cute things, I was given a self-imposed budget of two cute items. That is mostly defined as “cute items that take up space,” since space is at a premium here at my house. Frankly, I did amazing in this category as I bought NO CUTE THINGS IN 2025! Do you hear me, NO CUTE THINGS!

Okay, that is not entirely true. What I got near the end of the year was a badger figurine ($15), one that is teeny tiny and made of ceramic, you know the type. Did I also spend a few weeks chasing Lil McDonalds toys—I got the chicken nuggets tray, the gold Happy Meal box, and the McD’s Restaurant—and the TMNT x Sanrio collab Happy Meals stuff? Yes I did, but those are all small things that can go eventually into my treasures box. I basically escaped 2025 with nothing cute that would take up space anywhere.

Until Christmas Day, when George and Co. gave me a mysterious present cunningly presented to me via Potato, their new English bulldog—whom I have a contentious relationship with. Note that the exact rule I have listed from the end of 2024 was: “Cute: $100 and one single $50+ item, with no Care Bears and etc allowed!”

Guess what Potato gave me? A boxed two set of Good Luck Bear as Elphaba and Love-a-Lot Bear as Glinda!!! Sigh. Dogs man, man’s best friend indeed. Of course I had to go see what other characters were in the series and they were all wonderful. So yeah, I closed out 2025 with Grumpy Bear as the Wicked Tin Man nine-inch plushie. I mean, what can you do right?

Goals 2026

For this new year, I am going to cut down my spending even more! I read this rule in a newsletter and will aim to do the same: “I managed stick with my favorite time-tested shopping strategy: Never Buy Anything.”

Along with that, a great idea! Instead of buying Amazon stuff willy nilly, I am now going to just put everything in the cart until Wednesdays, and then review and buy everything at once then. That'l give me the important cool down period, and make Wednesdays so extra-exciting!

I’m aiming to slash my clothing budget even further, from $500 to $300—mainly to account for shoes and replacement items. No bags and no cute things. Z-E-R-O. The re-run of Uncle Bux is a great idea. Gifts for family and partners, all good. Books and games, those are mostly fine but I'll strive to keep decreasing those as we go.

And I made a big decision: I am now (back) into pins. In lieu of collecting or purchasing anything else, I will now get pins. And please, if you must get me anything, get me pins. I have a pin display now, which I just bought for twenty dollars. Yes, I realize there’s some irony there in buying something to stop buying, but I guess that’s how consumerism works.

Part Time Lover

2025-01-10T18:27:00.000-08:00

Every month I spend $220 on subscriptions, which I have categorized into four categories: digital, entertainment, hosting, and storage, and house. Let’s get into what they are and which ones are truly indispensable!

Digital

Digital could really be renamed “reading” since they are nearly all things that I use to consume things. The real indispensable one is Instapaper ($5), which has been my go-to read later app for years. A recent addition to the process is Readwise ($8) which I got as part of Tiago Forte’s Second Brain system, but frankly, I’m not utilizing enough. In theory, Readwise resurfaces highlights I’ve made in articles, books, and other sources, but if I don’t revisit it regularly, I’m not getting any value out of it. Oops, it just auto-renewed so I guess I’m using it for another year.

I also have 1Password ($3) and Pinboard ($1.50), the former which is an essential, and the latter which is mainly just to keep my bookmarks archived from a former web app that…stored bookmarks. I never look at Pinboard—or make new web bookmarks—but at such a price, it’s a legacy thing to hold on to. [Update: I actually just paid for a lifetime of Anybox ($40), which is just a bookmark storage service. I took one look at it over December and decided I’d find some use for it, if only to archive important bookmarks from Pinboard.]

Technically, a subscription to the New Yorker is more likely “entertainment,” but it’s in the digital category for some reason. For $14 a month, it comes with the paper subscription and access to all their digital stuff. After initially getting lured in by a red tote bag—and a low low introductory price—I now don’t know how I ever lived without the New Yorker. I love the articles, the writers, the (a little too frequent) physical copies, all of it. In theory one could skedaddle from introductory price to introductory price, but I want to support the New Yorker anyway so now just renew every year.

The newest addition to my digital category is a subscription to The Cut ($3), which includes all the digital brands under New York Magazine—including Curbed, Grub Street, Intelligencer, The Strategist, and Vulture. Mainly I found myself frustrated trying to read the few free monthly articles on The Cut and figured it was high time to get a subscription. I don’t regularly read those other sites but I added all of them to my RSS reader so maybe I’ll find some exciting stuff on them soon.

The Ringer—my go-to site—recently went through a redesign and their RSS links all died. People are aghast. If there was a subscription fee for just a RSS feed of the Ringer, I would pay big money for it. Big money!

Entertainment

As for movies and TV, it’s Netflix ($23), Max ($12.50), and until recently, Paramount and sometimes Peacock. Paramount was mostly for old seasons of The Challenge, and Peacock was purely for one show: Poker Face. Now both are gone and we’re down to just Netflix and Max.

Then there’s NBA League Pass ($13), Marvel Unlimited ($6), and Nintendo Online ($3), which are pretty self explanatory. I rarely use Marvel Unlimited actually, despite years of having it, but I just like to have it around. I also added Marvel Snap to the entertainment list as I’m dedicated to the game and also equally dedicated to not buying more stuff on it save for the ten dollar monthly season pass.

My Spotify($17) supports a family of friends, and obviously, is a must-have. Also, after Stitcher shut down, I moved to Pocket Casts, which has Plus for $1.25 per month. While Pocket Casts has some issues, I do love it and having a podcast app subscription is a must!

YouTube Premium

And the one life changer that I must discuss: YouTube Premium, which at $23 a month—for the family plan, which includes six accounts—has been the best thing ever. Before, I rarely used YouTube unless absolutely necessary, but with the ads removed, YouTube has transformed into an indispensable resource for anything and everything.

You don’t know how much ads hold you back until you don’t have them. Wait, that’s not true, you totally know. But for short form videos like those on YouTube, ads are a killer. So now, freed from even two seconds of ads, I can just surf from video to video, going wherever my mood takes me.

And as I’ve discovered, YouTube has EVERYTHING. That’s obvious but really, it has everything. Besides just content, YouTube has all the how-tos, the explainers, the supercuts, the coming soons, the tier lists, the icebergs, everything. Video creators are making content I never knew I needed, stretching back fifteen years or so.

YouTube has facilitated my deep dives into every subject—recent ones include Modern MBA, Real Science, the history of Godzilla, fourth generation K-pop, Chinese contemporary art, dance tutorials, and on and on. I YouTube how to pronounce things, I YouTube obscure animals, I YouTube history documentaries, a lot of history documentaries. Over time I’ve habituated to put anything into the YouTube search bar, confident that something useful and interesting will surface.

Initially, I had only gotten YouTube Red—which then became Premium—because my friend was getting it and asked if I wanted to split it. I used the no-ad experience for my at-home karaoke. (Which is great btw, and I still have this account open for your use, if you want to scream into microphones at your own house.) As I started to search more things, YouTube slowly morphed into my most utilized consumption app. It was taking over my time spent with podcast, with television and movies, with Googling random stuff, with books even.

Wherever your mind wants to go, YouTube can take you. That’s what YouTube Premium does, and all for the low low price of $15.

“When I meet fellow YouTube Premium people, we are so proud that we’re in this club. This is the one streaming service we’d never give up. YouTube just has everything.” Tim Heidecker Favorite Things 2024
“This is the best money you’ll spend. I love movies, I love television, but that world is kind of shifting its shape a little bit. So in the meantime, I’m devouring so much YouTube content. I have a crew of friends on YouTube that don’t even know me.” Andrew Kuo’s11 Favorite Things 2023

Hosting ($35)

Ah, all the holdovers of an internet life once lived. I have Bluehost for my web hosting, GoDaddy for my various URLs (just four these days), and Soundcloud Pro to store all my past, and past past, podcast episodes. All of these could probably go but it’s important that I maintain my own archives for future generations, don’t you think?

Storage ($18)

This one is easy: storage for Google and storage for Apple. I’m paying three dollars a month for 200GB of Google storage on my main account. There’s also a mystery twenty dollars I’m paying--as recorded on my spreadsheet—but that may be outdated. Seeing as I use Google Docs as my go-to for everything, this is a must-have item. Also I back up my photos on Google Photo here, but that’s low-res and free, I think.

As for iCloud, that most essential of services, I upgraded to 2TB awhile ago and now have four friends on my family plan. After backing up all our phones—and photos—we are still using barely half of the space. It feels luxurious to have so much room for everyone. It’s like I tacked on ADUs to my mansion. Also, I’m paying for my friend’s iCloud storage in Brazil still apparently. So it’s like a second home for me.

House ($9)

I used to pay for an alarm system for my house but after I got over my paranoia of strangers coming in, I decided to cancel it. Now there’s just two camera subscriptions—one of my house, one for my mom’s. I don’t understand the people who don’t have cameras set up at the house. Outside at least, if not inside. Don’t you want to see what’s going on?! Strangely, I don’t have a doorbell camera, but one in my kitchen and living room, covering the front door. Also, my physical door bell fell off a year ago and I never bothered replacing it because my rationale was that anyone needing to find me at home wouldn’t be using my doorbell anyway. So far, no regrets and a lot more quiet.

Shopping: 2024 Review and 2025 Budgeting

2025-01-05T14:16:00.000-08:00

After going through and finishing Ways and Means 2024, I decided I needed to get a closer look at shopping and see what that was all about. I thought I had done a pretty decent job of not buying as much this year but the tale of the tape said I didn’t. So what went into that $10,500 of shopping category?

The previous year's “shopping” was only $8,800, even with lots of big ticket items and hobbies not even separated out. So what in the world was 2024’s shopping all about? And what lessons can I learn to cut down on the number of trips to consumerism—and late night Amazon?

Setting aside $1,800 on a tattoo in October, $1,250 for Taiwan shopping that had to be done—we will never need socks again, until our next trip…—and then $1,000 on MacBook Air and a replacement Pencil, there was $2,500 left over in the mysterious “shopping” tag.

But before I get to that, let’s clear out the other tags first with books, games, and house things. In 2024, I spent $750 on forty-five books, with twenty three digital ones at $11 each, and physical at $23. Digital games was $650 for twenty-seven instances, at an average of $24 each. Physical games cost $400 for eleven, at $36 each. That’s about a thousand dollars spent on games—minus LOL and Snap which was $1,600 combined,if you’ll recall.

House stuff cost $1,500 between needed things, new decorative stuff and furniture, and some small supplies like batteries and Swiffer replacements. House is house stuff, that can’t really be changed or cut down.

And fate also delivered a Celtics title this year—finally!—so I had to splurge on some championship stuff after they won the title: Celtics wearable gear ($120), Funko Pop series for the starting lineup ($110), Panini cards ($45), SLAM and SI magazine covers ($45 combined). That’s a total of $300 spent on a Finals win.

The wise man would just invest $200 now in a Celtics title bet and see if they can pull it off again for a back-to-back. A now even wiser man says that betting on the Celtics is never a good idea so I’ll just budget out some more money for the inevitable nineteenth title in 2025. Screw the luxury tax, we’re going all in!

Shopping

So what went into the broad shopping tag anyway? A wetsuit was the only thing over a hundred dollars—it was one-fifty--and then it was death by sixty-four cuts as $2,000 was spent under “shopping.”

Note: Once again, we’ll disregard everything we bought in Taiwan as that was just pure value and joy from my partner's first time to Taiwan—for the record it was $500 of shopping stuff from Taiwan.

I went through and labeled each purchase as one, two, or three, with one being “had to get,” two as “maybe not needed”, and three “nope, bad decision.”

Of those three categories, $800 on twenty-nine items were a great decision. A lot of that was essentials like the wetsuit, some surf grass, compact travel chargers, two pairs of Loop earplugs (amazing!), and some phone lanyards, art markers, and a Glocusent book light that may change my life by allowing me to read physical books again.

Also, there was a stuffie or two in there. Did you know that forty percent of US adults sleep with a stuffie? "The Case for Sleeping With Stuffed Animals as an Adult"

Looking at the list, there was more surf and pool stuff too. Actually, all the essential items I looked at fall into three or four broad categories: water use related things, electronics, stuff for phones, and art or pen stationary.

Shopping section two was twenty-eight items of questionable buying, which totaled about $900. All of these items could probably have been not bought and not missed, so we’ll keep that in mind. And at the end of the list, eight things totaling $250 could have definitely gone. They were literally all bags or cute things, as will be examined below.

So of the 2024 non-Taiwan, non-Big Ticket Item stuff, it was a tad under two thousand and I think I can cut that exactly in half to one thousand dollars. We can do it!

Clothing

There was $350 spent on clothing in Taiwan, on twelve occurrences. A lot of those were sock related. The standout expensive item was a Zara jacket ($90) that I’ve actually yet to wear, as this other green one ($30) has been far more versatile. Clothes shopping in Taiwan is a must, and for those prices, no issues at all!

The rest of my seventeen clothing purchases aren’t that exciting at all, as I’ve largely found my wardrobe—I wear the same thing ninety percent of the time—and most of it was just basic items like thermals, baggier sweatpants, very long basketball shorts, and replacement items. Somehow all that added up to $1,000 spent on clothes. Shrug?

I did go look around for Nineties styled denim shorts and jeans this summer and I found them at Zumiez, for about $40 each. As you can sense in the stuff I bought this year: loose is back and we gotta look the part.

Speaking of looking the part, I got an extra-thick Coke logo-ed white shirt from PacSun around the same time, on the heels of New Jeans’ “So Sweet” video, which was basically a giant ad for Coca-Cola. I subsequently wore my new baggy outfit to a k-pop party—the best of the many in 2024 I went to—and think it was probably my best sartorial decision of the year. “New Jeans never die!”

I could easily half clothes shopping to $500, so that’ll be the goal.

Gifts

A category broken into three sets: friends, family, and partner. For friends, there was very minimal spent since I only gifted absolute essentials, which cost $200 and I have no regrets. I would’ve gifted someone a white Simple Human trash can but they refused refused refused.

As for family, a total of $1,100 was gifted, which was mostly to the nieces--and one or two things for the nephew now that he is of age to remember me—and some to George. Of those thirty five items, nine were from Taiwan ($250), thirteen given with no regrets ($300), six given that probably wasn’t necessary ($150), and seven that were perhaps outright not needed at all ($450) and likely gave me as much joy as the receivers.

So, I could likely save $600 on not impulse buying stuff for the kids and instead funnel say, $300 into valuable things for them. Maybe I should just tell them their annual budget for things from me and they can start a pre-budget club budget club?

Lastly I spent $500 on gifts for my now partner. Of that, it was mostly replacement iPods, Xmas stuff, some clothing such as two Forever 21 jackets that looked absolutely amazing, and our tour de resistance: "Taipei Tennis Club" clothes that we designed, which is really a gift for us both. If anything, I need to shower her with more gifts in 2025.

So the new budget for gifts in 2025 is as follows:

Friends: $100
Family: $400 ($100 per child, and Georgemeer)
Partner: Unlimited!!!

Bags

So the two things I was supposed to cut back on this year was cute stuff and bags—owing to my declaration to “give up X” if the Celtics win a championship in 2024.

The Celtics won their eighteenth title on June 18 and yet after that date, I still bought twelve bags. Four of them were Ape and Bird fanny backs, which can be excused, but that left eight still to be accounted. Mark another one off since it was just a plain old black duffel for travel, and we’re still left with seven bags bought that were done in violation of my vow. Note: Does this mean the Celtics won’t win title nineteen back-to-back?!

Hello Kitty duffle, a backup white Miffy bag for one I bought a few weeks proper, a gift bag that wasn’t used, two Elecbae Candy Bags that were so cool but likely unnecessary, a bag shaped like a pizza the was truly me and also truly on sale. And then somehow I got a Carhartt waist bag that I’ve yet to use. And lastly, I bought a Cotopaxi Allpa 20L ($140) to replace my Allpa 28L but as it turned out, the 20L was too small and will likely be used as more of a daily travel backpack.

In sum, I spent $225 on seven bags pre-vow and $425 on twelve bags post-vow. Of those nineteen purchased bags, I could’ve likely cut thirteen of them. So new rule: I can only get three bags in 2025, totaling two hundred dollars. T-H-R-E-E. And that’s only to leave room in case we see something great in Asia when we go there in the spring.

Cute

Okay, and looking at things labeled “cute,” I spent $850 on cute things—minus some for family gifts, which don’t count here—encompassing forty-three items. Of those forty-plus items, I likely only needed ten of them as must-haves, most of them digital stuff like LINE stickers or these wonderful iOS apps by Euihyung Jung that are just illustrated bears. (I bought all four of them—at about a dollar each—just to have the icons on my phone. Zero regrets!)

Of all those cute things, I could’ve spent under a hundred dollars on just the essentials--plus a hundred spent in Taiwan—which would mean that I could’ve trimmed $150 of “definitely didn’t need” and then $500 of “probably didn’t need.”

Things that fall into the “probably didn’t need” was a CIVIVI Baby Banter knife, a JBL Go Speaker, Logitech Pebble Keyboard, Care Bears x Hello Kitty collaboration, and little pink and yellow chubby stars that I got two packs of to give to guests. Like I said, prooooobably don’t need but wasn’t terrible to have.

Things I definitely didn’t need was a Hello Kitty necklace ($40) that says “Jace” on it, a Peach Fuzz Sardine lighter, Sanrio watches for the kids, some Hello Kitty stickers, and the aforementioned pizza bag.

So new rule for 2025: I can spend $100 on cute things, and then $50ish on one single item like a knife or little speaker type thing. Oh yeah, and no more stuffies, Care Bears, or Sanrio items—for me.

To summarize my new shopping budget and rules for 2025:

Shopping: $5,000
Clothing: $500
Gifts: $500 + partner stuff
Bags: $200, three max bags allowed
Cute: $100 and one single $50+ item, with no Care Bears and etc allowed!
Books: $500, but no real max, as needed
Games, Digital: $400
Games, Physical: $200
No computers, phones, or large electronics needed this year
A few little tattoos, with exceptions for Asia based artists if available

Last year, all the things I mentioned above totaled $12,000 give or take. Assuming the same amount for house and beauty stuff ($2,000), we can trim that remaining $10,000 from 2024 down to $4,000 for 2025.

There is an Asia and Europe trip for later this year, so that’ll have to be accounted for, but perhaps at max that non-house and beauty number will be pushed to $5,000 for “shopping” overall—budgeting a thousand dollars for big trip shopping. Okay, we can do this right? Where there’s a goal, there’s a way!

Ways and Means: 2024 Recap

2024-12-31T18:57:00.000-08:00

Life Summary

After declaring myself post-food and post-travel in 2024, I did indeed ingest less food and also went less places. Aside from a few jaunts to Los Angeles, there was only one trip: a short five day run to New York, mainly to get a tattoo. So after Taiwan in January, I was just in good old San Diego.

Did I succeed in making more money in 2024, as my resolution was? Heck no! Maybe next year… The biggest change in 2024 was more partying—which meant more alcohol I guess?—and a dramatic downswing in how much I spent on video games, mostly League of Legends. Still, there are cuts that could be made there. With 2025 around the corner, I have an idea of how the year will play out, but let’s look at last year first!

Month by Month Breakdown

Jan: $3,250 (Offset -$2000)
Feb: $2,900
Mar: $2,500
Apr: $2,500
May: $2,300
Jun: $2,200
Jul: $2,700
Aug: $2,700
Sep: $2,500
Oct: $2,300 (Offset $-400)
Nov: $2,800
Dec: $2,200

Variable Expenses

I averaged $2,600 variable expenses a month, lower than last year’s by three hundred dollars. That’s not far off my projected $2,500 per month budget and has to be my finest month by month ever! Granted, I did use two offsets for January and October, due to Taiwan (-$2000) and New York ($-400) respectively.

Note: I usually use “offset” to half out my vacation travel, and then add that half to Annual because I don’t want it to bloat my monthly but also don’t want to make it artificially low by throwing everything into Annual when I travel.

Barring January in Taiwan—which would have been $5,300 without the offset—every other month this year was under three thousand dollars! That's not too bad, and very consistent. I'll have to see how that falls in line with my pre-COVID monthly expenditures.

Six Big Categories

🥐 Food: $14,500
🏏 Shopping: $10,500
🪂 Play: $5,500
✈️ Transportation: $3,500
🎲 Hobbies: $2,500
🏠 House: $1,500

The old big four categories was expanded last year to add two more: hobbies and house. I realized my expenditure for games—mostly video—was skewing all my play and shopping stuff, so I wanted to break them out. The same thing with “house,” which I felt like deserved its own big category.

Despite going post-food from the beginning for 2024, I somehow spent more money on food in 2024 than in 2023. I’ll have to figure out why that was exactly. And with hobbies and house broken out, “shopping” somehow still went up by more than two thousand dollars. Again, an investigation must be done! The subsequent drop in “play” from 2023 to 2024 had to be mostly hobbies related I’m guessing.

In all, it was $35k in variable expenses, $12.5k fixed, and then $11k in annual expenses. Overall it amounts to $58,500 on the year and a lifestyle of $76,000 lifestyle pre-tax. And that’s with my $2000 mortgage wiped out. We’re gonna have to dig deeper into 2024 to figure out what in the world happened, as I barely traveled all year and was mostly home from what I recall! [Edit Dec 2025: I messed up the adding and changed the math, so now it's much lower than the previously estimated number.]

Food

An aside about food. I started tracking our groceries by line item after awhile because our bills were starting to get quite high. Like from a hundred and fifty or so to over two hundred regularly. Were prices actually getting higher? Or should we go to different grocery stores for lower prices? After some serious tracking, the short answer was: food costs are just higher.

I did split out grocery bills into actual groceries and household supplies—toilet paper, etc etc—and that helped to see what was happening, but overall, the extra fifty dollars spent per trip to the grocery store was mostly just an increase in prices over the year. The only cut we instituted was to eliminate getting a sumo citrus bag that was fifteen dollars. Back to regular oranges!

In addition, my goal this year was to spend less on paying for people when I eat with them—which I would say I do about half the time.

For my own personal food, I have a “dining out” tag, which resulted in $1,500 spent on the year. My “dining out shared” tag came to a grand total of $7,500 though.

I broke down those shared meals and it came down to: meals with my partner ($3,400), meals with friends ($2,300), and then a few instances of food with family or taking food over to Poway ($750).

In theory some of that is cuttable, but there were really only eleven instances where I paid for friends—aside from family or partners, or my one friend who was jobless for some time.

Somehow, food was thirty percent of my total expenditure this year, which seems in line with years prior, but I was hoping to be lower. I’ll have to battle that category yet again I suppose! Actually, that has to be wrong somehow...2023 was one-fifth of my money going to food, so that seems higher than quite a bit possibly.

Big Ticket Items

I broke out “big ticket items” to more categories, namely shopping, electronics, and play. You’ll see why below but mostly it was because “big ticket item” was starting to be too much of a catch all and I needed more specificity.

Tattoo ($1,800)
MacBook Air ($800)
XG Concert ($450)
O’Neil wetsuit ($150)
BAB RISO Class ($150)
Cotopaxi Allpa 20L ($150)

And then there were a few Target runs for stuffies and household things, that ran around one hundred and fifty dollars each. The big item was obviously the tattoo, my first since 2020. I’d been waiting for this artist since I discovered her last year—she lives in Hong Kong—and when I saw that she was going to be in New York, it seemed great timing to just go there and get it done.

Also, after an unconscionable amount of time, I upgraded my Mac Pro 2015 to a 2022 Air which was on mega-sale. That was my big electronics purchase this year and that means a new Mac, PC, iPad, and iPhone in the last two years. I should be good for awhile right?!

Along with all that, throw in some door covers for parties, a San Diego Wave game, a family time art Skate World, a terrible Candlelight concert, a train ride to Tainan, two Poway Adult School classes—for Procreate and Korean—and my Annual really had quite a bit in it this year. Note: I may not even be using “Annual” enough, as I found out George throws tons of stuff in there, like a whole lot!

In 2025, a new car is (finally) coming, and overall my house did quite well in its seventh year post-remodel. Nothing huge broke, yay! Oh wait, except for a massive water leak that cost maybe $1,000 extra in water bills, but hey, the water company gave me like two hundred dollars back so that’s sort of a win.

Looking forward for annual stuff, there’s a big Asia trip coming up, and possibly LASIK…

Trips

Oh, zero actual money was spent on flights this year, as I went to New York with miles. Airport taxis did cost five hundred though, between Taiwan and New York trips. Oh, I totally forgot I also went to Salt Lake City in March for a few days, but that was paid for by not me. And the only accommodations I paid for was two nights in Tainan ($250) and then one night in K-Town LA so we could rest after a party for about the same amount.

Category and Tags

We already covered the big six categories above, so we’ll just look at some tags. Dining out, solo or with people, came out to twenty-three percent, which was quite a bit higher than last year for some reason. Add in groceries and that’s thirty percent total. I could conceivably cut my snack and boba intake in half, thus saving around a thousand dollars. Perhaps the goal for 2025 should be to do exactly that, especially on the snacks!

In a surprise, alcohol was my biggest “play” expenditure this year, as we went over a bit more than last year, to a total of two thousand dollars. Let me just tell you that even as a non-drinker, I can hold my liquor and apparently I’m buying $167 per month worth of drinks for myself and others! To add on to that, I added a “party” tag to track how much I paid for various parties and covers, and it was five hundred dollars total.

Movies was broken down into “theater” and “digital” and they were at $650 and $100 respectively, which seems like an overall drop from last year.

I did the same for books too, separating them out into physical and digital purchases, which added up to $550 and $250 respectively, leaving me with seven hundred and fifty dollars spend on books this year.

My shopping tag seemed a bit high--especially in January and November—so I’ll have to figure out what that was. Less post-midnight browsing on Amazon is must-change. Plus, all the “shopping” doesn’t include family gifts, clothes, books, household stuff, and stuff like Cocofloss, etc. Next year I’m adding “dental” tag by the way, to track expenditures for our new dental mouthwash system. Note: Google Dr. Ellie’s Complete Dental System for the scoop!

As for the new hobbies category, the main culprit was still League of Legends, but that’s going to drop dramatically in 2025 as I’ll only be paying for the bare minimum for our clan. Marvel also dropped, as I am still playing but not buying skins, and actually moved the whole thing to a yearly subscription of $9.99 monthly for the season pass. I’ll still track “LOL / Snap” together for one more year, just to make sure it’s in decline for 2025.

Other games stuff I got was $650 for digital and $350 for physical, which mainly means board games and such. I’ll cover those in a separate post.

Finally, there were some decorative upgrades to the house, mainly a new corner cabinet, a cork felt thing for the office wall, and then a full replacement of pillows and throw blankets for the salon area. Plus there’s a new table for the kitchen—farewell modular metal cafe tables, farewell!—but my partner purchased that so it’s not on the budget. We are now a round table family.

Tags added: Dental, Party, LOL/Snap combined. Removed: Games, as it has been split into two. Also, “household” is now “supplies.” That’s all folks, stay tuned for an exciting 2025 with big purchases, big travel, and big life changes ahead!

Ways and Means: 2023 Recap

2023-12-31T16:52:00.000-08:00

We’re so close to catching up! I write this, once again, in February 2024, but that means we’re just one year away from the present day in blog world. One of my resolutions for 2024 is to cut down on my cute spending. That literally means stop buying “cute” things on instinct. Instead I’m going to start a photo album of things I wanted to buy but didn’t. This will surely preserve lots of money. Oh and in 2024 I also have the resolution to “make some money.” How I’ll do that? I don’t know yet! But let’s see how I do later. For now, we rewind the clock back to 2023…

Once again, it was a quiet year for the most part, but punctuated by many trips to Los Angeles as I helped to resettle my friend. Starting in April or so, I even took some jaunts up there myself to hang out. And then once September hit, the traveling was on, as I went to San Franciso for a fortieth birthday, Colorado for a wedding, New York for New York, and then finally back to my beloved Taiwan from mid-November and on. Let’s take a look!

Jan: $2,250
Feb: $1,750
Mar: $2,250
Apr: $3,250
May: $3,250
Jun: $3,000
Jul: $2,750
Aug: $2,250
Sep: $3,500
Oct: $5,000
Nov: $3,250
Dec: $2,500

I averaged $2,900 variable expenses a month, which was slightly lower than 2022. There were some sterling months as well, with February coming in under two thousand dollars, which hasn’t happened in awhile I don’t think. Aside from a spike in October—certainly New York related—most of my monthly variable expenditures was right around $2,500 to $3,000. Not bad! Just a nice and even distribution.

🥐 Food: $13,500
🪂 Play: $9,000
🏏 Shopping: $8,000
✈️ Transportation: $3,500

Once again food dropped lower when compared to the previous year, albeit by just a smidge. Can I get this food number under $1000 a month? Maybe! And for the first time ever, I think, “play” overtook “shopping,” which makes no sense because I don’t recall what I spent so much money on playing! Although I have my suspicions that the uptick is video game related. We’ll find out in tags.

In sum, for 2023, it was $35k in variable expenses, $35k fixed (while still accounting for $2k in mortgage, which I’ll wipe next year), and a mere $8k in annual expenses. That’s $78,000 on the year and a nifty $101.5k lifestyle. Taking away the mortgage stuff, that would translate to $54k pre-tax and $70k afterwards. So in theory I need to make say, $75,000 in 2024 to break even? Is that how balancing the checkbook works?

There were the usual high amount of big ticket items this year. I’m gonna delve a little deeper into “shopping” since I did a real in-depth analysis of what I bought in 2023. For now, suffice to say that “big ticket items” for the year included paying for LOL coaching for my teams, a new television for my mom’s apartment in Taipei, new tires, a few concerts and etc. Actually I have a handy list so I’ll just put it below.

Here Lies Love, musical ($400)
Gracie Abrams, concert ($300)
Sleep No More ($300)
Taylor Swift, birthday party ($250)
143 SoSuperSam, party ($150)
SD Wave, sports game ($150)
Yaeji, concert ($100)
Duplex, singing ($200)
Club Nebula, party ($200, twice)
Karaoke, singing ($150)
Ultra EDM, party ($125)

Actually the trusty Lexus was great this year, as those replacement tires was the only thing I spent money on. Maybe going over 200k miles is making it purr like a kitten!

I did not fly that often in 2023, and that is reflected in the mere $600 spent in “flights.” Most of that was actually on a change fee, and just a few taxis to the airport and back. If you take a taxi to JFK and back, that’s an additional $200 to get to wherever you’re going in New York. Not one real flight was paid for still in 2023, but I believe my credit card points are about finished.

As for “accommodations,” the total was $1,500 and half of that was for an Airbnb in Sonoma and then the other half for lodging in Colorado. We were grateful to have free housing in New York for our stay. There was a newly enforced Airbnb crackdown in New York just as we went, and that made renting an apartment impossible. Thank you friends!

There was also two Uber rides from LA to SD and back, on separate occasions as the train was down. And frankly, $150 or so from LA to SD in an Uber was cheaper than I expected.

And finally my good old house. Most of the year it was great, as there was just a tub re-caulking and then some door and shower stuff, which totaled about two hundred dollars. However, right as I left in November, the sprinklers in the front yard blew up and there was a lot spent on fixing it. How much I don’t know because my mom paid for it. Many hundreds at least, if not a thousand. And due to that leakage, there’s also an unknown water bill that has yet to be accounted for. Too little water is just as bad as too much apparently!

The one other HUGE expense this year was my teeth. From Jan until November, I was doing a full process to get implants in to replace my bridge. The total bill came out to around $12k, and I have no real dental so my mom had to help pay for that. You know, I’m still only semi-adulting, right? It’s a small price to pay—or not pay, in my case—for twenty-plus years of free dental work from my dad’s best friend. Thank you Dr. Charles, for your many many free gifts.

As for the trips this year, I only compiled the two weeks in New York and then the forty days in Taiwan—both of which came with free lodging. New York cost four thousand dollars, at about $280 per day, while Taipei was the same total, but at $85 a day. That’s free flights and room and board mind you!

To break down shopping, let’s start with clothing, which I have a tag for. It was $1,200 total, and that was about twenty-five shopping times. Twice a month? No wait, that’s twenty-five items. Included are a scarf I got at the Guggenheim gift shop ($150) that I had to have, and then $100 for a denim jacket from Dresscue that quickly became my new go-to jacket. Both are great buys, even if the scarf has yet to be used because once again I can’t bear to get it dirty. George and I both have this issue apparently, wearing things that cost over a hundred dollars?

Also, once again, my hopes for a Celtic championship suckered me into buying some Celtics stuff. This time Eastern Conference title T-shirts and gear at the cost of ninety dollars. The emotional damage from losing was far far greater though. Immeasurable!

There was a $350 splurge at the Herschel warehouse sale—the one expenditure I truly regret. Friends were in town for a Memorial Day gathering and I wanted us to all learn New Jeans’ OMG routine, so I hired a teacher for $250. And then throw in a new zoo pass and that covers events I think.

I purchased sixty books this year, at about twenty dollars each, totaling $1,200 or so. That’s in line with my usual expenditure on books.

“Games” came out to be about $1000, which is either board or video games, such as Diablo 4, the new Street Fighter, etc. and two Miyoo Mini Plus machines ($90 each) for handheld retro gaming—one was for a friend. I also separated out tags for League of Legends and my new addiction: Marvel Snap. Is it good to pay for cosmetics for two games? Nope! But I think LOL will be winding down. Having said that, three thousand dollars was still spent on LOL in 2023, and then about a thousand on Snap. We’ll be replacing Snap with LOL next year, which should be cheaper. I don’t want to scare you, but in sum, I’ve spent about $10k on LOL from 2021-2023, which works out to about $250 a month.

Oh yeah, I also paid up through 2026 for my fantasy basketball league. Which cost $300. And I also got some electronics this year. An additional full set of N64 stuff for The New Tetris—which made a huge comeback in my life after staying dormant for twenty years. There was about a month there where we all got re-hooked back on Tetris. It’s still the greatest game ever.

Other beep beep boop boop things was an iPad Air and a gaming PC laptop, both for around $1000. Both were huge upgrades but also, in theory, not entirely necessary. Not like the $300 I spent on backpacks in New York, those were necessary. I found two Lefrik backpacks I loved at some store in Cobble Hill and then two days later found a Bellroy one in Williamsburg for $175 that I had to have. I’m still allowed to buy backpacks moving forward I think, just no more cute things. Luckily my shopping in Taipei will be accounted for in 2024.

The most important thing I’m doing for next year is splitting out “shopping” and “hobbies,” because all this gaming is bloating my “shopping” category.

Overall, dining out, shared or otherwise, is still about eighteen percent of all the variable money I spent. That’s one-fifth of my money going to food! Can we get that to fifteen percent, ten? Haha.

Taxis were huge in 2023, but I think that’s from New York and Taiwan stuff, I assume. Oh yep, I spent $500 on Ubers in Taiwan for just December, as I kind of just taxi everywhere. The difference is made up for in the cheap food I think.

The other outlier was a $1,800 number next to “alcohol.” I forgot to mention that starting in April, I started going out again a lot. In San Diego, in Los Angeles, wherever I was. So I guess going out dancing equals money spent on drinks! That alcohol number includes $450 in September and $700 in October. Aside from those two, all as normal! If more in “shopping” this past year, but I delved into that already.

For tags, I took out “gifts relationship,” “popcorn,” and “karaoke.” Multiple tags such as “travel” was unused so I’m adjusting those out. Things to answer for next year is how to categorize movies: rentals, in theater, etc.

Alrighty, we’re finally caught up and headed toward 2024 with energy and a possible revamp of tracking. Will there be some actual budgeting too? Who knows!

Ways and Means: 2022 Recap

2022-12-31T16:44:00.000-08:00

The year started in Mexico, and was mostly sedentary, aside from a weekend in Joshua Tree in March. Full time travel was not on the table yet, but there was a glorious three weekish stint spent in Mexico, which included a weekend there for a wedding and then two weeks in Mexico City….. And wait I’m totally wrong here. [Again, this is being written in Feb 2024.]

I forgot about a week in New York for LOL Worlds! I hadn’t been to New York in so long and this was a short but sweet trip. Actually I also totally forgot about two weeks in Michigan, a weekend in Las Vegas, and two weeks in LA basically. And 2022 actually started with me getting COVID, likely caught in Mexico and then me carrying it across the border to transfer it onto someone else! So yeah, sorry. This would explain why January was oh so quiet. Anyway, here we go with the 2022 expenses recap, andale andale!

Jan: $3,250
Feb: $3,250
Mar: $3,250
Apr: $3,050
May: $2,500
Jun: $4,250
Jul: $2,750
Aug: $2,750
Sep: $2,750
Oct: $4,500
Nov: $3,000
Dec: $3,500

I averaged $3,250 variable expenses a month, which was a very steady first four months at pretty much exactly that number. June was a tad bit higher, likely due to a weekend trip to Las Vegas that I now forgot about. July through September were all remarkably the same as well, which speaks well for I guess the summer months? Once October came around, it was New York followed by Mexico, and that took variable back up of course—although not by much, especially in Mexico City.

🥐 Food: $16,500
🏏 Shopping: $10,500
🪂 Play: $6,750
✈️ Transportation: $3,250

In a surprise, food dropped down almost four thousand dollars from the previous year, while the other three major categories stayed about the same. Why the savings on food? I don’t know! Actually, getting back to around $15,000 is more in line with previous years, so 2021 must have been an aberration.

For 2022’s total, it was $37k in variable expenses, $36k in fixed, and $10k in annual. That’s $83,000 for the year, with post-tax adjustment up to $108k. That’s lower than 2021, but higher than in 2020 or 2019. In fact, it’s my second-highest year ever. Since I’ve been keeping track of this Ways and Means, we’ve seen a steady increase of expenses as I’ve moved from my mid-thirties to my mid-forties. I’m gonna compile the annual pre-tax expenditures in the chart below.

2022: $83k (58)
2021: $92k (67)
2020: $80.5k (55.5)
2019: $73.5k (48.5)
2018: $70k (45)
2017: $42k
2016: $42.5k
2015: $37.5k
2014: $39k

As you’ll see, there’s a huge jump from 2017 to 2018, but that is all owing to having a house, which increased fixed expenses by $24k a year—which is rent/mortgage—and having a house presumably means more fixed expenses aka bills. If I take out say, -$25k per year post-2017 to account for the house stuff, the annual increases aren’t quite as high. In fact, it’s only thirteen thousand dollars more from 2022 to 2018. Hurray! Right? Well I dunno. Perhaps for the next few years I should separate out rent since I technically am not actually paying it.

Moving right along to big ticket items. Somehow I watched Wicked ($350) again? Or maybe these were gift tickets, I can’t recall. There were some other viewing events actually, so I’ll just list them. The Harry Potter Musical ($300), a Yuja Wang concert ($250) at Walt Disney Hall, Kristina Wong’s Sweatshop Overlord ($150) at La Jolla Playhouse, Pageant of the Masters ($150) in Newport Beach, and then KPOP musical ($100). And of course two days for LOL Worlds tickets ($250), which was a wild time.

That’s a lot more things I’ve seen in 2022 than the previous years combined right? Pandemic is over! The only other big ticket items were a trip to Universal Studios ($200), a few surfboards ($500), at least one wetsuit ($200), and these pants which I’ve never worn, not even two years later, and cost a hefty $250. They are great pants, but so expensive I have been using these sixty dollar Uniqlo ones that are almost as good but clearly not as stylish. One day I’ll wear them, I promise. I can’t even recall what they look like exactly but I got them at the Tortoise General Store in LA, and they are sort of like this. Oh I can’t overlook the $200 I bet on the Celtics to win the finals. You can figure out if that money was well spent or not.

The annual car issue, this time for a mere $700, and then the house stuff, which was pretty small aka the heating unit had issues ($250) and the dishwasher broke around March, and as it turned out, there’s a dishwasher shortage in America so we had to look further afield for both a good one and one that was sized small enough to fit my slightly askew dishwasher opening. The new Asko dishwasher cost $1,250 but it has been a dream. Honestly, a few weeks without a dishwasher was not fun. Suburban privilege, I know… Two medical check-ups, one annual and one follow up for something I also don’t recall, totaling $750, and then $300 on dental work. (Wait till we get to 2023 to hear about my teeth adventures!)

Total amount used on flights was $1,400, which was actually just airport taxis—I count those as “flight” in my tags because they are travel related—plus bag fees and change fees. (Airport taxis was a whopping $550, while luggage was $450.) Note that none of these “flights” expenses was on any actual flights. I’ve been using my credit card points for actual flights since a few years ago as I had a huge amount stored up. Heck, this year I even bought a ticket ($130) to just go into LAX to hang out before my friend’s flight took off.

And onto accommodations. There was a Magic Castle trip that included staying next door at the Magic Castle Hotel ($200), and then a week or so in New York at a pricey but necessary Airbnb in LES ($2,500), three nights in Vegas ($800), and then a few days in Sayulita ($600).

And in an extreme shock to those who have followed this blog over the years, I apparently didn’t tabulate how much I spent on trips this year. Not the two weeks spent in Mexico to start 2022, nor the New York trip, and even not an expenses recap for Mexico City near the end of the year. Without exact numbers how can I move on with my life?! My best guesstimate for the Mexico trip in January was $1,000, but most of my actual expenses were paid by my girlfriend’s family for that trip. [Thank you so much!!!] The November Mexico trip was Nov 19 through Dec 8, at the cost of $1,400 but that doesn’t account for flights, accommodations, or the all-in hotel that we were at for our friend’s wedding.

Oh actually now that I’m looking at some numbers, there was one glorious three day sprint we had in Los Angeles in February, exploring and jamming everything in. Los Angeles is not usually a trip worth documenting out as an expense, but since it had been a long time since we’d both visited—basically since pre-pandemic—the days was noteworthy and packed. They included lots of fun and food and cost about $1,000 give or take—minus Magic Castle stuff and a hotel in Burbank I believe. There was actually another Los Angeles trip in October, this time for a week, and that cost about a thousand dollars a well. However I can’t recall what we were doing up there… And then to wrap up trips, there was three nights in Vegas at $1,100—again minus accommodations—and New York was roughly $3,000 for eleven days.

To start, I deleted “donations” and “tattoos” from tags while adding/separating out “gifts” between “family” and “relationship” gifting. Looks like we added “event” as a tag too. And “travel” was deleted in lieu of having it separated out to “luggage” I believe. It’s important to update your tags every year, don’t forget! Use a tag for whatever you want to track the end of the year, and as life changes, so will your tags.

As for this year, overall dining out went down, from almost $14k last year to only $10k this year. My suspicion is that the extra four thousand was due to just having a household of two versus a few more. Or maybe we just ate less! As for other things, most other tags were roughly the same, or lower.

It’s just a fact of life now, that LOL costs $4k a year, and I bought many a skin and funded some esports teams for our org. It’s a pricey hobby but it’s definitely my number one hobby these days. And since karaoke has gone from thirty dollars in 2021 to zero in 2022, it’s probably safe to eliminate that as a tag.

I got one more Ways and Means to do so we’ll leave it here. See you in 2023!

Ways and Means: 2021 Recap

2021-12-31T10:08:00.000-08:00

Once again, we're going back a ways -- I'm writing my catch up posts in Feb 2024, haha. So last year was half San Diego, half Mexico City, but for all of 2021, I was in San Diego full time, with a newish relationship underway and the pandemic still kind of raging.

In February, I took a short trip up to Oakland, drove down the coast, and then settled into domestic life with a few pseudo-roommates as quarantine house continued. The early months were full of people and games, and then summer quieted down as people went away and I was even solo for a month or two. By fall, it was safe to travel again, and there were trips to Catalina Island, Hawaii, and then Utah. Let's start as usual with the month-by-month breakdown!

Jan: $3,750
Feb: $2,750
Mar: $4,500
Apr: $3,250
May: $5,500
Jun: $2,750
Jul: $1,750
Aug: $3,250
Sep: $4,000
Oct: $3,500
Nov: $4,750
Dec: $4,000

I averaged $3,500 variable expenses a month, with May spiking into $5,500 territory—it must have been action packed!—and then the end of the year also rising more than normal due to end-of-year travel. The only “quiet” month was July, when everyone had mostly left San Diego, leaving me solo.

🥐 Food: $20,000
🏏 Shopping: $11,500
🪂 Play: $7,000
✈️ Transportation: $2,500

All in all, 2021 resulted in $44k in variable expenses, $35k in fixed expenses, and then $12.5k in annual. That’s about $92,000 for the year, adding up at an astonishing $120k lifestyle.

There were $5,500 worth of “big ticket items”, which included stuff like tickets to Sea World, a shopping spree for my friend, some travel bags and surfboard gear, and quite a few AirPods as gifts! Oh and there was Wicked as well, which I watched twice!

There was a lot of house stuff as well… A new mattress from Tuft & Needle ($800) for a proper guest room, a new TV setup for the newly created salon / family room ($1,000), shelving and bins for the garage ($700), a small couch for the bedroom ($300), and money spent on revising the backyard ($600). Oh and two extra mini-TVs for Fortnite ($200) as I set up multiple TVs for the ultimate viewing experience. Mini-TVs are so cheap! In sum, my house became an actual house this year with the help of my girlfriend, who really leveled up the house all around.

And as my car edges into obscurity, every year it takes about a thousand dollars to keep it alive. 2021 was a new alternator ($350), some wiring issue ($300), and some sort of battery issue ($300). When does a new car come into my life? Considering I’ve never bought a car by myself ever—and I’m not keen to ever buy one—I’ll try to drive this Lexus till it crumples.

One flight to Oakland ($650), a couple of flights to/from Mexico ($650), and that was it for air travel! Then there was one night trip to Catalina which cost $1,000 including hotel, and then twenty-two nights in Hawaii cost about $7,000 all-in.

As for categories and tags, get ready to be shocked! Remember last year when I said: “I justified as LOL being my new hobby and replacing all the “play” I wasn’t going out and doing in the world. Needless to say, I am now making a tracking tag for “LOL” next year.” Well that LOL tag came and it recorded a whopping $3,800 on League of Legends. Was it my biggest expense under Play? It sure was! For those not counting, that adds up to about three hundred dollars per month spent on a video game. Oh but the friendships we made along the way! Run it down!

Aside from that, nothing really leaps out from tags to be honest. The usual high spending on food is there, the eye popping amount spent on boba perhaps, but otherwise it was the same as usual for a year that was mostly spent at home until the last two months.

So while 2021 was a big uptick in spending overall, it was justified right?! There was a physical and digital family to support!

Ways and Means: 2020 Recap

2020-12-31T00:00:00.000-08:00

Well this is going back a ways — I’m writing this in Jan 2022 — but for consistency, I better catch up to two years ago. If you’ll recall, 2020 was the beginning of COVID, and I found myself in Mexico City right as it started.

I had flown down to Mexico City at the end of January, having just blown my book deadline and got ready to settle into a few months in CDMX to study Spanish. There was a quick layover there followed by a weekend or so in Brazil, and then it was Mexico City from February until July, when I returned to the States for a not-so-safe birthday party in the Bay Area.

After that, it was quarantine time in San Diego, and I had my cousin and her roommate from San Francisco living with me from maybe October and on for a full on quarantine house. As you will see, the trajectory of my spending reflects all this greatly.

Jan: $3,250
Feb: $2,750
Mar: $2,500
Apr: $1,500
May: $750
Jun: $1,000
Jul: $1,250
Aug: $3,500
Sep: $3,500
Oct: $3,000
Nov: $3,000
Dec: $4,500

I averaged about $2,500 of variable expenses a month, with the initial COVID months in Mexico City being far lower than normal. And then from August and on, my spending spiked dramatically, culminating in a huge December, which included $500 spent on skins for my newly formed League of Legends team — more on that later.

My general take is that I was supporting a fuller household, but it’s also possible I was just buying a lot of stuff for both home and regular old shopping. Making up for lost pandemic time I suppose?

Incredibly, in May, which was probably super lock-down, I made only thirty-one entries in the Expenses spreadsheet and came in at about $800 for the month — somehow still going over on “dining” but so be it. That will be a record that stands, I believe, unless we enter into quarantine again I suppose.

Our four big categories:

🥐 Food: $14,500
🏏 Shopping: $11,500
🪂 Play: $3,500
✈️ Transportation: $1,500

That all adds up to $31k in variable expenses, $33k in fixed expenses, and then $16.5k in annual expenses. That’s $80.5k for the year — slightly above 2019 — so add the tax back in and I’m back over a $100k lifestyle again. Even in a COVID year where we literally were not allowed to go anywhere!

This year’s big ticket items that were shunted off to “annual”: Nintendo Switch ($450), iPhone X ($500), an iPad for my cousin ($450), two Samsung SDD hard drives ($300), AirPods Pros ($250), and two weeks of immersive Spanish class ($350).

As for the house, the big buys were a smart garage door for my house ($1,600), heating repair ($300), and an Uplift standing desk ($1,000) that will hopefully transform my working life forever.

And then there were the trips: I stayed in an Airbnb in Mexico City for February and March, totaling $3,000 or so. And then in July I was up in the Bay for a birthday weekend ($600), and finally had a week or so in Los Angeles at the end of the year ($1,600). In sum, I spent about $6,000 on “accommodations.”

There were also about $2,000 in flights, of which the majority was spent a trip to Brazil in February for my friend’s wedding. There wasn’t much flying, of course, due to COVID, so it was just one or two flights to and from Mexico City.

And finally, tags! The most prominent tag of interest is “games” which I had used to slot all my League of Legends purchasing. In LOL, you buy Riot Points in order to purchase in-game skins — which are each roughly ten dollars. From 2017 until 2020, I had spent only about $200 total on Riot Points, which isn’t that high considering how much value I got out of the game.

However, in 2020 I really sunk into the game and met some friends online, started a clan, started playing in amateur competitive leagues, and here we go. In 2020, I spent a whopping $1,700 on Riot Points, which I justified as LOL being my new hobby and replacing all the “play” I wasn’t going out and doing in the world. Needless to say, I am now making a tracking tag for “LOL” next year.

Also of note was how close “cigarettes” and “play” was, and how incredibly low movies and karaoke was. Times change don’t they? We can hope that 2021 leads to more life outdoors and in the world but since I'm writing this from the future, I can tell you that pandemic time stretches on another six months past the end of 2020... and maybe even further. So we'll head right into 2021 after this!

Thanks 2020, you saved me lots of money by keeping me in, but also spent lots of money by making me stay put?! I dunno!

Ways and Means: 2019 Recap

2019-12-31T08:09:00.000-08:00

If 2018 was my year of travel, 2019 was my year to stay home and well, ostensibly work on a book. So toward that end, I made a few plans as possible and basically interspersed months of being in my little writing cave versus running off to play for a bit. All in all, I ended up spending more than when I spent months traveling around Asia. How can this be? Let’s find out! Hint: House stuff…

First up, month-to-month variable expenses. With a rough budget of $1,600 a month, I came in under in three months, February, April, and July, which likely coincided with when my book drafts were due. Turns out staying at home is cheaper! (But is it really?!)

Jan: $2,500
Feb: $1,400
Mar: $2,000
Apr: $1,250
May: $2,400
Jun: $2,000
Jul: $1,500
Aug: $2,000
Sept: $2,700
Oct: $2,000
Nov: $3,400 (adj to $2,400)
Dec: $3,900 (adj to $3,000)

As you can see, January, May, and then September, November, and December were way over. I’ll get to those last two months later. But suffice to say, I ended up dropping an average of $2,300 a month instead. However, that is split between the first six months at about $2,000 and the latter six months at $2,600 a month.

Wait, but if I use vacation offset for November and March — which is fifty percent of the vacation money — then I guess those numbers would drop! So it would be -$1,000 for November and -$800 for December. Hooray for fuzzy accounting!

This year’s big four category breakdown is:

🌮 Food: $11,500
🎩 Shopping: $8,000
🎭 Play: $4,500
🚌 Transportation: $3,000

That’s all a nice drop from last year actually, albeit not by much. Overall I spent $28k on variable expenses, $30k on fixed expenses, and a whopping $15.5k on annual expenses. That’s $73.5k for the year, pre-tax. That’s a smidge over 2018 and way over the $42.5k I spent in 2017 — aka the year I didn’t have a house. So yes, I’m living a $100k lifestyle. My goodness… It feels awful!

Let’s break down the annual cost of a house shall we? My faux mortgage is $2,000 per month, and then there’s $550 a month in bills for monthly house cleaning, internet, HOA, water, gas and electricity, four times a year pest control, and a quarterly gardener. In addition, there is the fun toll of property tax, which is twice a year at about $3,500 each, and then house insurance for $800 per year. All told, owning a house costs about $3,200 per month. Total monthly expenditures including variable, fixed, and annual expenses? A whopping $6,750. Yowza! I don’t make that much, so um, yeah.

Aside from running at house, there’s the random big things that happen. In my case, 2019 was the year of the closet and the Quiet Cool. Both have changed my life for the better, but they were by far the biggest ticket items on the Annual tab. My lovely closet was $3,000 and installing the life changing Quiet Cool cost $2,350 all inclusive.

My other big ticket items included a new tattoo ($1,200) and a new iPhone 11 ($1,150) to replace the one I dumped in an Uber while on vacation. The latter is paid by the company though, more or less. Other stuff: Fantasy basketball fees for five years ($450), iPad Mini 5 ($400), a wonderful music from the front row ($400), two classes at Poway Adult School ($400), two surfboards ($350), a face laser session in Taiwan ($350), a haul of Magic cards ($300), and a stupid toll road late fee that was overdue ($250).

There were seven flights I bought this year, two of which were not for me. Eight if you count the one that flew me back from Taipei at the beginning of January but was technically from December 2018. Total for that was about $2,800, but I roll in rides from the airports and whatever luggage or crossing fees there are. So a total of about $3,200 on flights.

And similar to last year, here were my various trips out of San Diego and how much they cost, including all expenses, flights, and accommodations.

Taipei (Jan): $1,100 / 14 nights
San Francisco (Jun): $760 / 7
Taipei (Nov): $3,250 / 17
Mexico City (Dec): $4,650 / 19

Throw in a couple visits to Los Angeles and that’s all she wrote for this year’s travel. Oh the final tally is about $10k for two months away from home.

Now onto our favorite section of reporting, tags! Food, as usual, was the biggest expense, adding up to a total of $11,500, which works out to about a thousand dollars per month, or $32 a day. Of that, a little less than half was “dining out / shared" (defined as eating with other people, or you know, bringing food to the family). Eating out solo was around $3,000 and then groceries and boba tied at a little over a thousand dollars each. Trailing the pack is the nebulous “snacks” which I think I should probably break down into actual snacks and liquid like substances. Do I smell a new tag for 2020? Cue the excitement!

There was aslso three thousand dollars worth of shopping this year, which doesn’t even encompass the $1,800 I spent on clothes. I spent $150 a month on clothes?! I need to dig deeper here, as I sure don’t feel like I dressed like a hundred and fifty bucks! Oh I see, two of those items were wedding outfits and one was basketball shoes. Okay, I feel slightly better.

Then there was a shocking $900 spent on games, most of which was games for the Switch ($700), with a smattering on board games ($100), iOS and PC games ($100), and the aforementioned three hundred dollars on Magic cards.

Oh that $3000 on shopping was about evenly split between generic “shopping” and “gifts.” Generic shopping included a lovely display only bike helmet, custom pants from Etsy, two wetsuits, a pair of watches, and then various bags, figurines, electronics, and backpacks, etc. Okay I can live with that.

Broadly speaking, “gifts” covered things that I just had to get other people, highlighted by a tremendous shopping spree I did for George in the night markets. The poor kiddos got so little, but mom got a lot! Woohoo! Oh lastly for shopping, there was $600 spent on books, which about equals movies — a personal record low for movies I’m sure — but that technically goes into the "play" category.

Also I don’t know what went into “car” but it was a whopping $2,500, and plus $1,600 of gas. Most of that is car insurance of course. While we’re on transportation, I spent over a thousand dollars on taxis this year. That’s actually way lower than usual. But should I be tracking Uber Eats and food deliveries? Hum, maybe another new tag!

Instead of the typical pie chart showing “Spending % vs Category”, we’re gonna throw up the categories in a spreadsheet for extra clarity. Strangely my “drinking” vaulted up from $400 last year to $600 this year. I’m not sure what that was from since I swore I drank much less than when I was traveling?

Lastly, I realized my monthly subscriptions are costing $170 a month. That’s SimpliSafe ($25), NBA League Pass ($20), Netflix ($16), Spotify ($15), Bluehost ($13), GoDaddy ($12), Soundcloud Pro ($12), Logitech Circle ($8), Chase Sapphire Preferred ($8), Patreon ($6), Marvel Unlimited ($6), YouTube Red ($5), another Logitech ($4), 1Password ($3), two iClouds ($6), Nintendo Online ($3), Sticher ($3), and then Instapaper, Google Drive, and Bear. Can I cut any of that two thousand annually? We’ll think about it… Note: Seven of those qualify for “entertainment,” and that’s $70 per month.

Does that cover it all? Have I learned anything new? Well, I guess I learned that having a house is expensive, even though I thought I was getting a deal! Thanks Mom! I guess it’s time to get out there and make some more money...

Oh wait, I better address why November and December were so high! For November the answer is easy: lots of shopping in Taipei over that trip. And in December the answer is also pretty easy, as it was basically also vacation with a friend visiting from Japan, and then a New Year's Eve week or so with another visitor from Mexico City. All told, that back half of December pushed up the variable spending for those two weeks. But it was well worth it! 2019 ended with a bang and we're ready for the travels and fun of the upcoming year!

#tbt: Comparatively, a decade ago I was living off unemployment while writing a book and living halfway between San Diego and San Francisco. Too bad I didn't have this great budgeting report back then to see how I was living then!

Mexico City: 🇲🇽, 🌮, 🌸

2019-12-16T03:54:00.000-08:00

Ah, Mexico City! I had been thinking I’d spend one or two months in CDMX in 2019, but due to time constraints and a November spent in Taiwan, it only ended up being three weeks in Mexico. As expected and endlessly recommended, Mexico City was dreamy.

It had lovely weather, great food, tons of culture, interesting people, public transportation galore, and was quite cheap. While I was hoping to stay in neighborhoods that were a little less well-trodden by visitors, I did end up basically in Roma and Condesa, split between three AirBnbs -- to get to know different parts of the city, ala Tokyo. I went to CDMX with my usual packed items and nobody else in tow. Yes, it was a pure solo trip, my first in some time. Friends, where are you?

From San Diego, it was recommended by many to just take the Cross Border Express from the border to Tijuana. The CBX is a short walkway that connects the countries and it truly was an easy route, with immigration being a breeze. And with no direct flights from SAN to MEX, it was actually cheaper to do it this way, including the Uber down to the border from my house.

All in all, flights cost me $550 — including a hundred in extra luggage fees and a seventy dollar change fee for a flight I booked incorrectly. However, if I had planned earlier it could have been slightly cheaper. (Flights from SAN, LAX, or NYC all seemed about five to six hundred dollars.) I flew Volaris down and Aeromexico back. The CBX tickets were about $50 round trip and then you have to pay $30 for a visa if you’re staying in Mexico for longer than a few days. With the ride shares to and from the airport -- $150 total, $60 on the way down and $80 on the way up because we took an XL on the return -- everything cost about $750 to get door to door.

The exchange rate is roughly twenty pesos to one U.S. dollar, and things were more expensive than Taiwan, but not by that much. I rented pretty big Airbnbs each time, because it was relatively cheap and I was halfway expecting visitors. The three places were about $80-90 each, and for nineteen nights the bill came out to a total of $1,900.

Overall, I spent about two thousand dollars on other things while down there. The bulk of that was food of course, with $300 in shared meals, $180 in solo dining out, $50 in snacks, $50 in groceries, and $35 in boba. Yes, there is plentiful boba in Mexico City and I had it seven times. Delicious!

For the most part, single meals were roughly twenty bucks if you went fancy — like expat brunch at Lalo — or half that for Uber Eats delivered poke. If you went to taquerias and such, an entire meal was probably about eight bucks. I did have one big meal at Iyazaka Kura ($120 for two), another at a steak house ($120), and then a few fifty dollar meals at assorted places. Broadly speaking, snacks and coffee was about two or three dollars. Plus I developed a habit of getting chocolate croissants each day from the local bakery, and those were like four dollars for all the deliciousness.

Recommendations: Go Myang for sundubu-jjigae, Super Mikasa for Japanese and udon, Green Corner for brunch, Marlindo for fish tostadas, Lardo for pastries, and La Casa De Tono for basic Mexican staples.

Museums in Mexico City were plentiful, but knowing I would go back soon, I basically only hit four or five of them. Entrance fees were roughly five dollars or so, excepting the Museo Juguete Antiguo (Antique Toy Museum) which my friend highly recommended to me. I'm coming for you next Soumaya and Casa Barragan.

The biggest ticket item for the trip was front row tickets to Book of Mormon, which was glorious because there was nobody else in our row for the second half and seeing a musical that up close and personal is the way to really live. It reminded me of the days when we’d win the Rent lottery and get to be within spitting distance of the cast.

I watched quite a few movies while down there too, mostly in malls, which were about five dollars per ticket. There’s a movie theater, the Cineteca Nacional, that I wanted to visit because it looks so beautiful, but I haven’t been yet. And of course I hit up a few karaoke places, which cost maybe fifteen dollars an hour for a private room, or about the same for a few hours at a public karaoke spot. I’ll be exploring the karaoke of Mexico City in full next time down.

As for clubbing, I only went to two places: Departamento and Patrick Miller. Entrance to Departamento was ten dollars, and it was a smaller place that is basically just all dancing. I found it my first night out and basically it became my spot immediately. Things are open late here, another huge plus. Patrick Miller is only open on Fridays, and the dance circles are wild, well worth checking out for three dollars person. There are a ton of other clubs and places to check out nightlife, but I haven’t explored them yet. I did hit up a few bars, but not too many since well, I don't really drink?

Oh I also did a bit of shopping, in preparation for a wedding, mainly getting two pairs of shoes at Galerias Insurgentes. There is this Mexican brand, Panam, which makes athletic shoes for quite cheap, like fifteen dollars, and they were much higher quality than the night market shoes in Taiwan. Excellent stuff. Shopping in Zona Rosa and a Zara set me back maybe seventy dollars for two jackets and a shirt. And I got two haircuts, for seventeen dollars each.

And I can't not mention SIM cards! Even though Verizon has free texting messaging, I found out quickly that you are throttled after 500MB a day, and that just wouldn’t do. So I stopped into an ATT store and got a SIM and fifteen gigs of data for fifty dollars.

Ubers were cheap, mainly three to five dollars, I took forty-three of them, totaling $150, with the max one being six bucks. The Uber from the airport to my first place was eight dollars. And I had to bike ride while I was there obviously, and while there are many bikeshare options, I went with the seemingly most popular one, Ecobici. Weekly passes are eighteen dollars, and it’s not much more for an annual pass, but I believe you need a Mexican phone number and address to get an annual pass. I’ll have to find out next time I’m there. Oh, the subway and bus rides are like five pesos, so a quarter regardless of distance or transfers I believe.

The last thing I want to highlight is the food tour that I took, on the recommendation of my friend. He used Eat Mexico when he was there and while I’d never actually done one before, it made a lot of sense to me!

I chose the Navarte at Night option and it was $120 with tip, and it led to meeting my first new friends in the city. In the future I’m curious about more tours in foreign cities -- especially any art tours -- but I could also just explore on my own too I guess. Once you find local friends, every day is a guided tour! Still, even with more time down there, tours seem like a fun and new way to get to know a new place. If you’re on a short trip, I’d highly recommend it! Maybe next time I’ll be leading a boba and karaoke tour...

Overall, I spent $4,600 for three weeks in Mexico City, with $750 to get there, $1,900 for AirBnbs, and $2,000 for expenses. That a hundred dollars a day of variable expenses was roughly what I spent per day in San Franciso earlier in the year — and that trip included free housing — or the same amount I spent for two weeks in Bali. For a winter retreat, Mexico City seems tops so far!

Ways and Means: 2018 Recap

2018-12-31T00:20:00.000-08:00

Here we go, the 2018 expense report! Unlike last year, where I stayed home most of the year, 2018 was a year of travels as I sojourned to Asia from January until June, and then was in New York on and off for a bit, with a final trip back to Asia for December. Was it costly? You betcha! Did it wreck havoc on my budget? You betcha again! We’ll take a look at how much I spent this year overall, with a special emphasis on my travels.

As usual, we’ll start with my month-to-month variable expenses. I only came under budget in two months, February and October. February I was mostly in Bali where it’s cheap and October I was holed up in my house, write writing away and never leaving the house. Otherwise, I blew past my variable expenses budget each month, sometimes to outrageous sums. My average budget for a month was $1,700 in variable expenses and I ended up spending $2,600 instead. Whoops.

The outrageous months were April, June, August, and December. Respectively those accounted for the time I spent in Tokyo, New York, New York again, and Singapore. You’ll note that also doubles as a nice list of expensive places to be. But I’m young and free and I was going to blow all my money having fun this year! Below is my variable expenses by the month.

Jan: $2,900
Feb: $1,550
Mar: $2,050
Apr: $3,400
May: $2,350
Jun: $3,250
Jul: $3,300
Aug: $2,900
Sep: $2,400
Oct: $1,350
Nov: $2,250
Dec: $3,850

The big four category breakdown goes like this:

🥟 Food: $13,650
👕 Shopping: $9,800
🎨 Play: $4,750
🏎 Transportation: $4,600

Inevitably that combined number was way higher than last year -- about $24,000 versus $33,000 -- as I was out and about. Last year I spent an estimated $55k on fixed, variable, and annual expenses. That figure shot up to $70k this year as pparently leaving the house to go outside is an expensive exploit. Fortunately, I also made some (largely unexpected) money too, which I’ll get into later.

And of course this all takes into account paying the faux-mortgage for my lovely newish house that I didn’t even live in for half the year, choosing instead to spend lots of dollars living in AirBnbs in foreign cities. Overall, that $70k figure translates to a $91k lifestyle. Not even six figures! What are people doing with their huge incomes? Oh right, they have adult responsibilities like car payments, insurance, savings, and retirement. None of which I have!

Usually I dive into individual tags but first I’ll look at how much travel cost me this year. See below for the seven major trips I took this year, along with their costs and number of nights spent somewhere. Each trip figure includes airfare, taxis to and from airport, accommodations, food, play, etc. And in some cases it involved paying for travel partners too.

Tokyo: $8,900 / 35 nights
Singapore: $5,400 / 16
NYC 1: $4,350 / 19
NYC 2: $3,100 / 14
Vietnam: $2,300 / 13
Phillipines: $2,050 / 6
Bali: $2,000 / 14

Overall that’s about $28,000 for seven trips and 117 nights away from “home.” A useless number but that averages out to be $250 per night. How much does it cost to stay home? Sadly, not free but it’s certainly lower than that number. During travel, I broke down my expenses into these five categories:

Accommodations: $10,200
Flights: $8,000
Airport Taxis: $700
Travel Misc: $450
Luggage Fees: $400

I’m not exactly sure why “luggage fees” is so high. Keep in mind that I also wrote off some of my travel, as well as my research trip to Singapore, which was handy for final accounting.

For once, “dining out” was not my highest tag, as “accommodations” and “flights” eclipsed that number. However, if I add up “dining” and “dining out / shared” then it would have tied with “accommodations” for highest tag.

As for addictions, my cigarette expenditures stayed about even but my boba expense dropped from almost a grand to just under eight hundred dollars! I still spent more on boba than groceries though, haha. I also watched way fewer movies this year, but still managed to hit $800 for movies/popcorn combined. And my drinking doubled to about four hundred dollars total. My karaoke expenses also jumped up, but mainly due to paying for my fortieth birthday singing party, which was worth every penny.

Last year I bought a PS4 and this year I bought a Nintendo Switch, and with that included in, I spent about a thousand each on games and the nebulous “digital” tag. I also doubled my clothing up to almost two thousand dollars spent, plus books bought also doubled from five hundred to a thousand dollars.

Oh yeah, taxis was a huge expense this year, as I spent a lot of time zipping around in them, to the tune of about $3,500. That is 5.75% of my overall spending! And that doesn’t even include the $700 in airport taxis I took. The good news is that I had property tax and house insurance to factor in, which was about a cool $8,000 off the bottom line that I totally forgot about.

Finally, my subscriptions increased from about $110 per month to $150, as I added two house related subscriptions for my alarm system and camera monitoring. And since I still haven’t joined a gym, that expense remains “pending.” 💪

So how did I spend all this money yet keep on rolling? Well, the simple answer is that I had some of the travel reimbursed, plus tax return, and then I actually managed to follow through and use my writing as supplemental/fun money. My friend totally hooked it up and optioned my first book, which translated to some nice money, and then I sold a book, which I’m partially counting for 2018 so that, um, I can keep my accounting books clean. So sort of through no effort of my own, and some actual effort in writing, I’ll be entering 2019 cramming my butt off to pay off the traveling debt that I accrued in 2018! Bon voyage and don't forget to start a budget club of your very own!

Singapore: 🇸🇬, 🌱, 🛍

2018-12-28T01:22:00.000-08:00

And here we go, with the final trip for 2018! I went to Singapore for about three weeks, ostensibly on research for my new book. That means everything’s a write off! Right? Advertised as an uber-expensive city, Singapore proved to be not too bad depending on how you lived. It was easy to eat cheap if needed, for example.

Getting to Singapore was easy, just a mere $300 ticket from Taipei, and since I was traveling with my girlfriend for this trip, that number was doubled. Finding accommodations was a little tougher, as AirBnbs are technically outlawed but there were still plenty of options, just not a ton for so many consecutive days.

Finding something central and near public transportation was a priority but as it turned out, everyone cabs everywhere anyway. We stayed in the CBD (Central Business District), where all the finance high rises are, which was convenient if a bit staid. The best part was that our apartment was right across the street from Lau Pa Sat, a hawker center that proved to be very convenient for picking up fruit or getting quick meals. For sixteen nights, the total charge for accommodations was about $2,500.

To be honest, I didn’t find the food in Singapore to be stellar. There were many average meals and some highly touted foods that weren’t that amazing. However, having said that, I think we were mostly eating in the wrong places, as we often chose convenience — hawker centers and mall food courts — over personal recommends. But compared to a place like Taipei, where nearly everything is pretty good, Singapore disappointed on the food front. We had one particularly distasteful meal at an Indian restaurant that I was very excited for. Oh well, I’ll eat better next time I’m there. Overall food cost about $850, split $550 / $130 / $150 / $30 between dining out shared, dining out, snacks, and boba.

I’ll skip on shopping details but suffice to say that most of the $550 or so I spent shopping was spent on household stuff for the AirBnb, clothes and thermoses for gifts, and one grey side bag that I had to get because my daily carry items were too much for the trusty fanny pack. Also we had to bring a light umbrella everywhere because there’s rain at least once a day. Oh, SIM cards are readily available and about $25 for fifteen days of 100 GB data, which is more than enough.

Taxis were a huge part of our transportation expense, as the subway cards we got were cheap and rarely used. From what I could tell, each subway ride was under a dollar or so, and our initial fill of $20 for the cards was more than enough. Taxis cost $400 for the whole trip, as I took about forty trips for an average of $10 each. Oh, everyone uses Grab in Singapore, since they bought out Uber. When in SG, Grab away!

I saw two movies in Singapore — Aquaman and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — and prices were about $8-10 per ticket. Mostly though, I spent my time exploring museums, which ranged from free for the Peranakan up to $20 for the National Gallery or attractions like Cloud Forest and ArtScience Museum.

More importantly, I spent $80 each for two Friends of Wildlife passes, which gave unlimited annual access to four animal theme parks: Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, River Safari, Jurong Bird Park. I ended up going to all of them and then promptly forgot to use the 20% discount when I bought cute things for the nieces. It’s okay, the animals need my extra twenty-percent. The nieces need the cute things.

There was two hours in a casino, in which we played a roulette-type game called sic bo (or dai siu 大小), and three of us all walked out up money, which was amazing. I won a cool $200 to cover that day's shopping and food expenses so it was perfect. I haven’t won money in a casino in years, so I guess I must have better luck gambling in Asia?

Last of all, we had a karaoke night that was three hours of singing and a drinks minimum, which only cost $60 for three people. Karaoke places in Singapore apparently have a little grocery store-like setup in front where you pick up your snacks and drinks, which was quite a novelty and fun. The song selection was also excellent. Singapore wins for karaoke!

I wish I had seen more of the night life in Singapore, but mostly we were too tired at night to be out much. From what I could gather, drinks cost a lot and cover charge at clubs also ran high. There were a plethora of bars and lounges in certain neighborhoods but I only went out once, to a tiny techno bar that was very quiet and I ended up chatting with a bunch of expats. I guess next time I'll find out if Singaporeans dance.

So that was Singapore in a nutshell: $5,400 for two-and-a-half weeks of book research. Averaging all the costs into the days spent there, Singapore tied with the Philippines for my most expensive daily trip this year, at around $340 per day. So I guess it’s either a day on a private island or a day in the city of the crazy rich: your pick!

Don't Dream It's Over

2018-06-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

This is it, the home reno post we’ve all been waiting for. The house is 1,800 square foot and it’s maybe twenty-five years old, located in a quiet, very quiet, neighborhood in Rancho Bernardo. One of 2017's goals was to get this house done and with 90/10 effort by my mom and I, we did it! Okay, maybe 95/5.

It took from April 2017 until about September to go from empty house to new house. My mom was kind enough to take care of everything structurally and outside the house, leaving me to purchase all the items that went inside. Naturally I logged all of it—down to the toilet paper—so I could do a full accounting. I wanted to know how much it would cost to go from zero to full home. Prior to this, the only home related item I owned was a $20 white plastic toaster I used to carry around me with city by city.

Five months is a pretty fast renovation I guess, considering we ran into a bunch of problems, which is totally de rigeur. The original general contractor my mom used was sub-par, and he was soon replaced by a friend of her friend who literally worked six or seven days a week on the house. We completely re-did two bathrooms, put in engineered wood flooring, chopped the whole kitchen and put in a new island, painted everything of course, got custom window treatments and blinds, and then installed a new closet door in the guest bedroom. The only original pieces are probably the master closet door and the front door.

In-between we had to contend with foundation issues, a roof leak, and getting a new heating/cooling unit. There was also a thought to redo the plumbing but we passed on that. The original reno budget ballooned to easily 150% I’d say. And that’s without tearing down any walls—which I wanted to do originally—and touching of any interior structures.

Overall I kept to the philosophy that if something was coming in, it wasn’t going back out. I relied on Wirecutter for 90% of my findings, trusting their recommendations. Could I have spent less for more, probably. But I went with semi-quality and definitely splurged on some stupid stuff, as you’ll see. But since this is my forever home, I just went for it--minus some nicer furniture in the future maybe. Also I originally aimed for mid-century modern but that got blown off course and somehow I ended up with a house that looks like a giant child's playroom. Predictable, I guess...

Also, I must thank my friend J for her help in selecting so many things for the house, being a patient sounding board, and especially her expertise with kitchen things. Her quality taste and internet searching skills were also indispensable.

Karaoke Room (Master Bedroom): $3,100
Ah the master bedroom, which has been converted into a TV, karaoke, video game room. Also where I spend a lot of my nights because I like to sleep in front of the TV. An orange couch from Living Spaces was $1,450, a 55-inch 4K television was $700, a Vizio soundbar $270, new Apple TV $200, and a colorful area rug that was purchased from Overstock for $200. Oh right, and a $100 TV stand that I had to build myself with lots of nails. Who said I'm not handy!? This entertainment area will be the hub of the house, and please don't call it a "man cave," ugh! Also I just acquired a passable karaoke machine in Taiwan, so the sing is on!

Bathroom, Master: $700
The master bathroom, which was gutted and then completely renovated because the arrangement was awful. The biggest items of cost were the double wall mirrors, which were $150 each. Other monies were spent on things such as a Squatty Potty, drawer organizers, shower caddies, that kind of thing. And I've been waiting for a home to outfit my toilets with bidets. Luckily my camp friend's company, Tushy, makes them. If you ain't bidet-ing, you're gross. Also, I’m excited for the newly discovered diatomaceous earth bathmat which I’ve yet to use but saw in a store in Japan and was wowed by its absorbency.

Cafe (Family Room): $600
The kitchen is attached to the family room, but it’ll serve mostly as my eating room, co-working area, and board games spot. Basically my vision is it’ll be the perfect internet cafe. Toward that end I got six metal chairs at $50 each and three metal tables ($100, $100, $150), all from Flash furniture. You’ll see this exact type of chair in cafes everywhere. They are pretty uncomfortable for long sits but that’s okay because after dinner we’ll retire to the social room. Also, the configuration is designed to be modular and I went with mint and white. Oh yeah, as my friend W taught me with her apartment: everything must be modular! Coffee and boba service to come once I know how to make them properly. For now it's BYOEverthing.

A note on chair felt pads. I bought some cheapo ones that I regretted immediately because they came off so fast. I spent quite a bit of time cleaning the individual chair legs and wood floor with Goo Gone trying to get rid of the residue. The pads lasted literally about a week. Useless.

Gallery (Dining Room): $600
Currently I have a dining room that is awkwardly shaped, and I have no need for a proper dining room anyway so I just made it into a gallery. Meaning it will hang my clothes, some art, and my faux neon lightning bolt. This Chinese company also does custom neon work so I hope to get one of those soon. What will it say? hyperwest.net, duh!

The little area rug is $140 from IKEA and so far I have one painting up on the wall: Umberto Boccioni’s "Dynamism of a Soccer Player.” I saw this piece years ago at the Guggenheim when I first moved to New York after college and bought a poster of it immediately. This time around I got an 24x24 acrylic print of it from art.com for $150. In the future I hope to house my friend’s works. We'll likely start with a Jmz Wng "Chinese Takeout Containers."

Bedroom (Guest Bedroom): $1,500
I’m using the guest bedroom as my only bedroom, because really what do I need a giant master bedroom for? In this room there’s only a bed right now, a Lysa queen mattress I ordered online for $900. I almost almost got a PONS bed frame because I was sucked in by Millenial marketing, which would have been $1,000+. I was talked out of it by rational people and so instead I got a Zinus Quick Snap frame that was a mere $140, and assembled just as easily. So basically I saved $900 for not getting built-in USB ports.

Of course there was the requisite sheets, pillowcases, comforter, etc. that I had to buy. A note on pillows: while I've traditionally been able to sleep anywhere / on anything, these Xtreme Comforts Memory Foam ones recommended from Wirecutter are pretty incredible. I've gotten many compliments on them and George even loved it so much she got one! The Yangs know how to get quality sleep so a double Yang endorsement is nigh priceless. Or $50 each. I also got some backup pillows because every Yang bed has at least four pillows. True story.

My bedroom's piece de resistance: a hedgehog duvet cover with my friend Julia’s illustrations on it.

Bathroom, Guest: $500
Nothing fancy here, just a $110 dollar oval mirror and basics like a shower curtain, bath map, towels, etc. The bathroom has an all-white floor -- which means I'm constantly cleaning it -- and features a teal tile wall in the shower. It's so pretty! This room is likely the only 100% finished one in the house. What a relief! Also my mom made me keep the tub because future buyers might have kids or a dog. Haha, future buyers...! I'm never leaving this house.

Gatco 4649 Glam Frameless Oval Mirror, Satin Nickel, 26.5" H

Social Room (Living Room): $1,000
Aka Greta’s room, because I left it mostly empty for my nieces. It’s technically the living room but it’s totally empty save for a big blue fish rug. The plan is to eventually get a wall projector and stuff like that for when I have more people over but right now it’s empty. The fireplace is missing too. The living room originally had a step-down, but we put in wood planks under the flooring to raise it up and make the house entirely one level.

The most expensive stuff in this room is the two Muji Body Pillows that I got, each of which cost $200. Sure that’s a lot of money for bean bags but these are not mere bean bags. It’s pretty much the best things I’ve bought for the house, as I am in a prone position most of that time and these are perfect for sitting on or lying on or anything on. They are amazing. Oh right, the projector I want is this one, an ultra-short throw, but it is $1,200 so obviously just a luxury item. Sorry, no more than four people can come over to watch stuff.

In related news: Greta does not like this room because there’s nothing in there and she got bored real fast. This was even after I prepared some stylish (relatively) foam baby mats to lay down on the ground for her safety. She didn't care. I guess it's time to convert this from the baby room to the dance studio then!

Kitchen: $2,500
Ah the real doozy. Keep in mind I don’t cook… I had to outfit an entire kitchen with everything. We’re talking pots and pans ($125), cooking knives (chef $75, paring $15), bowls, glasses, etc. I now have a serviceable assortment of cooking implements, dishwware, and tupperware. It's sick how much stuff a startup kitchen needs.

My thought was I was gonna buy stuff that would last so invested in some lovely Villeroy and Boch New Wave flatware ($215), six Fitz and Floyd Nevaeh bone china sets ($35 each), and very durable water cups. If it wasn’t recommended on Wirecutter, I didn’t get it.

"The Fitz and Floyd Nevaeh Dinnerware Collection made of high-quality bone china with fifty-percent bone ash content, so it’s thinner, lighter, and appears more delicate than porcelain, yet it’s surprisingly durable and resistant to chipping. The material also gives it a bright whiteness and an elegant translucence not found in the thicker, duller porcelain typically found at this price.”
-Wirecutter: Best Dinnerware Set-

For regular meal times, I bought some Target cheapo dinner sets and IKEA flatware because not everyone deserves to use the good stuff. Right?! Also I ran into a 50% off closing sale at the Japanese kitchenware store in Mitsuwa and spent spent liberally on chopstick holders, soup spoons, ramen bowls, tea cups, sake holder, that kind of thing. Oh and I got some little trinkets in Tokyo too, which I’ve yet to unpack. Cute Japanese things are pretty cheap to be honest, maybe $200 total.

Let’s talk Muji. My most prized item, and the first thing I got for my kitchen was a $225 minimalist rice cooker designed by Naoto Fukasawa. If you didn’t know, Fukasawa is one of the world’s most influential designers and he’s got a set of kitchen stuff made by Muji. Did I get the matching toaster and water kettle too? Of course I did. (Shout out to R who brought me this prized Muji toaster all the way from the Bay, before I realized it was semi-readily available in LA.) If you don’t know why this is great, well, I don’t know what to tell you. Oh also, these are just for show. I have a real rice cooker and toaster oven for actual use. Minimal white kitchen plus white appliances? A dream come true! My mom was against a white kitchen but I plan to clean a lot, and cook very little, so it should be okay.

Additional shine for KMN Home DrawerDecor, which is made for the OCD in me. I love these sticky modular organizers and need to get more. My OCD is getting out of control at this house. It's bad... Also how cute is this VOVOV Elephant Kitchen Cutlery Drainer?!

Office: $135
There’s a semi-third bedroom in the house but we cut another door into a wall and it’s now just a pass-through room, aka my office. As I had a table and desk from home, I just brought those along. And then I went to IKEA to get another bed headboard and stuck four metal legs on it -- which is how I always make my office desks because I like them cheap and very big -- at the sterling cost of $25 total. In theory the office will need a better chair but why invest there when I barely even work?! Lots of League of Legend-ing in that chair though. The dream office would include an adjustable standing desk, but the setup I want is quite pricey. I'll have to settle for just some functional gear until I like, actually work. In the meantime, take a look at my friend's two girls doing homeschool in my cafe -- they're so cute!

Garage: $1,250
Things that go in a garage include washer ($470), dryer ($570), an utility washer tub ($100) and I guess that’s about it. Shelving will have to come later, as will a new garage door ($1,000) and floor epoxy because it’s so nice when your floor is shiny and not just concrete ($1,500). The garage is the last thing I’ll finish out, so for now it’s just money spent on the laundry stuff.

General: $5,000
And then there’s general costs, which ran a hefty sum because I had to get a Nest Smart Thermostat ($300) because they are a must-have, three Nest Protects for smoke/carbon monoxide protection ($330), a Schlage smart lock ($200) for my front door, two Logitech Circle interior security cameras ($150 each), plus I’m using Simplisafe security system ($300 for the package, then $15 a month). My goal with the house is to be able to operate everything remotely by phone -- aka from bed. Toward that end I'll need a few more items so the research continues.

Add in stuff like a vacuum cleaner ($160), three Seville UltraSlimline room fans ($60 each), an air mattress for guests ($120), plus fire extinguisher, an iron, a crap ton of charger cables, plus all the cleaning stuff one needs, and doormats, tool set, etc. and “general” is a huge category.

The most expensive general item? Fucking door locks. We kept all the original doors but replaced the door handles and stuff. It’s shocking how many door levers one needs, and we probably got like 20+ of them for a total of $700. Just on door knobs!

Lastly, allow me to introduce you to the BugZooka WB100, a pneumatic powered bug catching device that allows you to suck up bugs. Yes, all the bugs! Of course I had to hire bug sprayers to come to the house every three months ($100 a session) but there are still bugs that get in right? So this item is a gem at $25.

Overall: $20,000+
What’s still left to do? The garage shelving and floor, a comprehensive shelving system in the master closet, a fireplace, wall decorations for everything, and of course, nothing outdoors has been touched, aka landscaping. In sum the whole filling up a house thing cost me about twenty grand, give or take, and all the stuff I left for later so that I could travel is estimated at about $4k. I guess overall that sounds like a lot -- I've never spent this much ever ever ever! -- but then I think about how it's not even enough to get a small (new) car. If this is adulthood, I better get cranking... For our next house feature: bills, and how much it costs to support a home of your own month-by-month!

Philippines: 🏝, 🇵🇭, 🚣

2018-05-30T06:48:00.000-07:00

Would you believe me if I said one day in the Philippines cost me more than one day in Tokyo? Well it’s true! How do you figure? Well, let’s find out! First off, this was not the typical trip as about a dozen of us split an island, yes a whole island! That actually wasn’t the expensive part, as the entire thing only cost $360 each for three nights on this exclusive resort. For a closer look at Floral Island, Google away. "How soft is the sand?"

Due to my distrust of the timeliness of intra-Philippines air travel, I decided to fly to El Nido first and spend the night there, thus ensuring that I would be able to meet up with everyone else the next day — with no risk of getting left behind if I had a delay. As it turned out, I was spot on as my flight from Taipei to Manila was on-time but the flight from Manila to El Nido was not.

Anyway, I spent a night in El Nido by myself, staying at the very comfortable One El Nido Suites — booked for two nights, so I could hang out there past checkout till 4PM when everyone came in. That luxurious AC and wait time was $175 for two nights. Throw in the lovely condo-hotel we stayed in Manila for two nights ($90), split among many of us, and total housing costs for the trip was $640 for six nights.

And here with the killer: flights! Pricing for short term hauls don’t get cheaper, and for once I actually bought tickets semi-early, but the bill was still $730 for three ticketes, four jaunts: TPE-MPH-TPE ($440), MPH-ENI ($135), and ENI-MPH ($155). If you want to get to an island destination, there’s no choice but to fly!

So overall the cost to get to a lovely Philippine island getaway was $1,360 for housing and flying.

Flights: $730
Floral Island: $360
Hotels: $275
Shopping: $280
Transportation: $160
Food: $150

So where did the other money go? Well, food was pretty much covered on the island -- my personal bill came to $60 for various drinks and extras ordered -- and then our friend’s family was kind enough to take us out to two fabulous dinners in Manila. So overall food costs was $150 for the whole time, with the biggest meal I personally paid for a shot of Ippudo ramen ($12) I had at SM Megamall in Mandaluyong. When in the Philippines, 🍜!

I also watched a movie at $5 admission with $3 popcorn, because of course I wanted to check out a local theater. And I’m sure glad I did as I discovered that there are bathrooms in each individual theater! It’s a genius move and halfway to the dream of having one-way glass window in individual theater bathrooms so you never miss anything. Way to go Philippines, being so advanced! There was also one night of karaoke ($22) which was glorious, and also a night at a speakeasy bar but I didn’t get anything so that was zero expenditure.

Oh, transportation was cheap, especially local taxis. Like maybe $5 per ride to downtown El Nido from their airport, and even from the Megamall to the Manila airport. My only expensive rides were to/from TPE airport, which averaged about $40 each. As for other transportation, we had a van rented in Manila, which cost $45 each for the driver and car for a few days. And there was maybe $20 in shuttle/boat transport from El Nido an hour-and-a-half south to Floral island. So overall $180 spent on transportation, with the bulk of that getting to and from the Taipei airport.

And then finally I spent some money shopping. Yes, in the waning hours of hanging out in Manila, I went to Massimo Dutti and dropped $160 on a white linen jacket that I just had to have. Once again, shopping in other countries is a dream and the amount of linen in the Filipino stores was fantastic. Give. Me. All. Your. Linen.

Before that I had also spent about $110 on various totes, a shirt each from Forever 21 and Zara, and also a scarf from Kultura -- a store selling Filipino-made stuff. Basically if you’re gonna put me in a mall, I’m gonna buy stuff.

Oh and SIMs are super cheap, like you step off and grab one in five minutes -- I used Globe as the provider -- and I spent $20 on seven gigabytes plus extra for Spotify. Because you know, island dance party.

Overall the week trip to the Philippines cost $2,050 total, with the bulk going to flying and housing. So really, short trips cost a lot because flights are the big killer when spread over a short amount of time. It cost $340 per day for this trip -- versus $255 per day in Tokyo, or $175 in Vietnam and $145 in Bali -- and even taking out the shopping and some of the transportation costs, the daily bill would have been somewhere around $260 I think.

So the lesson is to vacation for a long time, or go hit a beautiful private island with all of your friends! Either or.

Tokyo: 🇯🇵, 💸, 🍣

2018-05-20T23:39:00.000-07:00

The post I’ve been waiting all year to write: a trip to Japan! Originally I was hoping to spend two to three months in Japan but after looking at these expenses, maybe it’s good I was only there for thirty-five days. From the beginning of April till mid-May, I was frolicking in the urban beauty of Tokyo. How much did the most expensive month of my adult life cost?!? Let’s find out!

First there were the flights, of which there was only one. From Taipei to Tokyo it was $500 on China Air. That was easy. The housing was not. We literally moved every couple of days, and overall I stayed at ten AirBnbs, which was obviously not the most efficient way to do things but it turned out to be amazing because we got to explore many neighborhoods. For the first week we had three people splitting a place, two weeks with two of us, and then the final two weeks was just me.

My overall budget for housing was $100 a day and that just about worked out, to the tune of $108 per night. If I had stayed in a capsule hotel or opted for less fashionable digs -- we scoured for cool places to stay -- that price would have likely gone down a tad. As it was, I spent a total of $3,800 for housing. Pricey, I know. That number pushes up to over $4,000 if you include the $300 or so we spent transferring between AirBnbs via taxi. But I knew going in that housing costs was going to be expensive, and so it was.

After flights and housing, it was $4,600 total for expenses, of which the breakdown is (and I’ll tackle them in reverse order):

Shopping: $1,800
Food: $1,650
Transportation: $720
Play: $390
Misc: $60

Miscellaneous ($60): You know that old adage “It costs money to spend money,” right? All of miscellaneous was ATM fees, which was a necessary evil. I went to the ATM five times and withdrew about $200 USD each, which cost about $11 per transaction.

Play ($390): A seemingly low amount, I know! But I didn’t really do that much, as far as traditional "play" is categorized. I mean, I went to four movies ($75), had one karaoke session ($40), barely drank as per usual ($35), and really the only other big things were $35 for Sanrioland admission, cover for an incredible dancing night at Sound Museum Vision ($45, of which I paid for others), and a few $5-13 museums, plus about $20 for Epson Aqua Park -- so like $1.50 per dolphin. Heck, I spent more at the arcades than I did doing most things. FYI: Most arcade games cost about 100 JP¥, or 1 USD.

Transportation ($720): It was $45 for two trips via Keisei Skyliner to/from the airport. $95 total for subway rides, of which I barely took any to be honest -- each ride was probably around $3. And then $15 for the bike share, which I used liberally for the first couple of weeks until it started raining a lot. Oh and I used about $30 for storage lockers in-between AirBnbs, which was very necessary.

Of course, taxis were a huge expense, totaling $525, but after taking off -$300 of that for Ubers between AirBnbs, plus maybe another -$100 for airport rides, it was only $125 or so for "regular" taxi rides. Don’t get me wrong, taxis in Tokyo are super expensive, like $12-20 dollars for even short distances. But I mostly avoided taxis and took maybe a dozen rides total, when it was late or I was in a rush. For the most part, when we were in a neighborhood, we never left it, moving out only to meet people or talking a bike/walk to get somewhere. Tokyo is an imminently walkable city, as advertised.

Keep in mind for transportation that we also didn't go to any other cities, which most people tend to do, using the Japan Rail Pass to get around the country. It sounded like a sweet deal but neither of us wanted to travel travel that much on this trip.

Food ($1,650): Shockingly, not my highest category! Food prices in Japan were wildly exaggerated I thought, as in it was much cheaper than I’d imagined. You could easily get a good meal for $10-15, which isn’t far from New York or San Francisco prices. Of course, you could scale up quickly but cheap meals were also easily had.

Overall I spent $950 for “dining out / shared” and $400 for “dining out,” the latter of which was just meals for me. The “shared” dining usually indicates that I paid for whoever I was eating with, and as usual it scaled about 2/3rd of my "dining out" bill. There was too much food to go into any detail but my highest individual eating session was $25 for a standing sushi spot and I basically thrived/lived on $9 bowls of ramen. So much ramen...

There was also $275 spent on snacks and $40 on groceries, which basically means drinks, cookies, coffee, sugar items, and bites in-between meals. At a mere $45 for food per day (on vacation), Japan wasn’t too bad right?

Shopping ($1,800): Let’s start with the wifi and data situation. Over-worried as I was about my access to the internet, I both pre-bought SIM cards and then had to get new ones as we figured out that there was a delay in activation with the ones I bought. Overall I spent a tad over $300 for wifi and that included two separate airport SIMs ($35 each) that lasted one week, a whole lot more spent on Mobal SIM and service ($140) for two weeks, and then about $110 on a Kyushu pocket wifi--for unlimited data and fast speeds. If I had been experienced, I would have worked it so that I had the Kyushu set up pre-trip and ready to go at the airport, thus eliminating the need for all the other solutions. Lesson learned! Next time I just go with the pocket wifi and don’t worry about SIM cards.

Off the top, I spent $450 on general shopping, $475 on clothing, $200 on household items, $190 on gift related things, bought one book (Wallpaper City Guide Tokyo), and dropped $80 at Sanrioland merchandise stores. I regret none of it. In fact, if I had more room to carry stuff I probably could have easily doubled this. Next time I go to Japan I’m gonna shorten the trip so I can just blow all the money on shopping. Consume, consume, consume! Seriously the amount of cute, cool, delightfully designed, beautiful items on sale here are just ridiculous. I went to Loft Shibuya near the end of my trip, and they literally closed down on me at 9PM, so I guess that means someone was watching over my bank account. Thank you shopping gods.

The two hundred dollars worth of household stuff I bought were simply a whole bunch of cute hand towels, wraps, various knick knacks for my home, a stand up rice scooper that I was very intrigued by, three special bird letter openers, and an entire matching set of bird inspired ceramic holder thingys. Like I said, I could have spent all my money shopping in Japan…

Given how little room I had in my traveling bag—and an unwillingness to have too much to carry in-between AirBnbs—I had to curb my buying to small items. Thus most of my gifts for others constituted stickers, baby socks, baby 20mL Tiger thermoses, and uh, more socks. Also I am bringing back an Afuri dry ramen because my friend was kind enough to take back all my housewares to San Diego. At the very end of the trip, I bought an extra roller suitcase, which didn’t hold much, but it was enough to get me over the hump.

I also collected quite a few totes, many Tanuki to Kitsune items (in fact I spent probably $100 on Tanku to Kitsune items once I realized I could only get them in Japan), and resisted just about every stationary item I wanted, save a few key items. Stationary alone could put a huge dent in any Tokyo visitor’s budget.

And then we get to it, $475 on clothes! Everyone in Tokyo dresses amazing. Literally, everyone. And part of the reason is because clothes shopping there is amazing. (Overall the shopping scene is great but the shopping for men's stuff is out of this world.) From American vintage to high end streetwear, to everything in-between, shopping in Tokyo is the absolute dream. Fortunately for my wallet, I couldn’t pull off the the Japanese worker style -- more swag needed-- and also didn’t have much room for extra clothes so everything I bought was (mostly) out of necessity.

Upon arriving, Tokyo was much colder than we thought, so an extra sweater was bought in Harajuku, as well as a denim linen jacket from Zara, and white shoes to replace the ugly orange New Balances that my friend insisted I toss. (Oh yeah, even the Zara in Tokyo is way better. I’ve never bought a single thing at Zara Stateside but immediately bought three must-have items in the Roppongi Hills Zara.)

I did cave and get a pair of linen jeans, denim shorts, and a shirt from the first store I walked into in Daikanyama (and eyed an amazingly looooong denim jacket), and then promptly left the area because I knew the shopping there was going to be great. And on my second-to-last day, my friend wanted to drop by a store and it just so happened to be one I had passed by weeks ago, filled with linen Tibetan type stuff and so of course I had to buy a few things there. In sum, the five hundred or so dollars I spent on clothes was a mere drop in the bucket. I’ll be back for you Daikanyama and all other shopping districts, I’ll be back!

Overall, thirty-five days in Tokyo cost nearly $9,000, which was more than I anticipated but also perhaps less? If I scaled way back on the housing, if I shopped a whole lot less, and took way fewer taxis between AirBnbs, I think it would have been possible to slash that number by half, easily.

If two weeks in Vietnam cost $1,800 and two weeks in Bali cost $1,350, Tokyo would have been about $3,300 for two weeks, all-in. And by living there the cost would be stretched much lower, as I had a friend who was living in Tokyo for about $1,500 monthly rent, in a great area, with a fantastic space. No way you could do that in NYC or SF. Tokyo is a very livable city, much more than advertised I think. Should I move there? Of course I should!

Next time in Japan: Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium and Naoshima!

Vietnam 🇻🇳

2018-03-21T04:57:00.000-07:00

Here we go, after two weeks in Bali I went to Vietnam for just about the same amount of time. What I discovered was that Vietnam is supposed to be the new hot spot: for entrepreneurs, for traveling, for doing it all. And apparently Vietnam is even cheaper than Thailand and other surrounding Southeast Asia locations. The conversion I used was one US dollar to 22,750 Vietnamese đồng, VND. Needless to say, lots of calculators were used on this trip.

Housing was $380 total, split among eight days in Hanoi and five in Saigon. Seeing as we had three people, we AirBnb-ed whole apartments, one for $65 a night and the other, located in a fancier high rise, for $80 per. Overall both living situations were lovely, as each of the three of us had our own bedrooms and all the amenities we needed.

A non-stop flight from Taipei to Hanoi -- but back from Ho Chi Minh -- was roughly $300, plus we added an intra-country flight from Hanoi to HCM, which cost $120. (Who knew Vietnam was so tall!) Overall flights back and forth cost about $400. Taxis to and from all the airports cost $140 total, with most of that cost coming from Taipei, as a cab to the airport is about $40. Going from airport to AirBnb in Vietnam cost an average of maybe $12, even with generous tip. Total housing and travel expenses: $920.

Oh I also Uber-ed quite a bit, and took taxis, as it was most necessary in Saigon and partially necessary in Hanoi. Uber trips in Saigon averaged $0.90 to maybe $1.40 and that made coming back and forth between places super easy. Cabs in Hanoi were actually pricier, probably due to longer distances traveled but even with taxi-ing everywhere, the total cost was probably about $60. And oh right, SIMs were $14 for 10GBs over thirty days. So, about normal.

In contrast to Bali, the food in Vietnam was delicious and it was hard to go wrong. We lived on a beautiful street that served chicken pho right across the way and it was $1.50 for a glorious bowl. Overall the food in Hanoi was roughly $2-5 dollars, and to honest, my daily boba was probably more than most of the meals we had. Oh yeah, I found boba in Vietnam and lots of it! The Gong Cha in Hanoi was about $2.50 per cup and I went like every other day. I think I drank more boba than Vietnamese coffee this whole trip, easily.

Meals down south in Saigon got pricier, as we moved away from street foods and more into restaurants and such. Prices were roughly double for everything, and there were a whole lot more non-street options to explore. Overall I spent about $250 dining out — with caveats below — and roughly $60 on various snacks and boba. The biggest single dining expenses were about $12-18 for more upscale dinners in Saigon such as a catfish place, a vegetarian restaurant, and stuff like that.

I did do one big dinner for everyone in Hanoi, at Ưu Đàm Chay, which was $60 for four of us. I reaaaaally wanted the pineapple fried rice so I made us go to this fancy spot. Delicious and lovely presentation, but also ultimately disappointing from a pineapple fried rice perspective. Lesson I'll never learn: Don't order stuff in fruits just because it's in a fruit...

We watched one movie in Saigon, at about $5 per person. I'm happy to report that there are four popcorn options, and they can all be half/half-ed! We also went karaoke twice, once in each city, for a total of $250. I forgot the hourly rate but I think mostly the bill was drink related. Either way, singing is priceless and the decked out rooms and not-too-horrible electronic interface were doable.

And other than a Bavarian rose showcase we randomly went to that featured a nine-dollar entrance fee, it was just museums, museums, museums, which were about $2 per. In theory we went to some night clubs but Vietnamese night clubs apparently have no cover and you just waltz right in. You basically have to buy a table -- I have no idea for how much -- but we mostly just stood in the back, with the penned peasants, and then left quickly. Overall “play” was super cheap. Keep in mind that I didn’t actually do that much some days except stay-in at the AirBnb playing League and only emerging to eat... So take what you will out of that.

What I did do more in Vietnam than in Bali was shop! I bought a fantastic striped Faguo duffel at L'Usine Dong Khoi for way too much, used some hard American cash to buy bowls for my house, picked out some plastic jewelry and a trinket or two, plus some baby clothes for the nieces. Oh, and a book I figured I could get nowhere else called A Summer in Sapa, which was located in the War Remnants Museum gift shop. Gotta support local writers you know. Oh wait, she's a white expat... I also got a haircut in Saigon, at a salon, for about $18.

Overall, two weeks in Vietnam cost $1,800 give or take, with half of that going to transportation and housing. I guess overall the bill is more than Bali but it definitely felt like there was more to do. And plus, the food was way better and a lot cheaper. Pho dreams!

Next up: Japan, aka “the place that will take all my money…."

Bali: 🏖, 💩, 🐦

2018-02-22T04:01:00.001-08:00

What does two weeks in Bali look like? Let’s take a look… The exchange rate for Indonesian rupiah is currently IDR $13,680 to one US dollar. For the purposes of my trip I just divided everything by 13,500 because big numbers are confusing.

Flights cost a total of $650, with tickets being bought a week beforehand on the way there and then three days before on my way out. We flew Air Asia there, and I was wary of the budget airline, but it was fine even with a layover in Kuala Lumpur -- and overall cheaper even with the extreme baggage fees. On the way back though, I opted for China Airlines and a direct flight, which was about $400 one way. (Just had to get home!) Tack on about $100 for getting to and from the airport six separate times, and the total cost of getting door to door from Taipei to Bali was about $750.

Housing was cheap, as we had two people and opted for hostel-like conditions. The first AirBnB was bare bones and clean, and the second one was very nice, with daily breakfast and cleanings. The first one was $23 per night and the second $17. Split that between two people, plus tip, and all our housing costs came out to about $150 each for two weeks.

We didn’t scooter around, as recommended, so mostly it was walking around. But there were still taxis needed to go from Canggu to Ubud, about an hour's ride away, and that was roughly $18 one-way. Overall I spent maybe $40 on taxis and a handful of Ubers, but really didn’t ride in a car unless it was to another town.

SIM cards were easy to acquire, and even though I ran out of 10GB data three days before I left, I just got anther one, to the tune of $16 total, so about a dollar per day for 3G/LTE action.

Food was a problem, as we were in pretty touristy places and the options were limited to Westernized sit-down spots, or warungs, which were local road side restaurants (that mostly served the same thing). We avoided most of the upscale/midscale dining places, and shied away from all the "amazing fusion" food Bali is apparently becoming known for. Also, keep in mind I basically eat once or twice a day, so my food bill was pretty low.

Food in beachy Canggu was more expensive certainly, but overall a basic meal cost $4-7, with prices scaling up by a dollar or two either way. Portions were large, acai bowls and healthy type smoothies were plentiful, but finding cheap decent local food was mostly a bust. We did splurge for big dinners at La Favela ($65 for two), Room 4 Dessert ($60), and an Indonesian tapas place ($17) but otherwise most of the food was around ten bucks. Oh, except for my airport hamburger on the way back, that was a whopping $16 by itself. Also the one local chain I tried, a fried chicken place, gave me diarrhea for two days. So there's that...

Snacks of all kinds were consumed, to the tune of $25, plus $7 on groceries which probably means water and drinks, and maybe another $7 on laundry, extra paper towels, and toilet paper. I paid $6 for two packs of cigarettes, which came in just about the same for my drinking costs, since I don’t drink. Also, I didn’t really shop/buy anything, aside from $6 worth of trinkets at a gift store and $20 for a pair of big poofy pants that I'm very excited about.

“Play” in general cost $65 and that included $30 for the Bali Bird Park, $6 for Agung Rai Museum of Art, and about $20 for beach chair and surfboard rentals. (Standard beach rates were $7.50 for a chair and $3.50 for two hours with a board.) I actually did very little, so that represents the low end of what could be possible. There were no temples, shows, or much of anything else on my play list, so mostly it was just birds birds birds!

Overall the two weeks in Bali cost $2,000 all inclusive. As you can see, most of the cost is in getting there, but once in paradise you could live there for semi-cheap -- although not as cheap as you'd expect. Was paradise worth it? Well, I came back two weeks early, skipping Gili Islands and more surfing at Uluwatu, so you tell me!

Moving On...

2018-01-31T00:32:00.000-08:00

So I'm moving on to another blog! Same programming, different address. Actually maybe I'll be back here for Ways and Means, but otherwise it'll be at "Atelman, Nooooo!" Mainly I wanted to test out Blogger's new responsive themes and it made more sense to switch than to retrofit this one. Plus Jon Wow has been around since 2010, which is incredibly long for me! So yeah, here: atelman.blogspot.com

Ways and Means: 2017 Recap

2017-12-31T03:29:00.000-08:00

Woohoo, my favorite post to write all year because it captures everything that I did the whole year…in money! Unlike other years, my ass was here in San Diego for most of the time, excepting a weekend in Oakland, a brief jaunt to Joshua Tree, two two-week trips to New York, and literally one trip to Los Angeles for New Year’s Eve weekend. Needless to say, that’s the least traveling I’ve done in years. Should have saved a lot of money right? Well, yes and no. Yes I saved a lot of money but no because all that saved money — plus more — went toward outfitting a house. How much does it cost to go from zero house belongings to (almost) full house belongings? I’ll tell you in another post. For now, let’s look at 2017, the fiscal year in review.

As always, below is my month-to-month variable expenses, and let’s just say that it started off swimmingly. I basically did nothing for the first two-and-a-half months of the year and came under budget in January, February, and March, which is a trifecta I don’t think I’ve ever achieved. I even cockily slashed my budget way down after January, thinking that I was doing a great job. By Apr-Jun though, my spending ways were back, and I slowly crept up in both over-budget percentage and actual numbers, all the way to a filthy November which cost me almost triple what January was, for some reason. I did finish up nicely thought, with a December, coming in at 92% on budget, but that was mostly due to being away for two weeks. And vacation, as we all know, goes under the annual "vacation" tab. Write it off!

Jan: $1,100
Feb: $950
Mar: $1,050
Apr: $1,450
May: $1,500
Jun: $1,600
Jul: $1,900
Aug: $2,050
Sep: $2,300
Oct: $2,250
Nov: $3,200
Dec: $1,550

The big four category breakdown goes like this:

🍜 Food: $11,600
🕹 Shopping: $5,400
🎡 Play: $3,700
🚗 Transportation: $3,400

As you can see, compared to last year, everything was way lower, excluding food, which remained about the same. On the year I spent about $42,650 including fixed, variable, and annual expenses. That’s almost exactly the same as last year. So again, I was living about a $55k lifestyle. However, I was living basically rent free from January through June, as we were remodeling the new/old house, so if I take into account what would have been the normal estimated fixed expenses for those months, including the mortgage/rent, it would be more like $55,250 and then a $72k lifestyle. Guess who needs to change everything when the house fully kicks in?!? Is it time to write a book?!

The goal of “tags” is to flag down everything you’d want to take a look at the end of the year, and to that effect I added quite a few detailed tags this year — inspired by Ameer’s “Mexican food” tracking tag. I wanted to see how much I spent on boba, on cigarettes, on popcorn, on karaoke, etc. With those numbers now in hand, I present you with the shocking numbers...

I spent about a thousand dollars on movies, $500 for various “events” (which include concerts, dance shows, plays, anything that requires a pre-bought ticket), a spiffy $775 on karaoke for the year, and most shockingly — although not that shocking really — about a thousand dollars on boba. Yes, boba! Compared to $400 for cigarettes on the year, let’s just say that it’s clear what my real addiction is. Also, I recategorized popcorn to category “play” under its own tag 🍿, since I consider popcorn to be part of the movie going process, and that totaled $250 for the year. In comparison, I spent a piddly $180 on drinks for the year.

As for shopping, I bought a PS4 this year, plus controllers and games, and then add in various iOS and board games I bought and we were looking at a $800 bill for “games” this year. Probably $100 of that probably went to Riot to feed my League of Legends addiction. For a game that I spent probably hundreds of hours on, this was the sweetest ROI of all.

Let’s see, what else... I spent $975 on clothing or clothing-related items, $450 on forty or so books, $425 on whatever comes under “beauty” (haircuts and contacts mostly), and I actually went to the doctor this year, to the tune of two visits each at $75. Car expenses came out to $150 for DMV registration, but that doesn’t account for car insurance.

Oh, subscriptions. I finally cancelled my Citibike Pass after years of not even living in New York, signed up for and then cancelled a rarely used Marvel Unlimited account, and am still subscribed to the usual assortment of URL and hosting services for web life, a couple of iOS subscriptions, NBA League Pass, Spotify, Netflix, and Stitcher. Biggest adds were subscriptions for 1Password (a lifesaver), YouTube Red, and recurring charges for the new camera monitoring set-up in my house. That all came out to about $110 a month. The saddest thing is that MoviePass never got back to me and with the huge price drop, I never even got my MoviePass to work out. So much for customer loyalty!

And let’s tackle the huge food category, which I smartly separated out this year into dining, dining shared, grocery, and snacks. A full 32% of my entire variable budget was spent on food, of which 22% of that was spent paying for myself and others. I’d been wondering how much I spend on just my food versus when I eat out with others and here was the answer: about two-thirds. It’s a small price to pay for good company and shared plates. Add in snacks and groceries and we have food all the way up to 46% of my variable money spent. Even with a healthy diet of Soylent, most of my money went to food, as per usual. Can we just, like, not eat already?

Travel wise, again, I didn’t go too many places and so we’re looking at a total of $1,800 on flights, $625 on hotels, and that encompasses a weekend wedding in Oakland ($450), a few days in Joshua Tree ($175), ten days in New York ($1,175) and another two weeks there ($1,750). Oh wait, flights is super high because I bought a ticket to Taipei for $600 that doesn’t deliver until January 2018. And somehow taxis cost me $975 for the year, which I’d guess is trip related, and public transportation was a piddly $75 in total. Let's hope that number goes up next year as it means I'll be scooting around in foreign subways.

Also, an unexpected expense was a new passport and visas for my upcoming Asia jaunt. Apparently you can’t just add new pages to your passport anymore so a new passport, two visas, and finally getting on the Global Entry program set me back $1,450. Such is the price of escape right? Oh and most importantly I racked up 64,500 reward points on my Chase card — remember my newfound obsession with reward cards right around this time last year? — and am now armed with almost one "get out of jail free" card to anywhere. Whew!

As always, if you want to start a budget club of your very own, here's the open template, and if you need help customizing it, do tell!

Super Bloom

2017-03-29T00:07:00.000-07:00

Shoot, a whole three months has already gone by and no blog? What’s the reason! Well, simple: I haven’t done anything. It’s hibernation time for this bear and let me just tell you that my video game intake is way up, along with my TV, books, and just about everything else intake. Strangely, I haven’t watched that many movies, but mainly because most of the movies out in January and February were pretty trash. Straight up, the only strong recommends I can give for the past three months of movies is 20th Century Women, the ESPN O.J. documentary, and Logan starring Dafne Keen. Killing the books though, as I’m well on my way to breaking fifty, a goal that will become a top five moment for me this year.

Top one worst 2017 moment: Remember when the Atlanta Falcons made the Super Bowl? Remember when they scored three early touchdowns and was killing the Patriots and I was on the ground just ready to burst with joy? I hate watching big games with other people and in a game of this magnitude I could only survive if I was surrounded by loved ones. Of course, AMR was cheering for Brady (I hate him, Brady and AMR both), George fell asleep right as the Falcons were falling apart, and Greta, who can blame anything on wonderful Greta, who sat in my lap for a few moments during the crucial Green Bay game that launched Atlanta into their second Super Bowl? Of course, Greta was sleeping as the greatest collapse in Super Bowl history was happening, so at least she was spared that destruction.

I give up. Football, I’m over you. Coming two or three minutes away from a championship is going to be as good as it gets and the pain’s just not worth it. I had been planning to message a friend from middle school — the only other Falcons fan I’ve ever met — and congratulate us for our journey (we haven’t talked since high school), but alas I guess that won’t be necessary.

Instead, I have funneled my emotional well-being into inanimate things like my new $200 Muji toaster, my new 4k computer monitor that invites me into the Netherworld of the internet (apparently not capitalized anymore) where I can hang out with my own kind. I caress joy in reflecting on the infinitesimal odds of finding a mostly exact replica of my beloved denim jacket, but in a perfect lighter shade. What are the odds?! (Thank you Forever 21 for being so good at copying.) Also I bought a PS4 because you can’t spend all day staring at a screen — gaming on a TV doesn’t count right? In-between bouts of Call of Duty: Black Ops I make friends online with gamer tags, aka strangers, whom I only communicate with via brief in-game chats or moving my character around in various expressive patterns. It’s a life my friends. It's the future.

How well does this all dovetail with the grand plans I made for 2017? Well, you can figure that out for yourself. Above is my mind map, which outlines everything I hope to accomplish and focus on this year. It’s semi-tiered, because things should be prioritized and arranged. The most important categories on the map are: House, Job, Writing, Adult.

So far the house thing is looking great, as we’ve vacated the old tenants and I sort of know how to drive there without consulting Google Maps. People have been asking me if I’ve moved in yet but the truth is we haven’t even started on solid remodeling plans. So I won’t be moving in for a few months at least. Also I am learning about the tyranny of “future buyers” and how that impacts house decisions. Like apparently people won’t buy a house if you don’t have a bathtub. (I don’t take baths.) Or how it’s important to keep the value of a house up by not converting a bedroom into a glass enclosed office. Or how it would be bad feng shui for me to not sleep in the master bedroom but instead turn it into the ultimate movie and karaoke room. Basically I want to transform the house into a combination diner / cafe / theater / board game / office / collectibles monstrosity that wouldn’t sit well with other home owners. You know, strangers who may want to buy my house in a few years.

Newsflash: Once I get into this house I’m not leaving it, so I feel like I should just design it for me, and not some prospectives who will need to wash their dog in the non-existent bathtub. Also, no dogs allowed.

So yeah, there will be lots of house talk in the coming days. But then what? Well, I’m getting itchy already. For example today I deep dived into Remote Year, which is a program where you travel with seventy-five strangers for an entire year, staying one month each in a new city and working from the road. It seems ideal for me, and the cost is not prohibitive. Upon further investigation though, I would probably hate it. Too many (white) Americans, too many bad accommodations, too many headaches, and from what I can tell half the group ends up leaving by the end. Still, it’s got a certain romance to it doesn’t it? Twelve months away with a group cohort, globe hopping, having adventures, laughing about all the bad things that will inevitably happen. And think of the moblogs, it would be a moblog explosion!

Interestingly, Taiwan also has such a program, but only for one month. Maybe this is a thing now, an all-inclusive travel experience for digital nomads. It sounds great right? I was also thinking maybe this should be my summer to summer in Amsterdam, as I have always said I want to do that. But really, who would I go with? I have a few unemployed friends at the moment but they seem to be mostly concerned with finding their next employment — a responsible, solid idea — and there’s no way I can go hang out in a foreign country by myself, right?

Instead I’ll likely, steel yourself...join a gym soon (somehow according to the weigher thing closest to me, I've dropped weight recently). I'll continue to explore the world of “pizza on demand,” and generally just hang out around Poway and Rancho Bernardo, with the most exciting thing being a ride down to Convoy for boba. Let’s not underestimate that by the way, this ShareTea boba is pretty freaking good - my new thing is the "Okinawa double boba."

I guess I knew this is what this year would be like, and I am thankful for the company I have and how mundane everything has gotten. There is a quietness in the mundane. My focus is able to turn internal, and this is a nice Reset Year (patent pending) and toward that end I have had expansive time to fall into my old do nothing habits, which has forced me to become mentally productive, at the very least. And even some writing has been accomplished (!), as I kicked out a few chapters of a project as well as version one of a non-fiction book proposal.

Plus in an effort to get myself out there — out there! — I’m volunteering as a programmer for Pacific Arts Movement, which throws the annual San Diego Asian Film Festival. The people already seem culturally a cut above (what is usually in San Dieog), and it’ll be a change to be involved in something that is so far in the future -- SDAFF is in November. Also I just returned from the Bay and Joshua Tree, so I can also legitimately say I’ve been out of the house this year.

To spring.

Ways and Means: 2016 Recap

2016-12-30T21:44:00.001-08:00

Alright, here we go with another in our annual series of “where did my money go?!” posts. This one will cover the past year and let’s just say that it was complicated. I forgot to do Ways and Means posts after March, so I had to really go back and analyze things. Luckily, I’ve downgraded my living costs since then, so I’m happy to report that I’m no longer living the $69k I was on track for — which is great since I don’t make nearly that much.

This year was a bit convoluted because I was in Taiwan for the first three months, followed by two months in San Diego, two months in New York, one in Brazil, two more in San Diego, November in Taiwan, and then December in San Diego. So basically my rent situation was all over the place, going from about $800 in Taiwan to $1,500 in New York to none when I was living at home. But in sum my fixed costs came out to be about $550 per month averaging it all out. That’s pretty low because I basically paid for about half a year of rent. But that means variable was high...

And as you’ll see by my month-by-month variable expenditures, everything was all over the place. And I can’t even say that living in San Diego was cheaper or anything, as my second highest month was April, right when I moved back home from Taiwan!

Jan (TPE): $2,000
Feb (TPE): $2,100
Mar (TPE): $2,700
Apr (SD): $3,000
May (SD): $1,900
Jun (NYC): $1,850
Jul (NYC): $3,150
Aug (BRA): $1,500
Sep (SD): $2,150
Oct (SD): $1,250
Nov (TPE): $2,000
Dec (SD): $1,900

Separating that into categories looks like this:

Food: $10,700
Shopping: $10,650
Play: $4,850
Transportation:$3,650
Misc: $500

On the year I spent $42,500 including fixed, variable, and annual costs. That’s about $3,550 per month. Taking everything into account, I was living a $55k lifestyle. (For comparison’s sake, since 2013 — when I’ve been tracking — I’ve lived about $56k, 52k, and 50k in each successive year.) So the fixed monthly expenses was about $550, variable costs averaged out to $2,500, and stuff that went into the “annual” tab was roughly $600 per month.

So let’s talk about that “annual” number actually. The goal of the annual tab is to throw in vacations, travel, big ticket items, etc. I earmarked out a few thousand but went way over that as I flew around a lot this year. Vacation wise there was a road trip down Taiwan’s east coast, a sunny jaunt to the Philippines, and then the trip to Brazil. Throw in flights in-between all the cities I was hopping back and forth from, plus a wedding in Arizona, and that shot my annual expenses through the roof.

All in all though, it wasn’t too bad, as flights, hotels, rental cars and everything came out to be about $5k total, and maybe $2k in big ticket items and another $1k on other annual stuff. The total breaks down to about $8k in the “annual" ledger, but I offset about a quarter of that off with my tax return. (Also, some of my flights were paid by the company, when I could swing it for work-related stuff.)

I actually need to go into the budget spreadsheet and revamp a few things. Something I did want to track separately was what kinds of things I paid monthly subscriptions for. Technically that’s all under “fixed expenses” under the Budget tab, but I also wanted to have more detail so I started a separate “subscriptions” tab that tells me how much I pay annually, monthly, and reminds me when to renew.

Stuff I pay a monthly subscription for: Netflix ($12), Spotify ($10), Marvel Unlimited ($10), iCloud storage ($3), and Stitcher for podcasts ($1.33). That totals roughly $35. On top of that, I have a few annual subscriptions that I paid for up-front, including a Citibike pass ($170), Bluehost for my websites ($155), Soundcloud Pro for podcast hosting ($135), NBA League Pass ($130), and two iOS apps ($5). That comes out to about $55 per month. Somehow my bank has been charging me $15 per month for my checkings account, which I gotta go fix. But if I minus that, I have about $90 in subscriptions per month.

Now let’s talk about what I spent my money on by looking at the detailed “tags report." As usual, food was a doozy. Exactly 34% of my variable spending was food-related. That includes dining out, snacks, and groceries. Since I don’t really cook, that’s almost a non-factor. What I do a lot is eat out, and that cost upwards of $650 a month, and accounted for fully a quarter of all my expenditures. Here’s the thing: I don’t even like eating out!

The dream is to replace a lot of meals with Soylent (but that’s not super cheap either actually), and my goal is to somehow make the dining out portion of my budget much lower. I do eat a lot of snacks though, and all those bobas and drinks and sweet things add up to almost $200 per month. Will I cut that stuff out? Never! I'd rather starve...

A huge riser this year was in shopping, which has traditionally been about half of food spending. But instead, “shopping” — which includes general shopping, online shopping, gifts, household needs, beauty stuff, and books — came out to 33% of my budget too. That’s almost $10k each into the food and shopping categories!

Actually, if you minus out about $2k in the big ticket category, "shopping" itself drops down by a lot, but I still spent about $300 per month buying stuff. And another $140 in “online” category which is actually still just shopping so I should figure out a better way to tag this stuff. Stuff that goes into online is stuff digital related, or maybe from Amazon. Bad tagging, as I'm realizing.

So what kinds of stuff did/do I buy? I see a pair or two of shoes, a couple of fantastic Forever 21 trips that were a couple of hundred dollars each, a new Kindle White, some haircuts, lots of contacts and (sun)glasses, some Fiverr logos, two Apple TVs, two tattoos, and lots of iOS apps. Actually I should figure out how much I pay for my various URLs, of which I probably have six or seven. Those are roughly $12 each per year I think, and I currently mark them under each month but they should be under “annual.”

Oh and I just spent $100+ each on a new toaster oven and these amazing chambray dhoti pants I’ve been lusting after for months. (But I’m using credit card points to pay off those pants, more on that later.) Overall nothing really stands out except I guess I love shopping! And all those little things add up I guess. Quite the leap in shopping over 2015 I’d say, but I wouldn’t take any of it back!

And for all that traveling I did, it amounted to about the same as my play and transportation categories. Some years I go way over on taxis, but due to not being in New York that much, and the low cost of taxis in Taipei, my taxis expenditure was a measly $160 per month. Damn, that still sounds pretty high right? Taxis and public transportation used up about $210 per month, versus $100 per month for car and gas. Those numbers would be totally reversed if I lived in San Diego more, as I would be driving a whole lot more in the suburbs. Bleh.

As for my “play,” I spent $400 a month there, which was basically some combination of karaoke, a few clubs, some museums, and anything that would be regarded as “doing something.” Actually, that’s about all I do. But movies was a big one, with $1k total spent on them — time to MoviePass again? — and 3% of my total variable spending. For comparison’s sake, I spent $300 dollars on books this year.

And I didn’t really do that much this year outside of the usual singing and dancing. I did go to a bachelor party mandated burlesque show, four theme parks (Disney, San Diego Zoo, Sea World, Potterworld), a Chuck Klosterman talk in Brooklyn, the NBA Draft, Eclipsed on Broadway, Tiger Style at the La Jolla Playhouse, another Wicked musical viewing, and Sleep No More back in the summer. That’s not a lot of events right? And I’ve completely given up drinking, yet somehow still spent $300 on drinks over the year. Social graces I guess.

So there we have it, 2016 in a financial nutshell. I suspect the next year will be much different, as my circumstances are about to drastically change. So this four year window of running around and not being an adult and doing whatever I want could all be in the rearview window soon. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!

But before I go, let’s talk briefly about my newfound love: rewards credit cards! This topic really requires its own post but somehow I am only put onto this world of credit cards in the past few weeks. And then I spent three whole days researching and talking to people about getting the right credit card. I applied for three or four credit cards in my excitement — a big no-no, actually — but ended up cancelling most of them and going with the Chase Sapphire Preferred. (I was rejected for the Reserved, which I reaaaaallly wanted).

Now, I should have been using a rewards credit card during all these travel years, but I haven’t been! Part of it is because I didn’t know about this stuff -- tsk tsk, to so called “friends” of mine for not ever talking to me about this stuff -- part it was my credit history was pretty bad until recently, but mostly I just didn’t realize the advantages of using credit cards. Aside from the rewards there’s additional services, insurances, concierges, etc. You just gotta know which credit card is best for you, aka the most free shit. I recommend checking out Nerd Wallet. Or just come ask me as I’m literally become an expert. I now understand what all those "what's in your wallet" ads are about; I guess I just simply overlooked them before.

So yep, I can’t wait to get double points on all my travel and food! In fact, by using the budget spreadsheet and its tags, I was able to easily figure out which card would work best for me, since I could narrow down exactly how much I spent on travel and dining and shopping and gas, etc. That's synergy!

This is 38

2016-10-19T01:03:00.000-07:00

Recent changes I’ve made to my lifestyle: I wake up anywhere from 10-11AM (as I mentioned in my last post), I don’t sleep in late, I’m rarely not in bed by midnight or so. I swim as many days as I can, just laps laps laps. I am looking into buying a house. I am looking into getting a real-ish type job. I looked into transferring my credits to UMich for graduation, I sewed a button onto my shorts the other day. I learned how to put air in my tires. Basically, I’m heavy duty adulting!

What brought about this change? Well, to be honest, it’s age. About a year ago, I was at the crossroads of figuring out what to do. With a late thirties birthday looming, I was trying to figure out if I could keep on doing what I did — running around, running away, keeping it moving — or if I would have to tack the other direction, which would equal settling down and figuring shit out.

Well, the germination of the idea was there last year, even if I wasn’t really thinking about actual stuff until a few months later. But the thought of continually running around was getting tiring, I must admit, even if I still thought I might have one more go in me. But as it turns out, maybe not, since New York didn’t hold much appeal for me this past summer.

And to be honest, since turning thirty-eight just a month or so ago, everything just screams that I need to stay put somewhere. Like now I’m a tag-a-long to adult dinners with my mom, I am seeking out older people’s advice, and I am, like, making actual plans for the future. This is like kind of all shocking stuff. Especially when I'm catching friends up on events if we haven't communicated in awhile.

People, you wouldn’t even recognize me anymore. And not just because I shaved my head again — a return to my bald form that hasn’t been seen since late 2013. Oh yeah, I even put my hands on a shovel and gardened one day, helping AMR and George clear some tubers in their front yard. I willingly touched dirt, cue the apocalypse!

In addition, I’m basically a recluse. I don’t go out anywhere, I stay at home all day, and there’s only one friend I see with any regularity. This one friend is like the activities coordination for many things, so she’s always inviting me to stuff, which I appreciate. But so far I've only done a few things, like gone downtown once, attended a trivia night, saw a play, popped into to my other friend’s book release, went to an art show, and stumbled through a dance class. Plus I play basketball weekly, as of three weeks ago.

And that’s about it. What I should be doing with all this free time is writing, and I mean to get to it, but I’ve been focusing on setting up a new podcast — The Redo, coming soon! — and otherwise have been trying to fill the day with odds and ends. The hours really stretch when you wake up early doesn’t it? I wouldn’t say I’m more productive, by any measure, but by 4PM I’m usually looking around for something to do.

Stuff like read a book, watch a Netflix series, listen to some podcasts, I dunno, anything to just kill time I guess. This is in direct contrast to George and AMR, who moved back to Poway a week before I arrived, and are quite busy setting up their house, taking care of a baby, and adjusting to their new life. I see them once or twice a week, and seeing as George’s Wednesdays are now her “off” days, sometimes we hit the mall or something. Or go to Home Goods, which is apparently an almost biweekly trip for George and my mom.

Today I re-watched The Big Short, and tried to figure out what I was doing in September of 2008, as the world economy was about to collapse. Basically I was living in San Diego but was visiting San Francisco for Tien’s wedding and our thirtieth birthday. I had just come off a magical August re-visit to New York, which would plant the seeds for me eventually moving out there.

I believe I was pulling unemployment that year — and had just sold a book — and so was living high bouncing back and forth between San Diego and San Francisco a lot. So yeah, as the subprime mortgage crisis was occurring, I was having the time of my life. Oh right, but that was also right around when big shit was going down on the friend/romantic side, and that also jump started me getting the hell out of San Diego the following year, and setting off the so-called "golden triangle" of hopping. What a time.

Anyway, I’m back in San Diego. For awhile I think. Yay?

"I find that it often feels like critics use the city of San Diego as a lens through which to understand the Chargers’ weaknesses — lazy! Too much sun! Head in the clouds! — but I see the opposite: The Chargers’ stadium turmoil is the best way to understand San Diego. It is the second-largest city in California and eighth-largest in the United States, yet it continues to struggle to define itself outside of the weather and Anchorman references. Instead, San Diego is characterized by sweeping generalizations — 'America’s Finest City,' 'a bland, happy place' — the way politicians combine words to form platitudes that fail to say anything at all."
-A Preemptive Farewell to the San Diego Super Chargers-

Oi, Oi, Oi

2016-09-08T22:55:00.000-07:00

And I’m back, squarely in San Diego and soaking in the sun. So far my routine consists of waking up at a reasonable hour — before 11AM, which is a miracle for me — drinking a bottle of Soylent for lunch (not a total meal replacement, unfortunately), and then lounging around until I take a daily dip in the pool. I’ve been back for about a month now, since returning from Brazil, and basically haven’t done much. Well, let’s rewind, back to Brazil.

So after two months in New York, I bounced down to South America in the beginning of August and landed in Sao Paolo. The reason? To see my friends! Two of my best friends from Taiwan happen to be Taiwanese-Brazilian and this was a chance to visit both of them. The trip down is surprisingly easy, with a direct flight from New York to GRU airport in Sao Paolo taking just ten hours or so. (Anything under ten hours is a short flight these days.)

My main fear would be that I’d emerge from the airport and be immediately lost, but my friend assured me if I just got my bags and headed outside, she would find me. And indeed she did, at 7AM no less. From there, we booked it to the bus station to pick up our other friend, who was arriving via bus from her hometown, sixteen hours away. So basically I had a shorter trip from the U.S. to South America than my friend had traveling across the wide expanse of Brazil. Did you know Brazil is actually bigger than the contiguous United States, so asking what Brazil is like is similar to asking “What’s America like?” There’s the coastal bits, the middle barren parts, and of course the rainforests, which were nowhere near where I went.

Rio was hosting the Olympics at this exact same time, but I avoided that of course. All the images of Brazil that flutter over to us — the beaches, the favelas, Carnival — were nowhere to be found. Instead I was in Sao Paolo for a week, which is considered the New York of Brazil. (Although I found it, at first pass, more like San Francisco.) During that time, I didn’t venture out much at night, because it’s dangerous, but did get to spend the week crashing at my friend’s new apartment watching Stranger Things and Gilmore Girls, before relocating to a beautiful AirBnB-ed loft apartment that overlooked the city.

And then a week in, I took the sixteen hour bus ride myself from Sao Paolo to Ponta Pora, which is way on the other side of the country, on the border of Paraguay and Brazil. My friend’s family lives on the Paraguay side, running an import/export business, and I spent the rest of my time there.

For the most part, Ponta Pora is a city that exists solely to import stuff from the Paraguay side to the Brazil side. Also, it’s the drug delivery center for Paraguay, so it’s also quite dangerous, with drug related killings happening quite often. I was assured “normal” people were never harmed though, during these incidents. One wild thing about Brazil/Paraguay is that the news outlets have no compunction against publishing the goriest photos of crime scenes and killings. It’s quite a shock to see the grisly images splashed on the front pages.

I spent most of my days hanging out, talking with D’s family, watching their daily life unfold, and getting to see a side of small town Brazil that most people wouldn’t experience. The entire town is only twenty thousand people, but in actuality it wasn’t that small, despite what D had advertised before. I had thought no movie theater would mean it's tiny, but really it's just like say, a Rancho Bernardo, minus the neighboring communities.

It was interesting to be immersed in a culture that I understood very little about, and to be in an environment where I understood nothing. From how banks worked, to all the armed guards at every place of business, to how people thought about various things (especially their views on race and ethnicity). It felt like the first few months in Taiwan, where everything was interesting simply by it being new and different.

Overall I found myself adapting to the rhythm of each day, and it coincided nicely with the kind of quiet I was looking for. And I turned from a late-night person into a semi-normal time person. I haven't really lived with another family for so long, not since my time in England, and D's family's strict mealtimes and schedules was a change for me. But like I said, I adapted pretty easily. I think.

And I found it very interesting to learn more about the families who moved from Taiwan to Brazil, seeking a better future and finding it in creation of their own businesses. Nowadays when we overthink every decision to go from even one coast to the other, it's hard to fathom how parents of our generation just picked up and left their home country, without any language, any prior conception of their destination, and often with no money in their pocket. Immigrants are so brave.

While originally I wasn't sure how long I'd be down there, I ended up coming back to the U.S. after about six weeks. And on the day before I left, I turned thirty-eight. And thus I turned into an adult. But more on that later. Here’s more about my trip down south, from the other blog. And with that, "boa noite!"

Summer Blues

2016-07-31T16:33:00.000-07:00

Alright, let’s do this. Hello May, June, July, where did you go? Well, May was seriously just buckling down and doing not all that much. I hosted a board game night at my house, saw the one old friend I basically have left here once or twice, and then got my shit together and ready to head out in June. But not before a quickie weekend trip to Los Angeles to meet up with some friends who were driving down from San Francisco.

The highlight was clearly going to the newly opened Harry Potter World at Universal Studios, but exploring East LA was fun too. My friends AirBnBed a spot in Silver Lake and from there we set off on food adventures. With my friend cruise directoring the whole thing, it was very easy to just show up and eat. Throughout the whole trip we talked about how much appeal East LA had to us as a place to move to. Short answer: with the rise of Uber, and much less driving, it’s a lot!

For the full PotterWorld review and some more talk about (potentially) living in Los Angeles, listen to episode one of my forthcoming podcast with newish friend extraordinaire, Margot. Oh wait, I haven’t built that podcast yet. But I’m gonna get on it when I get the chance. I even bought a fancy new microphone to have better sound quality. So yeah, new podcast, arriving soon!

Teaser: I’m Ravenclaw.

Heading into June, I packed up everything into my standard suitcase and duffle bag and headed off to New York. Originally I was hoping to move in with my old roommate in Fort Greene but that plan didn’t come together so after some Craigslist and Facebook Group searching, I found a sublet in Stuy Town, on 18th Street and Avenue C. (I went through my week-by-week in New York on the other blog, so I’ll skim through most of it here. Just the highlights!)

Oh, before I got over to New York, I stopped by Indiana for two nights, to see my uncle and talk some business stuff. Get business stuff cleared up mostly. I had been there four years before, when I was just starting to work seriously with the company again. The experience this time was understandably different, and I didn’t 100% need to go, but it was good to stop by. Also, Obama was in town for a speech too, so the whole town was riled up, in a good and bad way. Put it this way, I’d never spoken to so many non-Obama people before. Eye opening. We all live in our bubbles eh?

The two big things I was in New York for was my friend’s wedding in late June and the bachelor party two weeks prior. I popped in the night before the bachelor party and then cruised over to my first burlesque show for the coed festivities.

My ex was there, and I made it even more awkward by not just stepping up right away and saying hello. So basically throughout the entire night — and the wedding itself — we just ignored each other. While this might have been fine on both parts, it seemed like not the right thing to do. Even a cordial “hi” would probably have been adult. Lesson learned: Just get the awkwardness out of the way early so that it fades. Instead I just let it linger. Seeing as last time we spoke we were literally fighting, maybe ignoring each other was the best. Anyways… Beautiful wedding, and I got to be a groomsman for the second time. Plus I wore a tux for the first time ever!

Most of early June was sucked up by the NBA Playoffs, which made me get out of the house — in search of a television — and also to see random friends here and there. My main go-to hang out buddy was my friend from Taiwan, as he had also just moved to New York from Taiwan. With our flexible schedules, we wandered around a lot, hitting up random Chinese food places to rate them, and getting boba.

I also got to visit JMZ and Jenn’s new house out in Brooklyn. It’s very homey, just like their old spot, and they’ve got a boatload of work to do to the backyard, the studio, and the basement. I can’t imagine ever owning a house where I have to do any improvements. I mean, can you? I can barely install a shower head. But JMZ and Jenn are well equipped for the job. A big highlight of June was seeing their upstairs neighbor’s performance of Eclipsed on Broadway. A reminder of the type of stuff that I can’t get elsewhere.

However, something was wrong as soon as I settled into New York. The streets were chaotic, dirty, and people bugged me all around. I thought the feeling would fade but it really didn’t. By the end of June, I was already plotting to get out of New York, cutting short my summer stay. But you already know that. (Since I’m backdating this and now on an entirely different continent.)

By July 4th, I knew I was heading out at the end of the month. So I made efforts to cram in as much as possible before I left. And in a shocker, I headed to the beach twice. After never going to any beach in New York before. The first time was to Long Beach, where my friend and I spent hours on the sand, sitting on beach chairs, chatting away, and never even getting in the water. The second time, my friend who had acquired a car to go with her parking spot — a super backwards move that makes sense only in Manhattan — wanted to get out for the weekend so we headed to Fire Island and spent a wonderful day lounging on the beach.

Both times made strong arguments for adding “beach” to further New York agendas. But only if you have someone to drive you there. No way I can stomach sitting on a train to the beach and back. Sorry, I still prefer my beach less than ten minutes away.

Other July highlights: a five hour karaoke night that was just epic in energy, song selection, and personnel; going to watch Wicked for the fifth time; pulling a major favor from my friend to jam seven of us into her eighteen-seat restaurant, and then my first experience with Sleep No More. And then the night before I left, I had one of those New York nights I missed so much but didn’t really find much of this summer. It wasn’t even an all nighter or anything, but started off with a group dinner with friends and then spun out into some walking around, followed by grouping up different people at a bar/restaurant for fun conversation, and all the while adding/losing people — including my friend who just landed from Taiwan. The night ended around one in the morning, with a late night Flushing run scratched due to weather and fatigue, but it left me with the sense that the magic wasn’t gone. (I mean, is it ever gone in New York? Never completely right?)

Anyway, what is that called? A whiff of a memory? A glimpse of promise? Whatever it was, I was on a plane eighteen hours later, on my way to Brazil.