Q2 2018 Update (Spoiler Alert: It’s Not Good!)

After a short hiatus from blogging, I’m back with some life updates and of course, an overview of my financial progress for 2Q18. Spoiler: it’s not good.  But it’s not all bad.  For starters, I QUIT MY JOB!!! It was completely unplanned and there were a lot of opportunity costs that came with me leaving my previous employer, but that will come in a later post.  I’ve outlined the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ of the last 3 months below.

THE GOOD

• Tommy and I got new jobs!  We actually started on the same day.  I’m now working in personal wealth management which has truly been a dream come true!  As an outcome of our job changes, our combined gross income has increased nearly 30%!
• I started my MBA program!  Though the work is exhausting and time consuming, this is truly the most stimulated I have ever felt in my life!
• Tommy and I visited our good friends in New York for a long weekend in the beginning of June.  We used our miles to book the flights and stayed with our friends, so overall the trip was low-cost.  We ate to our hearts content and then combat the calorie intake by walking up the 5 flights of stairs each day to our friends’ apartment.  Apparently elevators are a luxury in New York.
• We’re continuing to pursue home improvement projects around our home.  If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen this one we recently finished (which somehow got nearly 3,000 likes on Instagram)! 
• I signed my first contract with a local non-profit company for a social media campaign!  It was a new experience negotiating a ‘sponsored rate’ with them, but I’ll happily add that to my side hustle income for the month!

THE BAD

• Remember how I talked about paying off Tommy’s car in my previous post and was overjoyed we no longer had any car notes between the two of us!?  Well, my muffler decided to fall off last week which was a telling sign that my car is beginning to show her age.  She’s now 12 years old and just hit the 200K mile mark.  I’m truly proud of myself for keeping her as long as I did, but I think it’s about time I admit to a needing a new car soon.  Tommy and I are looking into either a Kia Sportage or a Honda CR-V for me. I’m planning to make the purchase early next year.  Tommy thinks we should jump the gun this year but I’m holding off as long as I can!  I started a ‘New Car Fund’ savings account (separate from our normal savings) and have been contributing $500/month to it.
• Because I changed jobs, I’m ineligible to contribute to my new employers 401K plan until January.  This means I’m sitting on the sideline for the rest of the year *crying emoji*.  While I’m bummed about the waiting period, it does give me ample time to build up my cash on hand and pay debt off more aggressively in the coming months.
• That MBA I was talking about earlier?  Unfortunately it’s not free 🙁  I received a small academic merit scholarship but will still need to pull out a federal loan to cover the difference.  I plan to pay off as much as I can while I’m still in school to combat the accruing interest but boy do I already have anxiety thinking about it!
• We weren’t able to recoup our savings in 2Q because I ended up having to pay back some tuition costs my old employer put toward my studies since I didn’t meet the full vesting period.  Remember how I said there were opportunity costs of me quitting?  This was one of the many that occurred, however, we’re funneling about $2K/month into our savings now to build some cushion by year-end.

How  are you guys doing with your financial and personal goals for the year?