Recent Money Moves

I haven’t been super active on the blog late­ly, so I want­ed to write up a quick post that high­lights some recent moves I’ve made with my mon­ey and in adja­cent spaces. Let’s go! 

No Car Note

As Dee‑1 says.…

Cause I ain’t got no car note
I ain’t got no car note
I ain’t got no car note
No note No note No note

(Check out the whole song “No Car Note”! It’s great!)

I paid off my car loan ear­ly! I bought my car in Sep­tem­ber 2020 for $14,817. My loan for the car from my local cred­it union was for 36 months at 2.94%. Not too shab­by! I paid the loan off ear­ly in a mere 25 months. I would’ve pre­ferred soon­er (obvi­ous­ly) but my finan­cial sit­u­a­tion shift­ed a bit after I bought the car when I went through the breakup and hon­est­ly I’m just real­ly hap­py I was able to pay it off ear­ly like I want­ed to. Before I got my new job and the raise that went with it, hav­ing an extra $410 in my month­ly bud­get was very help­ful. Now that I have a bit more breath­ing room, I pay myself that $400 each month into an account for my next car. When­ev­er that is, hope­ful­ly very far into the future! 

No More Wide Open Spaces

When I was younger, I def­i­nite­ly relat­ed to the Chicks’ song “Wide Open Spaces”. I need­ed those wide open spaces with room to make my big mis­takes. I need­ed new faces and to learn how the rest of the world worked. While I haven’t seen it all, I’ve seen a fair amount from some­one who grew up in the mid­dle of a corn­field. I’ve moved 12 times in the last decade or so and I’m get­ting to the point where I don’t want to live that life anymore. 

I’m proud to announce I just re-signed my first 12 month lease! That’s right, at age 32, I final­ly won’t have to update my friend’s address books for Christ­mas cards. I’ve extend­ed leas­es before, but nev­er for the full 12 months. One year I went month to month since I knew my job was going to move me with­in 6 months. Anoth­er time I signed an 18 month lease up front and then had to extend it a month or two while I wait­ed for news on my next new job. (That was some bull­shit — they charged me like an extra 5–600 a month to do that. Big apart­ment com­plex­es using rent fix­ing soft­ware SUCK). Oth­er times I’ve lived with friends/loved ones and didn’t have a lease to break when I moved. 

So, the fact that I’ve been pay­ing for my own hous­ing for the last 12 years and just now reupped a reg­u­lar 12 month lease is HUGE! I love my fan­cy con­do in down­town St Louis and hon­est­ly have a pret­ty great deal. I signed for $1750 with a $50/mo increase each year I renew. I thought that was a bit bogus at the time, but after see­ing so many posts in the local sub­red­dit about land­lords rais­ing rents 3–400 a month, I con­sid­er myself blessed to know my cur­rent and future hous­ing expens­es. Three and a half con­sec­u­tive years in one met­ro­polit­ian area is also a record for me. I love liv­ing in St Louis and have zero inten­tion of leav­ing in the future. It feels.…. nice to put down roots and be able to appre­ci­ate change in a city. Before, I was the one chang­ing. Now, the city is chang­ing around me and I’m a big fan. New restau­rants, new sports teams (Ka-Kaaw!), new places for fun and recre­ation (Armory, Foundry, Puttshack) .… I’m here for it!

Speaking of roots.…..

After the breakup in late 2021, I wasn’t real­ly look­ing for a new part­ner in 2022. I dipped my toe back into the world of online dat­ing, quick­ly remem­bered how awful those streets were and just as quick­ly jumped back out of the active dat­ing pool. I most­ly focused on my job, explor­ing my new found free­dom, and hang­ing out with cool peo­ple. I didn’t have many friends my age in St Louis yet, so I was doing a lot with the local young pro­fes­sion­als Meetup.com group. (Side­note: it hurts when I’m one of the old­est in the group for young peo­ple!!) A bunch of group admins got togeth­er and planned a giant game of pick­up kick­ball at one of St Louis’ beau­ti­ful parks.

While at this kick­ball game hav­ing fun, one of my team mem­bers caught my eye and we clicked. The fun con­tin­ued after the game at the local brew­ery so we swapped num­bers and went our own sep­a­rate ways. 

As luck would have it, my kick­ball team­mate felt the same way about our inter­ac­tions dur­ing the game and asked me out. The rest, is his­to­ry! We’ve been offi­cial­ly dat­ing just over 6 months now and hav­ing a super fun time togeth­er. While he’s not in the FIRE com­mu­ni­ty, he is savvy with his finances and respects all that I’ve done with mine. We’ve done some trav­el­ing togeth­er already (fam­i­ly trip for a week at the Gulf Shores, a vaca­tion to Can­cun, and EconoMe in Cincin­nati) and haven’t killed each oth­er, so I guess you could say things are get­ting pret­ty serious. 

One Last Move!

The last move to hap­pen recent­ly with my mon­ey was a recent liq­uid­i­ty injec­tion of cold, hard cash from the pro­ceeds of the sale of my por­tion of the house I bought with my now-ex boyfriend. No, I don’t regret doing so and yes, I will be far less like­ly to repeat that par­tic­u­lar sce­nario in the future. I moved out of the house in Jan­u­ary 2022, but we could­n’t start the paper­work with the mort­gage com­pa­ny until the loan was a year old. So, we start­ed the paper­work process in March 2022 and wait­ed. Wait­ed some more. Filled out a pile of paper­work and wait­ed some more. Final­ly, in Sep­tem­ber 2022, we got the final papers we need­ed, got them signed and nota­rized, and mailed them back. (why are we still doing this on paper!?)

My ex is very detail ori­ent­ed and in look­ing over the paper­work one last time, not­ed there was an error on one of the pages. The mort­gage com­pa­ny sent us a whole new ream of papers to sign, so we redid the whole sign and nota­rize dance and it was only *then* that I got my check for my por­tion of the equi­ty in the house. The mort­gage com­pa­ny may or may not be com­plete­ly done with the process now — we’re not sure since we haven’t heard any­thing from them in quite a while. My ex and I recent­ly closed our joint account we had opened for bills and joint expens­es, so the loose ends that remain to be tied up are few and far between at this point. Woohoo! 

So, as you can see, life has been hap­pen­ing the last few months and I’m grate­ful to be in such a good spot. What major moves with your mon­ey have hap­pened recently? 

As always, thanks for reading!

Love,