- I'm a college professor in Houston, Texas.
I make $85,000 a year.
And I have about $550,000 total in savings.
500,000 in my 401k.
And 50,000 in a joint savings account with my husband.
And we have a $1.5 million investment property
that I own with my husband.
The house itself is almost paid off.
We have $50,000 taken out in loan for renovations.
And we rent it out on Vrbo and Airbnb for tourists.
After taxes, my take home is 4,800.
My husband and I have a joint account
in which I contribute $4,000 a month to that.
And we use that joint account for household expenses.
3,000 a month goes to our mortgage
for our primary residence.
And 1,800 for the renovation loan
on the investment property.
We have $500 for car payment.
And 600 on average for utilities.
That leaves around 800 on entertainment
a month for us to spend.
I have around $5,000 in credit card debt.
And I don't have any student loan debt.
My parents said they were obligated for undergrad.
And so they paid that,
and I was responsible for anything else.
So grad school, I paid for that through working,
teacher's assistant and research assistant.
I work at a state university
and there's no need for anyone to go into debt,
because they've paid $85,000 a year or so for college.
We have amazing students who go anywhere and everywhere.
But they get their education on a budget.
A great education on budget.
And they are able to do whatever they want to after.
This is a statement from my personal account.
I don't like to look at my statements
because I probably should change my behavior,
but I don't plan to or want to.
And so I usually just,
I don't really pay too much attention.
My most frequent purchases are definitely eating out,
and that's for me and my family.
But I love the food in Houston.
It's one of the most diverse cities
and the food reflects that there.
And so I often eat out,
if I'm at work I'm going to eat out for lunch.
And I oftentimes eat out for dinner too.
And I got into that
because I was rolling with four kids, doing all of that.
And they were all in different schools.
And so we got into a lot of eating out,
which now it's part of the program.
But Chipotle is a staple in my book.
It's fast and healthy.
So I'm a big Chipotle fan.
Places like Raising Cane's.
I don't know if everyone has that.
It's just basically chicken tenders for my girls.
My hack for coffee is, and this is,
I mean just little ways to save money.
I refuse to pay the $6 for a cup of coffee.
So I always just get drip instead of getting
the lattes and that kind of thing.
And that saves me money.
So it's like 2.50 versus $5 and up.
And it also saves me time
because you don't have to wait for those drinks.
They just pour it up and give it to you immediately.
So that is one of my little hacks to not spend money
on the coffee that I love.
I actually bought a machine.
So if I want something usually more fancy,
like a latte, or a cappuccino, I'll make it myself now.
Versus pay for the store bought coffee.
But I mean, if I, I don't deprive myself,
if I'm dying for that.
But for the most part, I'll get it at home.
Okay, so I have Toy Joy in Austin.
And that is not what it sounds like.
It's really literally a kid's toy store.
I bought my daughters some toys and candy there.
Netflix, we are big Netflix fans.
And so 21.64 goes to Netflix a month.
The $4,000 transfer is from my account to our joint account.
The most unusual for the month is my Adore Me bill.
This is clothing items, basically.
And I bought one item.
They told me that that triggered a subscription
and then kind of started liking what they had to offer.
And so I started using the credit that I received
from that subscription to buy items.
I just bought some bathing suits from there.
So that's kind of an unexpected expense
that now is an expense.
So extracurricular, when you have kids,
it seems like if you want them to have
these enrichment experiences,
a lot of money goes to that type of thing.
And so the payment for the high school
is just us going to a show that she was a part of.
I spent $32.43 cents at HomeGoods.
And that was for some towels.
There are major expenses that go into Airbnbs
that you kind of don't think about,
but there's always that kind of turnover.
People are kind of harder on your things than you are.
And HomeGoods is where I go for that, always.
Investment properties are wonderful,
but they're also work, and they're money.
And there's also all sorts of rules, and restrictions,
and regulations that you wouldn't think of.
Like you have to have a front door
and a back door that both have this type of lock.
And both have a peep hole.
And that those types of things.
So things that you just really don't think of.
Things break down when people are in the house.
So you have to get it fixed immediately
because they're living in the house.
So my most expensive bill
for the month was to Sundance Grill.
It was $825.
We threw my mom a birthday party.
And then my sister Zelled me back
her share of that $800.
We missed a big birthday during COVID.
And so we actually celebrated two years after her birthday,
but we wanted to have a party for her.
So we did this one up big because we missed it.
For our daughters' music academy
we pay $278 a month for their music.
One daughter's in piano, one daughter's in guitar.
We've been at others,
and we really like this one.
It might be a little bit more expensive,
but we really like the instruction there.
And then I have Sephora on there for $112.58.
Although I don't use a lot of makeup,
I do have certain products that I really like.
I like Fenty, I like Milk.
And so I have my products
that I'm definitely going to stock up on.
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