Weekend Reflections from LA

Just had a fantastic weekend with a friend from school who was in from LA. We had a lovely time, really great fireworks display on Saturday night, a night out downtown at an open-bar sponsored by the MBA association. A day out on the boat, skiing and tubing (my arms are so sore, it hurts to squeeze my toothpaste now). And questionably great conversation: the nuances of how to order frozen custard recipes off the menu, our theory on how Bush created reality TV (“No Stupid Star Left Behind”), and what makes a good parody movie (I can tell you it’s not Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story). And at brunch Sunday morning we also talked about my blogging. We had a nice discussion of standards of life in various cities and where you get to make choices, and where you just have to cope. My LA friend pays $1400 rent for a 1BR similar to mine in Santa Monica (I pay $950 living thisclose to the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis – the Manhattan of the Midwest). Looking at living anywhere other than I live now is going to be a reality check. (Sidenote: this was a nice instruction manual on predicting exactly how much more or less expensive your new city will be, from Punny.org)

My LA friend also posed the question as to what percent of my gross income I save. She reports saving 10% of her gross income. I wasn’t really sure offhand, so of course I had to come back and calc’ up a lot of different percentages – when I do total it all up, I found that I am saving about 15% of my takeaway pay (after taxes, 401(k), healthcare deductions etc). That doesn’t feel bad, but knowing that she saves 10% of her gross is probably a bigger number. AND she lives in a more expensive place. So that is rejuvenating me to try to ramp this up. For August I’m already planning on 16% and I think my goal will be to reach 19% by the end of this calendar year.

Also, thanks to Ellen from Wormbook for pointing out that the resource I was looking for in my last post is actually called Buxfer!