I’m under quarantine in China, but so is my money 🙃
Don’t worry or freak out that I’m still in China, it’s honestly very chill and business as usual. Except I now teach from the room next door and can wear slippers to class.
I actively avoid the news and just chat with my fellow detainees. I’ve made new friends with other teachers who I’d never have talked to before. Cue flashbacks to making friends in detention.
Jokes, I was way too rule-abiding to ever get detention.
Spendings Report:
Turns out you save a lot of money if the entire country (world?) is experiencing a pandemic. Would not recommend it as a budgeting tactic, potentially dying is not ideal.
This month’s groceries was a very odd mix. For two weeks I had all my meals provided free of charge while I was in isolation upon return to the school. Then, I traded watering plants of people who had left with helping myself to whatever was in their pantries, followed by saving on a massive sale on veggies but triple the price on oranges. The end result is that I actually spent less than $50 of my own money on food.
For a rather arbitrary reason, I decided to count those phantom grocery bills in. My reasoning is that I would have spent the money anyway if the option for free food was not available.
With this, my new High (low?) Score for my monthly living cost is now 193.53. I have no plans to try and beat it but wouldn’t actively say no if an opportunity comes up.
If I discount the free food provided, I spent about $130-$140 this month, half of which are subscription fees and half are actual living expenses.
Net Worth Update: $82,287
If you’re good at math, you’ll notice that I got paid just over $4,000, spent less than $200, and yet somehow only increased my net worth by roughly $2k. It’s what comes when your portfolio is 80% equities 🤷🏻♀️. Check out these screenshots I took a week apart.
Wild.
I said this in my last finance review:
With the situation progressing how it will in China, it’s hard to say what will happen. Either way, it has very little impact on my day to day life so I’m going to ignore it, and I suggest you do the same.
-me, younger
And it still holds true. We know more about what has happened but can only guess at what this next month holds. Either way, still very little impact on my day to day life so I shall keep on ignoring it, as should you.
A bit more detail
I am in a very privileged position in that I have a few large costs my work pays for:
- Rent
- Hydro
- Lunch stipend
Literally saves me at least a thousand every month. Probably closer to $2,000 if I were to live an equivalent lifestyle back in Toronto.
If you want to know what I’m planning on doing with this money, I honestly have no concrete ideas yet. There are a few options I’m interested in, all of which require money anyways, but none that screams YES. Ask me again in 9 months, I’ll be proper panicking then 👍