Gifts, Goodbyes, and Grub: Expenses Dec 16-22

Let me preface... it really can be cheap to live here, I promise you!

This week saw a lot of activity (besides me losing my voice). Multiple friends left Vietnam (hence, parties and meals!), I got a whole hell of a lot of house stuff accomplished, got more Christmas presents (still have to ship them, of course...), and had social engagements almost every night. 'Tis the Season! I addition to that gaping money wound, I also chose this week to present a donation to the English program at one of my schools and give a holiday tip to the maid. So much money... money hemorrhaging everywhere. Things to think about when I get to budgeting!

Click on for the details - even without rent this week, I spent a solid stack of real (USD!) bills.

4/5ths Of It Food: Expenses Dec 2-8

The first step to taming your spending is knowing where your money is going - and, three weeks in, I'm finally developing a picture.

Most of my money is going to food. This is fairly unsurprising - I mean, I really like food, and I'm in one of the food capitals of the world. There is literally food everywhere. Go half a block and you'll meet at least one street food vendor.

I should note that for this spending/tracking experiment, I'm just spending money like I normally would here. It's probably true that I curtail it a little bit (you can't observe something without changing it!) since I'm keeping such close tabs on it, but for the most part I'm letting myself run willy nilly.

Because my long-term money goals are ambitious (for me, at least), my next step after collecting data will be to create a budget that allows me to have fun and live a comfortable (delicious) life while also saving substantial portions of my income (hopefully in a way that lets me remit it to the US). Look for my first budget experiment in January 2014!

But for this week... my god, 83.3% of my weekly expenditures on food?!:

More Gas, Please: Expenses Nov 25 - Dec 1

My second week of formally tracking every single "cent" I spend is off to a good start, and I'm starting to notice things that I had no idea were happening. I love budgets.

I've had good money news this week - I get paid once a month (CRAZY, I KNOW) and I've learned that my probation period at work is over. I'll notice several changes:

1. Taxes reduced from 20% to 10%
2. A fixed salary every month, no matter what
3. A higher salary

THESE ARE GREAT THINGS!! Hopefully this will allow me to start putting much more away, now that my big ticket items are purchased (phone, bike). I'm looking forward to seeing much more money remitted to the US in these little posts in the upcoming months!

Things I've learned this week:

Rediscovering Budgets: Expenses November 18-24

For many years I had a pretty good budget system in the United States, but, unfortunately, it all fell apart when I moved to Vietnam. One major difference in day to day life here is that not many places accept debit/credit cards, which was how I tracked my old expenses. Vietnam is really, really into getting cash for goods and services.

Here's my first attempt at getting back on track: keeping tabs on my spending and rediscovering my inner fiscally-responsible self (however deep he's buried in street food!).

Once I started voicing my frustrations, it seemed like everyone around me had an idea on the best way to proceed. I was clearly not alone.