How a Grad Student and Bookkeeper in New Jersey Does Money

E. is a 23-year-old graduate student and bookkeeper in rural New Jersey.

So, E, tell us a bit about your finances.

Well I work almost full-time while in graduate school and my husband works full-time while he’s in school part-time, so currently we are feeling pretty good about our finances. We are still on the lower side for New Jersey, but no longer have to worry every month about making our bills.

How recent was this shift? How long ago did you have to worry?

Last winter, I switched from working as a cook in a bar to working as a bookkeeper, so that’s when the shift occurred for me. Before we still were able to make the bills, but we were not putting as much in savings as I would have liked to be. The first semester of grad school was a challenge for me because our bills increased and my income decreased.

Are you also dealing with student loans?

I thankfully do not have any from undergrad. I was able to get an almost full scholarship to a state school and then my parents generously paid the remainder of the bill. I was able to live at home. I am very grateful for them. I will have about $30,000 in loans when I graduate from grad school.

My husband has been attending community college part-time so that he can pay out of pocket, and so he doesn’t have any student loans either, but his two-year degree has taken four years.

So what do you feel like you do well, finance-wise, and what do you wish you could do better?

I think I’m good at budgeting in theory. My budget looks nice and all of our important categories are paid on time or early: rent, health insurance, etc. I also think I’m good at getting good deals on things.

What I’m bad at is not spending over the budget on food. I love getting take out and eating at restaurants. My husband works at a café so once he gets home from work he doesn’t want to cook either, so he kind of encourages that.

I was just chatting in another Doing Money interview about this. How much do you spend on takeout/restaurants, roughly?

I think it’s really hard for most people! We try to spend about $100 a month on entertainment (we consider restaurants to be in that category) but probably spend more like $200. Takeout? Probably about $50 out of the grocery budget. We never go over on that part of the budget, but we would be getting better deals/more food if we spent it at the grocery store.

So, in other words, $250 tops.

$250 tops, yes.

Is that a huge chunk of your discretionary income?

Yes, I would say so. I think we only spend more on gas.

What would you do with that $250 if you weren’t spending it on restaurants? Some of it would have to go to groceries, right? So you’d have maybe $150 left, and it would go towards savings, movies, clothes…???

Maybe. I know that doesn’t seem like too much, but it would probably go into savings. I’m definitely a big saver. My husband would prefer to spend it.

How much are you saving now, every month?

It definitely varies. We’re both hourly and neither of us get vacation/sick time. I think our average is $300–500.

That’s pretty great! I’m also saving about $500 a month, and it adds up fast. Do you feel like you’ve built up a good emergency fund, or are you still working on that?

It does! We have a really good emergency fund but not really from our month-to-month savings. We get large tax refunds (that’s when being a full-time student pays off) and we received a lot of money at our wedding last year. All of that directly went into savings.

So the goal was always to pay all of our bills every month without having to dip into that long-term savings. It’s at a different bank than our regular bank account, which makes it easier to not touch!

That is a very smart strategy! I haven’t separated out “emergency fund savings” from “other savings” yet; I still need to build up my emergency fund.

I get that. We have a smaller emergency fund at our regular bank but it’s so easy to spend that way.

So are you saving for anything? Is it going towards a vacation, an IRA, a bulk student loan payment? Or just saving because you know you should?

We’re saving for a down payment for a home. It’s always been our goal to be able to buy shortly after school is over.

Are you going to stay in the area?

No, we can’t afford it. It’s a big problem in our area lately — all of the young people are moving because they cannot afford apartments and homes. We plan to move to the South.

Wow, and you’re in a rural area too. It’s unfortunate that this is happening everywhere.

It really is. My brother was able to purchase a house in this area when he was 23, but that was about five years ago when the housing market was great for buyers. He got a cheap foreclosure in a good school district. That’s no longer possible around here.

How’s the job market? Are you and your husband pretty confident that you’ll be able to find work when it comes time to move?

The job market is okay, but of course it depends on your field. I’m going to be a speech language pathologist, which is in high demand where we plan to move (Florida). My husband is in the restaurant industry, so he can work pretty much anywhere. He will have a little bit of a harder time.

Do you have any plans for your finances in the New Year? Resolutions, goals, etc.?

We definitely want to save more. We also have been trying to set a goal to spend less on food, but we will see how that works out.

I’ll hopefully be getting my first “big girl job” in the New Year, so we are excited to see how that turns out. Our goal is to get a job that offers benefits!

That’s the goal, in this economy!

Haha, exactly!

Last question: What advice do you have for Billfold readers?

I would say my advice is to take a financial literacy class together before you get married! It’s probably the only way we are still married and not fighting over finances all of the time, haha!

What did you learn in the literacy class that was the most helpful?

Probably how to be on the same page. My husband and I come from totally different financial backgrounds. My parents are probably middle- to upper-middle class, while my husband’s family is low-income. We had a totally different outlook due to those experiences. It helped us to discuss those differences and get on the same page regarding savings and spending.

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