A Week In Providence, RI On A $195,000 Joint Income

Occupation: Instructional designer
Industry: Higher education
Age: 41
Location: Providence, RI
Salary: $100,000
Joint income: My partner’s salary is $95,000. We’ve split expenses evenly since we got together but have kept our finances separate. We used to track our spending on joint expenses and then venmo each other any balance at the end of the month, but we kept spending about the same amount, so now we just call it even. At the moment our finances feel very complicated. We have two mortgages because our old house has not sold yet (we moved a few months ago). I pay our new mortgage and my partner pays our old one, plus our car payment and some other expenses. The old house and the car are both in his name only; the new house is in both of our names.
Assets: Checking: $516; savings: $181.83 (I had $15,000 squirreled away in high yield accounts but closing costs/moving expenses/emergencies ate it all up. I weep to think of how quickly it disappeared and how long it will take to build back up); retirement accounts: $45,125.
Debt: Mortgage: $384,000; home improvement loan: $13,735; credit card debt: $8,074.95.
Paycheck amount (2x/month): $2,733
Pronouns: She/her

Monthly Expenses

Housing costs: $3,056
Loan payments: $165
Credit card: Depending on the month, around $2,000 as I aggressively try to clear the debt I’m carrying. Looking forward to this being a more manageable number!
Squarespace: $21
National Network of Abortion Funds: $6
Neko Case’s Substack: $6
Providence Journal: $30 (Sunday newspaper).
YMCA: $75 (this covers me and my partner).
Streaming services: $45.94 (Peacock, Max, Apple Music, iCloud storage).
Utilities: $80-$125ish
IRA contribution: $150

Other Expenses

Phone: $132 twice per year (thank god for Mint).
Travel credit cards: $194 annually (for two; I’m going to cancel one of these cards after it’s paid off).

Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Definitely. My family was big on education and I was recruited by some fancy schools for cross country/track. Undergrad was paid for through many different forms of financial aid (Pell grant, work study, etc.), and my parents took out loans. I graduated with (I think) $30,000 of debt in my parents’ names. After a few years I started paying that loan and ended up paying off the last $15,000. My PhD was fully funded and I received very small stipends and fellowships throughout for living expenses.

Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent(s)/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
I got some confusing messages about money. We always had our basic needs met and usually went on summer vacations (budget road trips around the US) but there was definitely stress/fights about money. My parents got me a credit card when I was in high school because I drove a lot to school and extracurriculars and it was the easiest way for me to have gas money. It resulted in me having great credit and an extremely high credit limit when I was young. Unfortunately I never learned much about how to use said great credit and racked up some serious credit card debt when I was an underpaid grad student. Mostly it feels like I’ve educated myself about money as I’ve grown up.

What was your first job and why did you get it?
I detasseled corn in junior high/high school for extra spending money. I also worked at my parents’ small business throughout high school.

Did you worry about money growing up?
Yes and no. Our needs were always met but I remember being told I couldn’t have some “fancy” things I wanted (Z. Cavaricci jeans, Doc Martens) because they were too expensive. I remember some parental fights about spending. Things got really rough late in high school when my parents’ business closed and they had to find new jobs in their 40s while also paying for college for me. That’s the root of a lot of my money anxiety now — feeling like everything could evaporate at a moment’s notice.

Do you worry about money now?
Yes. My partner and I both make great salaries and by all metrics, should be doing well. However, we live in a high cost of living area, my partner still has significant debt, and we’re carrying two mortgages until our old house sells. Once that house sells I do think I’ll worry less, but we’re in a tight spot at the moment and I’m panicking about carrying credit card debt again after finally paying off $20,000 of credit card debt five years ago.

At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
After I graduated college. I temped for six months and finally got a job in publishing that paid $30,000 a year. Somehow I made it work in the Boston area on this salary (and then on much less in grad school!) for close to 10 years. I know we could depend on both sets of parents for help if we really need it, but neither of us wants to do that.

Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
My parents contributed a few thousand a couple of times when I was really struggling in grad school. This was a hardship for them and I feel bad about it.

8 a.m. — Up at 8 a.m. but lie in bed for a while doing the NYT puzzles. I finally get up at 8:30 a.m. and feed the screaming cats while my partner, T., tends to the dogs and makes coffee. I log into work and sip coffee while checking to see what’s in my queue for the day. Nothing is pressing so I make myself presentable (floss/brush, wash face, TruSkin niacinamide serum, Lubriderm lotion, Beauty of Joseon sunscreen, mascara and eye brightener) and eat a soy yogurt/chia seed/flax/banana mess. I take our corgador (corgi/labrador/pit bull/terrier mix — he’s the most adorable little weirdo) for a walk.

10 a.m. — I left my faculty job in April but academic publishing moves at a glacial pace and I’m still working on some projects I sent out before I found my new job, including my dissertation-turned-book. Today I need to deal with a review response. Basically I need to write a letter to the press that will be publishing my book manuscript explaining how I will address the feedback I got from peer reviewers and laying out my timeline for finishing revisions. I have a hard time focusing on this kind of work in my home office so I head to a local coffee shop that I’ve come to associate with my academic work. I get a rosemary brown sugar latte with almond milk. $7.82

11:45 a.m. — I end up alternating between writing the response letter and fielding Teams messages and emails. After much procrastinating, I finish the hated task. I have what an old colleague of mine refers to as “book feelings” — it’s a special kind of hell to be a sensitive person undergoing peer review on a project you’ve worked on for a decade, knowing full well it has flaws and could always be different/better. I debate buying lunch at the coffee shop but after recently getting hit with $7,000 in emergency vet bills (one dachshund back surgery, one emergency procedure for a corgador who somehow ate half of a fleece blanket in the middle of the night?!?) and juggling two mortgages, I’m really trying to curb that kind of extra spending (says the girl who just spent almost $10 on a coffee).

12 p.m. — I use my lunch break to run to Savers to drop off some donations and look for a costume for some Halloween parties coming up this weekend. No luck with costumes but I end up buying two sweaters to help replenish my store of cold-weather clothes. $9.98

12:30 p.m. — Swing by Target because I know they have a white jumpsuit that will work for my costume. I also grab some odds and ends we need, including dishwasher pods, cat treats, Scotch tape, white out, and a pumpkin carving kit, and some stuff we don’t need, including candy corn and a tube top that’s on sale for $3.60. $91.06

1 p.m. — Home. I have leftovers from last night’s dinner, which was a Sweetgreen-esque salad of lettuce, sautéed brussels sprouts, roasted butternut squash, pepitas, and dried cranberries with a lemon vinaigrette. Lunch dessert is a piece of no-bake date caramel brownie that I made yesterday. The afternoon passes while I do some background reading for a work project.

3:30 p.m. — I get an email that my latest paycheck has hit, which means it’s time to pay our mortgage for the house we live in. Eventually my partner and I will split this evenly, but right now we have two mortgages because our old house hasn't sold since we put it on the market back in June (SOBS LOUDLY). I make slightly more in take-home pay and, until those aforementioned emergency vet bills hit, I was out of credit card debt, so T. and I agreed that I would pay the new mortgage while T. pays our old mortgage and utilities (he also pays our car payment and a couple other big ticket items). We thought this situation would only last a few months and have been bitterly disappointed. We may end up having to rent the place and we’re both dreading that prospect.

5 p.m. — Work tabs closed! T. takes the corgador for his evening walk and I join for a trash walk. A couple months ago I bought a grabbing stick and have been picking up trash around the neighborhood because it drives me nuts seeing empty nips and Dunkin’ cups everywhere all the time (insert New England joke here). I’m only slightly self-conscious doing this; mostly the pleasure of seeing a cleaner neighborhood outweighs any discomfort.

6 p.m. — T. takes the dachshund for a much shorter walk, and then T. and I head to the Y for a quick workout. I warm up on the elliptical and then do some arm weight machines. I am humbled by how little I can lift after many years of inconsistency with anything that’s not running.

7:30 p.m. — Dinner is leftovers (bean and veggie burrito for me; salad for T.), followed by chocolate chia pudding and some candy corn for dessert. We do our usual routine of cleaning the kitchen and feeding the beasts, then take showers.

8:30 p.m. — I do some stretching and we have some zone-out screen time. I fall into a TikTok hole about saturation diving thanks to the Spooky Lake Month lady.

10:30 p.m. — And suddenly it’s past my bedtime. I scoop the cat box in the basement, then head upstairs for ablutions (floss, brush, fluoride mouthwash, double cleanse, Cocokind retinoid cream, Lubriderm, contacts out, hair dried and up in a pineapple). I also wash my very sexy nightguard. T. takes out the dogs one last time and then everybody gets greenies. We let the dogs snuggle in bed while we read (I’m currently loving All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot. I strongly identify with the farmer who loves his pigs so much it makes him weep). I hate being on my phone in bed but I love the Libby app. Ah well. Eventually the dogs go in their crates. Lights out around 11:30 p.m.

8 a.m. — The usual: NYT puzzles in bed while T. makes coffee and feeds the cats. I get up around 8:30 a.m. and take the dogs outside and give them their breakfast. Coffee, email, Teams. I start a load of laundry.

9 a.m. — Make myself presentable and take the corgador for his walk. We spot two of the wild turkeys that live in our neighborhood! Back home, I eat some frosted mini wheats, submit my time sheet for the week, and get ready for a meeting. I set a reminder on my phone to call my dentist later since a crown I got last month is still causing me pain.

11:30 a.m. — Meeting ends and I do more laundry. We’ve done a good job of cooking this week, but we’ve finally run out of leftovers. I scrounge around and end up with a tuna sandwich, dark russet potato chips, and a pear for lunch, with more chia pudding for lunch dessert. I put on Industry as a treat. I watched the first two seasons a couple of weeks ago when I got COVID-19 (first time getting it happened to coincide with my first-ever trip to South America. Devastating!) and I’m working slowly through the third now (not as good as the first two, imho). T. comes down a few minutes in and I pause the show to chat for a while. He decides he wants to go out for lunch, and I watch more Industry while writing the last of my Get Out the Vote postcards for voters in Georgia.

1 p.m. — Emails, project work, laundry. Also some staring out the windows at the absolutely gorgeous foliage on the big old maple tree in our backyard. I will never take New England fall for granted after years of living in a subtropical climate zone.

1:30 p.m. — One of our friends texts about ordering dinner before a group outing to the local zoo’s Halloween extravaganza tonight. T. and I put in our orders and venmo our friend. $15 for my order of a vegan chorizo bowl. $15

3 p.m. — Everything hurts thanks to my return to a regular workout schedule this week. I turn to my cure-all for tight/sore muscles: Adi Amar’s Yoga For Runners routine. After 50 minutes I feel more capable of regular movement.

5 p.m. — T. gets the corgador out for his walk and I feed the cats. We head over to our friends’ house, picking up our group food order on the way. We haven’t seen this group for weeks thanks to travel and illness, and it’s a joyous reunion. We catch up over dinner and beers and then walk to the zoo for their jack-o’-lantern event. It’s extremely wholesome and a genuinely impressive display of pumpkin carving. As always, I’m jealous of my friends who can handle their herbal refreshments (anxiety girlie for life!) because this is the perfect venue to be a little stoned — wandering outside by candlelight on a foggy, spooky October night.

10 p.m. — Back home I feed the very excited dogs and T. does the dishes and cleanup. I rehydrate, scroll TikTok, and give the dogs some love. Ablutions, reading/snuggles etc., lights out sometime around 12 a.m.

8:30 a.m. — Ugh, alarm goes off and I am not ready to be awake. I stay in bed until 9 a.m. doing NYT puzzles. T. very sweetly takes care of all the animals. The dogs jump on the bed and climb all over me before going out with T. There is nothing I love more than a good animal pile, and this improves my morning grumpiness slightly.

9 a.m. — Coffee, email, Teams. Breakfast is oatmeal with flax meal, wheat germ, cinnamon, peanut butter, and dried cranberries. T. offers to take the corgador for his morning walk and I gladly take him up on it. I’m not a morning person on my best days and I feel super groggy today.

12 p.m. — After a morning of project work and web surfing, the problem of lunch returns and we decide it can only be solved by going out. We still need to get pumpkins for a pumpkin carving party tomorrow, and beers and a gift for a housewarming also happening tomorrow, so T. and I head out to take care of business. We stop at a nearby farm stand and T. pays $53 for two pumpkins for us and two for our friends. We head to a liquor store and don’t find anything nice for a housewarming gift. We get two four-packs of local beer ($40.64, I pay) and make a plan to go to a local distillery later to get a housewarming gift there. Final stop is a local cash-only sandwich place. I get a turkey and provolone sub and T. gets a meatball sub. We pool our cash and I contribute a $10 bill. $50.64

2:45 p.m. — I call a thrift store I visited last weekend to check on a dresser that I’m interested in. We’ve been making do with particle board Ikea dressers for all of our lives and we’re currently down a dresser that got left behind in the move. This is an actual solid wood dresser that had a $170 price tag, but when I asked about it the store owner said I could have it for $140 because he’d have to fix a broken shelf runner. He says I can pick it up on Sunday so I start looking into van rentals as this will definitely not fit in our car. I find a van rental through Home Depot for $53.68 and book it (charge will come through later).

3 p.m. — We spend the rest of the afternoon switching between work tasks and minor house tasks. We bought a 120-year-old house that was last touched up maybe in the 1980s. We did a ton this summer (sanded and stained the deck; removed moldy drywall from the downstairs bathroom, regrouted the shower, and re-tiled the mold-damaged wall; added storage to the kitchen; painted the upstairs bathroom; fixed all of the window screens; had a new boiler installed) but there are still many, many projects left. Currently we're trying to get the living room ready to be painted. We remove some old curtain rod brackets and anchors, and I take down the last of the 3M string-light-holding clips around the ceiling that someone PAINTED OVER instead of taking down. I vacuum the downstairs and am horrified at how much pet hair comes up. T. promises to vacuum the upstairs soon.

4:30 p.m. — The corgador was supposed to go to a day camp evaluation play group tonight ($10, not prepaid) but I get a text that it’s canceled. I take him for an extra long walk instead. We see a pair of swans fishing in our neighborhood pond and a woman with a parrot on her head just chilling in her backyard. The dog is extremely interested in the parrot situation. After the walk I head out solo for a 20-minute jog. Meanwhile T. starts dinner: a French onion faro and lentil bake from Smitten Kitchen.

7:30 p.m. — Dinner is finally ready and T. is mildly peeved that the recipe took so long. It is delicious, though. I have chia pudding with Nutella on top for dessert (balance!). One of T.’s friends calls him and they catch up while I wash dishes and tidy. We watch the new episode of The Great British Bake Off (so glad we have another season with Alison and Noel). I use my Theragun. Bedtime routines, reading/snuggles in bed, lights out around 11:30 p.m.

9:15 a.m. — God I love sleeping in. Eventually the screaming cats force me up. I feed them and make coffee while T. tends to the dogs. I do the crossword from last Sunday’s paper (we were out at a paper-making workshop all day and I never got to it) and sip coffee.

10 a.m. — I run to the post office to mail our stack of Get Out the Vote postcards. Return home for frosted mini wheats and the rest of the crossword. I hear T. vacuuming upstairs.

1 p.m. — We head out for our first party, a housewarming/Halloween party for friends who recently moved to the area. T. is Marty McFly and I’m Doc Brown for the day, courtesy of a white jumpsuit and an entire can of white hairspray. Honestly, the white hair has me rethinking my stance towards my current salt and pepper hair. I use demi-permanent dye at home because I don’t love the some gray/some brown hair situation, but the white hair looks cool. Maybe I’ll go back to natural someday when I’m grayer. We pick up another friend on the way. She’s brought an old favorite from our grad school days, Southern Tier’s Pumking ale, and we feel like girls again even as our group discussions cover things like perimenopause and what birding apps we’re all using. (I genuinely love being in my 40s so much; anti-aging fearmongering is poison, don’t listen to it!)

3:30 p.m. — We head home to tend to the animals and pick up supplies for party #2, a pumpkin-carving party. I take the corgador for a walk, and then the friends we’re carpooling with arrive and we load up for the 90-minute drive.

12:30 a.m. — We get back home and set up our jack-o’-lanterns on the porch. We give our friends who drove some of the leftover French onion bake since it made a ton. T. tends to the animals and I wash my hair to get the white hairspray out of it. Asleep sometime around 1:30 a.m.

8:30 a.m. — I really thought I'd be able to sleep later than this, but ah well. I get up and feed the cats and enjoy some quiet time with coffee and the Sunday paper while T. sleeps in. T. gets up and realizes we’re out of coffee beans. He offers to go pick some up and to get breakfast while he’s out. I get avocado toast and another coffee, T. gets a smoothie and a scone. He pays.

11 a.m. — I clean myself up and T. takes the corgador for a walk. I give the dachshund his morning pills while T. cleans up. We head out to pick up the rental van and the dresser.

3:30 p.m. — OF COURSE this ended up being much harder than anticipated. Pros: The thrift shop only charged me $100 for the dresser (it is very cute and not made of MDF) and we were able to lift it into the van without much trouble. Con: Getting it out of the van and up our front steps was a goddamn nightmare. For the sake of our marriage, I offer to hire movers to get it up our narrow stairs into the bedroom. Even with the rental and hiring movers, though, this is cheaper than an Ikea dresser and will hopefully last longer. $100

5 p.m. — This van rental is all kinds of messed up. I thought I’d booked a four-hour rental, but when we got there it was two-hour rental. We asked to extend it and were told that was cool, we’d just be charged by the hour. Somehow, although the original two-hour rental would have cost $27, extending it to four hours made it $118. I attempt to convey my displeasure with the rental policy while sparing the salespeople and end up successfully getting back $55 in cash. $63

5:30 p.m. — We go straight to Sonic because we’re both dying of hunger and it’s the closest place that seems to not be supplied by the E. coli onion place (love to live in a country where my uterus is more regulated than our food supply chain!). I immediately spend $20.84 of the refund on our meals. I get a cheeseburger, fries, and a Sprite Zero. $20.84

6 p.m. — Finally home. T. takes the corgador for a walk and I go to Stop and Shop to get ingredients for this week’s recipes: the world’s best vegan wild rice soup, tofu stir-fry, and pasta and meatless meatballs. Usually I go to Market Basket because it’s truly half the price of Stop and Shop, but I do not have the mental fortitude needed to navigate the Basket after today’s adventures. $62.96

8:30 p.m. — We’re both wiped and just want to zone out. We watch Tim Robinson’s episode of The Characters on Netflix (not as funny as I Think You Should Leave, sadly), then an episode of Doctor Who. T. is a fan but I’ve never watched any so we’ve been working our way through the rebooted seasons for quite some time now. We’ve reached the Matt Smith era. Very entertaining, even though we both groan at least twice an episode at some sexist thing in the script. I realize too late that we still haven’t watched the new Rachel Bloom special and wish we’d put that on instead. We do our bedtime cleaning, ablutions, and let the dogs out. More All Creatures Great and Small, snuggles etc., asleep around 11 p.m.

8 a.m. — Awake, only semi-reluctantly. T. is already downstairs dealing with cats and coffee. I do some NYT puzzles and then take the dogs out. It smells like someone is burning leaves? Coffee, Teams, emails. Burning smell mystery solved via Teams: There are wildfires in Massachusetts. I’m once again reminded that Parable of the Sower starts in the summer of 2024…

9 a.m. — I take the corgador for his walk. It’s freezing so when we get back I make myself a nice hot bowl of oatmeal with chia seeds, flax meal, wheat germ, peanut butter, and dried cranberries. More coffee, more emails. I order some insoles online because I’ve been having plantar fasciitis pain after running. I also cancel the trial of Prime I currently have before I get charged for it. I really do my best not to use Amazon when possible, but sometimes it's just the most convenient. $43.29

11:30 a.m. — We have a bunch of very fun events coming up that are nevertheless stressing us out financially. We have a difficult conversation about upcoming expenses and our debts that doesn’t get us very far and leaves us both feeling helpless. We know this is a temporary tight spot, but we both have a lot of financial trauma and it feels terrible to not see an immediate way out of a debt-accruing situation. (Side note: I was skeptical of the idea of financial trauma when my former therapist introduced it to me, but the more she got me to talk about the stories my family and I tell ourselves about money, the more I realized it is a valuable concept.) Meanwhile our real estate agent texts us that there’s a second showing of our old house. Luckily this turn of events helps us laugh about what stress cases we’re going to be until we know whether we’ll get an offer.

12 p.m. — I eat more lentil faro bake and an apple for lunch. I ask myself how I can be kind to myself since I’m feeling extra anxious and unsettled about our finances and the house stuff. I decide checking some things off my non-work to-do list and tidying will help. I water plants, unload and reload the dishwasher, clean the downstairs toilet, and wash our water pitcher. Log back into work and start on some assigned tasks.

3:30 p.m. — I do some life admin, which includes following up on an energy efficiency assessment we had done a few months ago. Rhode Island has a great program that pays for a lot of energy improvements for homeowners. Our assessment conclusion was that we could use some more insulation in our attic and some weatherization stuff. It also unfortunately found that the old boiler in the house was kicking out approximately 10 million times the safe level of carbon monoxide, so we had to get that replaced before we could do the insulation/weatherization work. Luckily the state also has a 0% loan program for home improvements like this so what could have been a disastrous expense is manageable (we’ll pay $165/month, no interest, for seven years). I email our contact and sign a contract for the work. We’ll pay $337 when the work is done; the energy efficiency incentive program will cover the other $2,243.

4:30 p.m. — T. goes out for some bread to go with tonight’s soup and I take the corgador for his walk. When T. gets back, we head to the Y. I do a mile on the treadmill and then a leg weight circuit.

6:45 p.m. — Back home, I start cooking the soup while T. feeds the dogs. We switch when I’m on the last step of the recipe and I go shower. The soup is as delicious as we remember from last soup season. After dinner we watch the new episode of Somebody Somewhere, then T. does dishes while I play on my phone. Bedtime routines, lights out at 11:30ish.

8 a.m. — Well that was a terrible night’s sleep. It was the first night we’ve had to have the heat on upstairs and it turns out our bedroom radiators clank like nobody’s business. T. left the house early for an appointment but he fed the cats before he went. I tend to the dogs and make coffee, then do the usual email/Teams check-ins. I eat a soy yogurt mess and take the corgador for his walk.

9 a.m. — T. sends me $200 to cover part of the emergency vet payment that hits my credit card at the end of the month (they let us split the bill for the dachshund’s back surgery over a couple of months; the surgery was $10,000 total and cost us about $2,000 thanks to pet insurance). I tend to some work tasks for a bit.

10 a.m. — I did [writing program] NaNoWriMo for the first time last year and had a blast writing a cozy mystery, which I self-published on Amazon. I want to do it again this year, but I can’t decide if I want to write a sequel to the cozy mystery or start on a new project. I put on Kali Uchis’s Red Moon in Venus and spend some time going through notebooks and computer files to see which project has more material to build on. I have more seeds than I thought for the new project, so I decide that’s what I’m going to go with. (For the folks who like to get riled up about corporate timekeeping: I work on a team whose ethos is get your work done, do it well, we don’t care when or how. Taking an hour here or there for non-work tasks isn’t a big deal. I always get my work done, and it’s done to a high standard.)

11:30 a.m. — T. has some stressful stuff happening today and a late meeting, so we decide we’ll just do leftovers for dinner. That means scrounging for lunch. I put together a snack plate of chips, carrots, hummus, pumpkin seeds, and a pear, plus some coconut dreams cookies. I do life admin and work tasks while I eat.

4 p.m. — Welp. We get word from our real estate agent that the people who looked at the house twice are not going to make an offer. This has happened before so it’s not surprising, but it is aggravating. (I really wanted a narrative arc in this Money Diary from financial stress to financial stability!) We’ll keep it listed until the end of the week and then we’ll pivot to looking for renters. Trying to keep in mind that T. also got good health news today after a bit of a scare. On balance, we’re doing okay and we’re very fortunate to have a home in a place we love, to be employed, and to be in good health.

4:30 p.m. — Work tasks basically wrapped up for the day (research, webinar, emails). I do another Adi Amar yoga video, then take the corgador for his evening walk. T. is finally off his late call at 6 p.m. The rest of our evening is pretty typical. We debrief the day/chat/make each other laugh for a while, eat dinner, tend to the animals, and tidy. We decide on more Doctor Who for our evening entertainment. I make us some tea and it feels extra cozy to be snuggled up together on a very cold fall night.

9 p.m. — Early bed tonight because T. is doing a sleep study with a particular schedule. Nighttime routines, reading/snuggles etc., lights out at 10:45 p.m.