A Week In Oakland, CA On A $134,000 Salary

Occupation: Project manager
Industry: Utilities
Age: 37
Location: Oakland, CA
Salary: $134,000
Assets: $69,600 pension; $13,500 total from 457(b) and Roth 401(k); $1,280 in checking, $350 in savings.
Debt: $0
Paycheck amount (2x/month): $2,800 (this is my take-home salary after all the taxes, pension, 401(k) etc. money is taken out).
Pronouns: They/them

Monthly Expenses

Housing costs: $1,250 for a room and an en suite bathroom in a three-bedroom house with a yard and huge garage. I have two great housemates.
Loan payments: $0
Utilities: $122 for internet, energy and water (varies seasonally).
Phone: $81
Health insurance: $91 for FSA (work covers my premium, about $13,000 a year, plus $1,000 towards an FSA. I max out my matching FSA contribution to the IRS limit).
Pension: $970 (pre-tax).
457(b): $200 (pre-tax).
Roth 401(k): $200 (post-tax).
Spotify Family: $16.99 (I share with my mom, a friend and a younger sister and her boyfriend living in another country).
Renter’s insurance: $28
Gym: $425 (personal training at a locally owned gym. I don’t have a car payment so I splurge on my health).
Apple storage: $2.99
MUBI: $14.99 (I’m canceling this soon and am going to use Kanopy, a free library service).
Union dues: $30.78 (post-tax).

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?
Yes. My mom and I immigrated to the SF Bay Area when I was in elementary school and there was the standard expectation of doing well in school and going to college (in my home country, the majority of my immediate family elders had the equivalent of PhDs and were engineers). Despite dreams of moving across the continent to Montreal, I made the sensible choice and ended up going to a UC (University of California school) for undergrad, paying my tuition with government Pell grants and Stafford loans. I graduated with about $18,000 in student debt, which I had on forbearance for years when my income was at its lowest. I didn’t have a steady or significant paycheck until I hit 30 (hello, graduating during the last recession), at which point I also got a second part-time job for a year to pay off the rest of my student and consumer loans.

Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent(s)/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
My mom didn’t explicitly teach me how to save money but I knew that we were low-income and that being frugal was important. I acquired a lot of her habits subconsciously (we cooked most meals at home, thrift-shopped and lived with housemates when I was growing up). My mom was, and is, amazing at saving and being creative with her money so I never felt deprived, despite being aware of the differences in circumstances between me and many of my peers in the public school system. One downside of this “finance by osmosis” was that because she didn’t know about investing, up until the last several years I thought it was a practice for so-called rich people, so I am still making baby steps in that arena. I have also realized I have “financial trauma” as a result of my grandparents losing their savings after the collapse of the financial system in my home country. I am still trying to unlearn the false idea that putting money away in relatively stable investment portfolios is risky.

What was your first job and why did you get it?
Good ol’ manual labor — I landscaped for a woman starting in my sophomore year of high school. I saved most of my pay and used it to go traveling for a month in Europe and my home country with my best friend at the end of junior year of high school.

Did you worry about money growing up?
No; my mom shielded me from her (considerable) single-mom struggles. I didn’t learn the details until I was an adult.

Do you worry about money now?
I hadn’t realized how much money anxiety I had carried for years as a freelancer after graduating. Then, once the first few steady paychecks hit at my current job, it became clear to me how stressed I’d been when on food stamps, counting every penny and slowly accumulating consumer debt on a credit card. Despite my current paltry savings account and lack of an emergency fund (which is my next goal), my present-day concerns are mostly about whether I will have the income or savings to help take care of my mom once she retires. I fell behind on saving because, a few years after paying off my student and consumer debt, I spent about four years indulging in lifestyle creep. During this time I drained a $20,000 emergency fund on a used mountain-adventure car (which got totaled in a freak accident a year later), spent on lots of travel, upgraded and acquired various pieces of sports equipment and ate out incessantly. Now I’m determined to be a good saver again, and am considering ways I can increase my income to help boost my savings and investments.

At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I became mostly financially responsible when I moved to college at 18, other than being on my mom’s health insurance until I turned 26 and receiving occasional gifts. Through undergrad I worked at a restaurant and did work-study. If I lost my income stream now and couldn’t afford my room rental, I could move into my mom’s apartment or sleep on friends’ couches for a bit.

Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
I received one-off gifts throughout my 20s, totaling less than $12,000. My mom bought me my first laptop when I went to college and paid for a plane ticket to visit a friend out of the country. Eventually I also had a generous step-grandma in my life who would gift me $300-$500 on birthdays or holidays.

5:45 a.m. — I sigh in defeat when I wake up before my 6:30 a.m. alarm and try to not regret the 45 minutes of precious rest lost: It’s going to be a long and active day. Thursdays are office days so I bustle around feeding and walking my dog, G., and packing food for work. Before I leave I make some oats with butter, nutritional yeast, salt and pepper. I’m out the door by 7:30 a.m. with a note for K., one of my housemates, who is super generous and takes G., along with her dog, to her office on the two days a week I’m not working from home. I bike the two miles to work and arrive at 7:50 a.m., putting on my KN95 mask (local respiratory virus rates are climbing!) and settling into a webinar.

10 a.m. — It’s time to set up the reception table for the new exhibit in my building’s art gallery. We’re a public-facing institution and the art committee I’m part of programs about eight shows a year, featuring local artists. I make a quick trip in a work vehicle to get snacks at Grocery Outlet and am pleasantly surprised by the great fruit, cheese, chip and cracker options they have today. The total comes to $101.88 but my work committee will reimburse me. It’s been over a year since my last “Groce-Out” trip so I can’t resist a 50% off deal on a jar of walnut butter ($7.99), which I pay for separately. I make a mental note to return over the weekend for more fruit, too. $109.87 ($101.88 expensed)

2 p.m. — After a successful artist reception and a few hours of writing, research and project phone calls, I eat some homemade beef chuck roast and black bean stew in the atrium. As a treat, I convince a colleague to get sunshine and iced matcha lattes. With tip, my drink comes to $8. Our office is one of the few in the building without windows, so we need all the direct sunlight we can get! Once I get back to my desk, my phone calendar reminds me that it’s payday. With much excitement, I zero out the final balances on my two credit cards, thus ending an over-three-year period where my previous “fun money” spending had me living paycheck to paycheck. I text M., a friend who’s also become a financial accountability buddy, with the good news and we chat a bit about our savings goals for the year before I turn back to editing an upcoming publication. $8

9 p.m. — A dear friend, C., who I’ve known since undergrad, picks me up and drives us to San Francisco. The parking gods smile upon us and we find a spot around the corner from the venue. We even have time to get some delicious peach mango soft serve a few doors down before heading into the show. I treat us to the small cup, which is still huge for the two of us. It comes to $7.36 with tip. We’re seeing serpentwithfeet, a gay vocalist and experimental musician originally from Baltimore who is touring his newest album, Grip. The radio station I volunteer for comped the tickets as a thank you for interviewing the artist a few days prior, and they even give us VIP wrist bands — a first! We spend part of the show on a balcony overlooking the crowd and stage, and part of it in the pit. $7.36

11 p.m. — The performance was so sweet — serpent is a captivating performer. The crowd was locked in from the first beat to the last. After the show, C. and I both decide to buy the $25 record album and head home, talking about our plans for the rest of Pride month. Once home I chat briefly with L., my other housemate, then cuddle my dog on the couch and succumb to social media scrolling. I don’t fall asleep until maybe 2 a.m. $25

Daily Total: $48.35

7:45 a.m. — Today is my biweekly Friday off (my schedule has me complete an 80-hour pay period in nine workdays) and I get up at the last possible minute to get ready for an 8 a.m. personal training gym session, cursing my phone addiction for keeping me up late. After feeding the dog, I walk the two blocks to the gym while stuffing a peach into my face. Although my monthly gym fee is an eye-watering amount, I can’t beat the convenient location, the expertise of my trainer, J., and the community vibe. An hour later, I’m done with a brutal but satisfying upper body workout. On my way out, I grab a prepared meal of brown rice, spiced ground beef and broccoli that another local business stocks the gym fridge with. $8

11 a.m. — I heft G. into the padded basket attached to the front rack on my bicycle (he is a princess) and ride across town under the brisk sunshine to a local vintage/designer resale store. There I pick up a nearly $385 check from selling some fancy wedding clothes on consignment earlier this year. When I head to the bottle shop next door, I consider whether I want to save the money or use it to pad this month’s spending budget. I decide to pad my depleted checking account for now, with an eye to move the amount to savings after my next paycheck. At the bottle shop I get a liter of Spanish white wine for a friend’s grill-out happening over the weekend, as well as some cute single-serving tequila shots from a woman-owned distillery to celebrate a friend’s choir performance later in the day. $51.82

12 p.m. — After the bottle shop, I bike up the street to a nearby rose garden and spend an hour walking with my dog, smelling the blooms and talking to one of my grandmothers over a video app — it’s been a few weeks since I last called her and we end up talking for almost 45 minutes. I haven’t been able to see my family, including my two younger siblings, in over two years due to a war, so it’s always bittersweet to hear what she’s up to and how her health is. After we’re done blowing air kisses over video, I bike over the hill to a pet store and grab a bag of food for G., whose food allergies require a specific, and expensive, raw diet. It’s almost double what I pay at my regular grocery store but the guy’s gotta eat. $41.88

12:30 p.m. — Suddenly I remember my Groce-Out fruit quest and, realizing how close I am, make a game-time decision to swing by on my way home. I end up buying a huge basket of strawberries, blueberries, some cheese, salmon dog kibble for one of my housemates’ dogs (G. often gets into his food, allergies be damned) and a DIY pedi tool set — I’d been looking for those little toe spreaders! $30.61

7:30 p.m. — I meet several friends at a beautiful church to see our friend J. perform in a 130-person choir made up of local musicians (I prepaid for my tickets a few weeks prior). Afterwards a group of us tailgate on our feet outside, fête-ing J. with ceremonial shots of the tequila I bought earlier in the day, along with some limes and flaky sea salt I brought from home. Later, at a nearby queer-run bar, I end up buying myself and two others a round of drinks, and then later scarf a plate of overpriced popcorn that another friend gets. I briefly feel anxiety over covering the drink tab, remembering my savings goals, but tell myself to relax and enjoy treating my friends. $52.92

12:30 a.m. — After biking home and giving G. a final walk, I lie in bed feeling a bit down, despite the nice evening that I had with good friends. I consider that perhaps I shouldn’t have indulged so much in a joint that got passed around. I try to get the thoughts out of my brain and into my journal but I fall asleep needlessly scrutinizing a few extremely low-stakes social interactions from the evening.

Daily Total: $185.23

9 a.m. — Miracle of miracles, this chronic morning person actually sleeps in! After feeding and walking the dog around the neighborhood, I whip up heavy cream with vanilla extract and fold it into some Greek yogurt, and eat the mess with some of the berries I got the day before. I tuck the leftover cream combo in the fridge.

10 a.m. — I walk to the gym for a Saturday group workout. Our trainer has prepared a truly heinous combination of squats, deadlifts and other movements stacked in ascending and descending order. The four of us that have shown up collectively decide to only do the first half of the workout, and even that takes most of us the full hour. On the way out the door, I choose a pre-made meal of rice, lentil and broccoli from the gym fridge to eat for my second breakfast (what am I, a hobbit?). $8

11 a.m. — For the next several hours I try to get some radio station volunteer work done. I start writing a blurb to publicize the interview I recorded earlier in the week, and listen to part of another DJ’s show for an informal review for the station programming team. I snack on more fruit and make some pour-over coffee with the last of some pretty old beans in between stints of working.

4 p.m. — After taking a long detour on a local bayside trail to let G. run and play in the sun, I bike to a backyard grill-out hosted by friends C. (the same from the other night) and M. M., who I met my first week of college at 18, immediately directs me to a food-laden table. I make myself a few grilled chicken tacos and grab a sparkling water from the cooler. I only plan to stay for a short time before heading to a volunteer video operator shift at the radio station but end up socializing for hours after I find out my shift has been canceled.

10:30 p.m. — After a foggy and windy bike ride with G. in his basket, we’re home. I do a version of my nighttime face routine (Mad Hippie cleansing jelly, Prism AHA/BHA serum, Wild Carrot body lotion, lanolin on my lips and crow's feet), brush my teeth and pop in my nightguard. Soon my stuffed, slightly tipsy corpse is in bed. I scroll a little bit on social media but ultimately write a short daily summary in my journal and pass out.

Daily Total: $8

10 a.m. — It’s so nice to wake up knowing that I don’t need to be anywhere or see anyone today. After splashing water on my face I feed G. his rarefied defrosted raw food and start my own day off with yet more berries for breakfast. Summer is for gorging oneself on fruit, what can I say. I decide that today is going to be a clean and meal prep day, and get started on my shelf in our shared refrigerator.

12:30 p.m. — So far I’ve made a smoky baba ganoush as well as a roasted sheet pan of spiced purple yams and koginut squash. Next up is prep for a beef chuck roast with shiitake in a winey tomato sauce. Once that goes into the instant pot, I pull cookie dough out of the freezer left over from the previous weekend and portion out dough balls for baking. My fridge clean has yielded the welcome and unspoiled surprises of unopened prosciutto and herby olives — score! I text with friend M. about my lack of desire to leave the house but offer her to come over for a glass of wine (that liter of white never did make it to her and C.’s grill-out). She agrees and tells me she’ll be over around 6 p.m.

3 p.m. — I log into my grocery delivery account (it’s one of those companies that rescues food from the supply chain) to place my order for the week. There are often decent deals and without a car it can be nice not to haul everything on my bike multiple times a week. I end up putting 19 items in my cart including pantry staples like oil and vinegar, lemons, frozen chicken thighs, two pre-made meals for work the following week, chewy dental sticks for my dog (are those a scam?), a bit of smoked salmon and a box of sparkling water cans. It comes out to $121.91, which is about $30 more than I usually spend. $121.91

5:30 p.m. — M. is on her way so I do a quick room tidy, shoving two grocery bags’ worth of clutter from my desk into my closet that I’ll sort in a few days, and folding my bed. Nothing like a friend visit to let a neglected chore get hastily done to keep up appearances! I make us a pretty delicious fridge-leftovers dinner of fusilli pasta with vodka sauce and meatballs, along with three kinds of leftover wines, and those olives I found in the back of the fridge. The prosciutto I wrap around peaches to sauté for an appetizer; for dessert we eat the fresh choco walnut cookies and decaf black tea. It’s great to chat, laugh, and eat together — top-tier friendship hang.

8 p.m. — Full of food and feeling happy, I bike with G. to a bayside park for a refreshing, foggy “sunset” walk. We’re back home a little before 10 p.m.; after putting him to bed I do a clay face mask, shower and lock my phone away for the night. Even though I’m in bed by 10:30 p.m., sleep is slow to come.

Daily Total: $121.91

7:30 a.m. — It’s hard to get out of bed this morning — a nightmare woke me up before 3 a.m. But I persist because the dog needs to be fed. I take my meds and bring G. out for a short neighborhood walk. Before logging in to work I eat, you guessed it, strawberries, blueberries and Greek yogurt.

10 a.m. — After my light breakfast I know I need more protein so I rummage in my pantry and find a protein bar left over from a grocery box a few weeks back. Then it’s back to a check-in with my boss and meetings with colleagues. An hour later I drink a fruity sparkling water mixed with some electrolyte salts.

12:30 p.m. — I take my lunch break and heat up some kale along with the prepped roasted vegetables and winey, mushroomy chuck roast on top. To give G. some stimulation, I stuff a treat into one of his toys and hide it in the couch while he’s in the other room so that he then uses his nose to sniff it out. Then it’s back to work. I text M. to see if she’s available to virtually body double with me, which looks like us working in silence while on FaceTime. This is a trick I learned from fellow ADHD people on the internet and it helps keep me on task when my focus starts flagging in the afternoon. It’s a yes from her so we hop on and get to work.

7:30 p.m. — I realize G. needs more dog food and decide to try to make it to the store before it closes in a half hour. I hoist 35 pounds of dog into the bike basket and get on the road. While I bike I call up my good friend Z., who lives in LA. I get to the store with 10 minutes to spare and quickly grab three bags of dog food and a pack of dog waste bags ($92.36) as well as coconut water, a tub of fresh shrimp ceviche, a chicken katsu onigiri, a pineapple, heavy cream in a glass bottle and some more body cream. The rest of it totals $63.44. On the way home I eat some ceviche and the onigiri, appeasing G. with a piece of chicken katsu. I keep talking with Z., who quit their high-powered job in my industry to be a bike mechanic and bike messenger — they seem genuinely more happy and grounded. I feel glad for them and wonder if I could make a life change like that. $155.80

11 p.m. — After doing my nighttime face cleansing routine I lock my phone in its little timed safe so I don’t scroll too late and get into bed. Despite my good intentions, I can’t fall asleep until nearly 1 a.m.

Daily Total: $155.80

7:15 a.m. — I groggily emerge from sleep only to take my phone out of its safe and realize that my alarm has been going off for over a half hour — I missed my one-on-one gym appointment! I call my trainer and profusely apologize, asking if we can reschedule for another day this week. What a way to start the day: no gym and I’ve woken up too late to take my meds, too. After lying in bed a little more, I get up to feed G., noting that both housemates have already left for the day. I log into my work computer just after 8 a.m., and answer emails before our all-hands meeting starts.

9:45 a.m. — After finishing a meeting with a colleague and someone we met at a conference weeks prior, I take a break to heat up some vodka sauce and meatball pasta left over from Sunday’s dinner with M. I decide to eat some of the shrimp ceviche from the previous evening’s grocery store run, too. After snarfing down the food, I take G. on a short walk around the neighborhood, admiring a blossoming yucca and snagging a ripe yellow plum from a street tree. I’m back at my desk and another call by 10 a.m. Several colleagues and I end up strategizing for an hour about an internal DEI issue that I discovered the previous fall; so far the higher ups have not made a tangible plan forward. We come up with some ideas to goad our superiors into action.

11:30 a.m. — So many meetings this morning, eating up my best productivity hours! I fret a bit that I’ll get lost in the afternoon motivation morass. Before responding to a specialized customer service call, I finally finish off the rest of my weekend fruit haul and whipped cream/yogurt treat, and make an oat milk matcha latte to get my energy up. Suddenly I notice that G. is in the backyard unattended, and I reach the porch too late — he has rolled in dirt again! I groan but have no time to deal with it. I sit down at my bedroom desk to write a customer service response email, and put on the rest of the DJ’s show I need to finish reviewing for tonight’s radio station programming committee meeting.

3 p.m. — Realizing that I never ate lunch, I decide between the beef chuck roast and shiitake stew I’d prepped over the weekend, or more pasta and ceviche leftovers. Pasta and shrimp win, and I eat quickly while checking my personal email. Then it’s back to sitting on the couch with my computer and opening up a programmatic strategic planning document I’m trying to finish editing today.

5:30 p.m. — I finish off the work day strong, thanks to another body-doubling session with M. Before we hang up I tell her how grateful I am for her support and friendship. I feed G his dinner, adding a dollop of yogurt I scavenge from my housemate C.’s abandoned tub. While G. eats I almost buy $158 round-trip tickets to Portland to see friends later in the summer before remembering my dad, who still lives in my birth country, is getting married in an adjacent country we can both visit. I make a mental note to check in with him about dates.

9 p.m. — After several hours of a virtual radio station meeting, I chat at the kitchen island with housemate C. while we share his smoked salmon and some cheese and rice crackers from my previous week’s grocery box. Around 9:30 p.m. my friend Y. drops by with his two dogs to drop off a cooler he’d borrowed from me. My dog G. is really excited to see his fellow canines! After Y. leaves, I’m in bed by 10 p.m., after locking my phone away and writing a bit in my journal.

Daily Total: $0

7:05 a.m. — I force myself to get up within a minute or two and immediately take my meds before going to the kitchen to prepare G.’s breakfast and pack my lunch for the day. I pull out the roasted vegetables and chuck roast from the weekend, and put it over a bed of kale. I also grab a mango, a cookie and a can of sparkling water from the pantry. I check in with my housemate K. to make sure she’s not leaving yet and take G. to the little park across the street to do his business. When I’m not looking, the dog finds and starts eating some lady fingers someone left on the ground. He is really a master garbage con artist! I take him home and hand him over to K., then get going on my bike ride to work.

8:05 a.m. — I get to my desk and answer a few emails, then walk to a café kitty corner to the office, where I get a breakfast plate with scrambled eggs with cheese and pico, two sausage patties and home fries. I eat half of it while walking back to my office. $10.98

11 a.m. — I take a break between writing tasks to catch up on my texts. My friend D. in Washington has received some birthday flowers that me and another friend had a local florist deliver to her (we prepaid for the flowers the other week so there’s no charge today) — she’s elated and so touched! I also remember to buy tickets to a weekend rugby game that a friend is in; I’ll be going with C. and M. I decide to get a ticket that also includes a drink pass, and it comes out to $25. $25

1 p.m. — I make a snap decision to earmark my homemade lunch for a late-afternoon snack. Instead I walk to another part of downtown to get two tacos heaped with al pastor and spicy beef ($12.98 with tip). I cross the street to eat the tacos on a bench in front of my favorite locally run ice cream joint. I text a bit with my mom about what we’re both eating for lunch. After the tacos, I walk into the ice cream shop to get a scoop of cherimoya ice cream, a limited flavor they posted on Instagram several days prior. It comes to $6 with tip and is a bit milder than I expected but still tasty. I walk back to the office and am back at my desk at 1:45 p.m. $18.98

6:30 p.m. — I stay late at work finishing off a planning document, missing my 6 p.m. group gym session in the process. I bike home and find that my weekly “rescued food” grocery box has arrived. I feed G. and put away the goods, heating up a pre-made Thai meal from the box for dinner. Since I missed the gym, I decide to catch up on the new season of Interview with The Vampire and fire up a shared server that a friend, D., has loaded the show onto. I’m immediately hooked back into the horny, messy, bloody world of Anne Rice’s TV-adapted vampires.

1:30 a.m. — Self-control fled my body in the face of the delicious television show; with this late bedtime, the following workday is going to be a nightmare. As I wash my face and write a short journal entry, I think about the rest of the week ahead with equal parts excitement and dread. So many activities, so little time for me to decompress. I resolve to block off more solo time for the following week.

Daily Total: $54.96