Man maths

10 days into the new year - have I already failed in the mission for austerity? Readers of this blog knows I am on the hunt for a new Honda Civic Type R. That means adding another car to the one I already have - a not-so-cheap to own BMW M2. Obviously that’s going to be quite a chunk of additional borrowing, and an increase in ancillary costs such as gas and insurance.

That is, if a dealership would even sell me a Civic Type R for a reasonable price.

Us car guys like to perform what we call “man maths”: a euphemism for convincing ourselves that we can overextend the budget to afford a certain car (or more). So I did my due diligence on the plan to buy the Civic. And what do you know: I can afford to have a second car, though I wouldn’t classify it was comfortable. I would essentially be “car poor”, which for a car enthusiast is probably not the craziest thing. What’s the meaning of life but to find the one passion and pour everything into it?

At least I won’t be in the negative, so to speak. I’ll just owe a bank a lot of money.

Alas, my Asian upbringing is convincing me otherwise. Buying the Type R would remove any cushion I have for other things. As of right now I would rather build up that buffer instead of immediately dropping another bag of money. This after a 2022 of somewhat heavy spending; I really need to bump up my monetary reserves. The second car will have to wait. It can still happen, just not right at this moment.

I think patience here is going to serve me well.

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Because I still love this one.

Pandemic spending

Now that I’ve moved out of my parents’ house and on my own, the extra monthly rental cost looms large over my overall spending budget. To have a sizable chunk of my income that I once could squirrel away for something super fun (like a Porsche 911 GT3) now just utterly gone every first of the month is a huge change indeed. Priorities have shifted, and I definitely cannot be as cavalier with money as I used to.

Budgets, then, is something I now how to keep a keen eye on. For the few months since I’ve moved out, I’ve done rather well. However, we are still in the middle of the pandemic, and therefore spending levels are depressed. The inability to go out and do stuff quite naturally saves a bit of money. No doubt that once the world returns to normal, my monthly spending on restaurants and whatnot will certainly increase dramatically.

Obviously I’ll have to make that adjustment.

That said, I am very excited for the day I can spend a Friday evening hanging out with friends at a restaurant. Even a homebody like myself have reached a toleration limit with the lockdowns. Deprived of the option to socialize, there’s nothing I want more now than to call up friends to see what’s happening on the weekends. Funny how that sort of psychology works.

So it’s going to be okay when my monthly spending inevitably goes up. That means the pandemic is over, and we’re back to our regularly-scheduled programming. Having been essentially locked inside of my house for nearly a year, I am most ready for the pendulum to go the other way. To hang out with friends and going places every weekend. Perhaps, even weekday nights!

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At the car wash.

A year with Squarespace

Difficult to believe it’s already been a whole year since I’ve move to the Squarespace platform. It was also a surprise because when I went to check on my money accounts (I use Mint), a hefty charge of $215 showed up on one of the credit cards. That is indeed the yearly fee for the privilege of using this wonderful host sans any limitations.

Much like how the annual fee for Amazon Prime sneaks up on me every year, I can see why people of my generation much prefer these payments to be broken down monthly instead of annually. The emotional optics are simply easier to stomach than having to all of the sudden cough up a few hundred dollars. It’s especially jarring for people like myself who keep monthly budgets as tight as possible.

The new iPhone that costs over one thousand dollars? No it doesn’t! Split into 24 payments it’s only $56 dollars a month! An infinitely easier pill to swallow, isn’t it? That brand new BMW sedan isn’t really over $40,000 dollars; on a lease it’s only costs $300 a month!

For the less financially inclined it’s of course easy to fall into the “affordable” monthly payment trap and go way beyond proper spending limits. But for the financially savvy - which I think of myself as - sectioning a big monetary outlay into tiny bits can be an excellent strategy to maximize returns (however small they may be). I rather do a piecemeal plan and hoard as much cash as possible to at the very least earn interest in a savings account.

This is precisely why instead of the typical lump sum every 6 months, I pay my car insurance every month. I can do the bi-yearly plan no problem at all, but it’s more prudent to keep the leftover cash in an investment account to accrue some modicum of gain. Plus, it’s far easier for budgeting purposes.

Anyways, it’s been a good year, Squarespace. Please don’t raise your fees.

The charts match the chairs and floors.