Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Decisions decisions

A while back I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish before my birthday. One of the items was to start saving more money. Well I’m happy to say that I’ve been doing really well with this! Since January I’ve managed to save about $3,000 dollars. Considering that I don’t make a lot of money and I have bills to pay I’m really proud of myself for doing this much.

My original goal when I started saving was so I can eventually move out of my mom’s house. Now I’ve really put that idea into motion but there are some things holding me back. I’ve always wanted to live in NYC. It’s been a goal of mine since before I can remember. Since rent is crazy expensive I defiantly needed to save up some money first.

Now I’m rethinking this. I feel like I would be wasting this hard earned money of mine to live in a closet. Also I have my dog to keep in mind now so it will be even harder to find a pet friendly place. I just keep asking myself if it’s worth it.

Maybe I should just try and find a place near me. But then would that be a waste of money moving out of my house to live someplace 10 minutes away? Also if I did that my dog would basically die or have to stay with my mom. I leave my house at 7:30 in the morning and I don’t come home til 8:30 every night. Having him sit in a cage for 13 hours is just cruel. I don’t think I could leave him at my mom’s.

Now I’ve been thinking is to put off moving out some more. Instead maybe I should invest this money in an IRA. I figured since I’m saving so much instead of it sitting in a savings account, I could be growing it into a good sum of money so I can retire eventually.

Best-case scenario would be if I found a job that had better hours or if it was closer to where I live now. Since the job market is still pretty crappy I’m not banking on that any time soon.

What do you think I should do? Stop being scared and take the plunge and move to the city? Invest in my future? I’m utterly confused right now. I’m pretty sure all this is coming up because I’m scared, but these are viable things to be worried about.

2 comments:

Karen said...

That is personal decision. Personally I think tht living on one's own is very important. There are a zillion choices between 10 minutes from Mom's and NYC. A compromise might let you enjoy both freedom and the dog.

I am not someone who ever wanted to live in the city, but I have friends who gladly spend $5000 a month to live in a 4 room 4th floor walk up. So that is something you need to decide yourself.

Alli said...

I really want to live in the city too, but sadly most places I could *maybe* afford are closets in bad neighborhoods.

So instead I pay a reasonable amount ($900) to have 1 roommate in a 2 bedroom in Hoboken. I'm 15-30 minutes from the city (depends where I'm going) and Hoboken is actually pretty cute w/ restaurants *and* I can see the ESB from my room, which is something most people can't get being in the city.

But this depends if it's reasonable for where you work, which I don't see in this post but maybe you wrote it elsewhere... At least you do have options.