Profile
I am forty-one years old, an occasional digital event producer and freelance stage manager. I work as a TA and an adjunct. I also work a variety of side hustles and am a full-time student working on a PhD in Drama.
Big News
This is the last accountability update for brokeGIRLrich. I haven't really been the best with keeping the back end of the site fully functional and with the last update from Google in July, 10,000 of my pages were unindexed and I don't know how to even begin to fix this. So when my hosting renews at the end of the month – it won't.
If you've been along for the ride for the stage management info, I will aim to transfer the stage management related content to a section of my personal website here: https://melissabondar.wixsite.com/melissabondar/
But as for my personal finance journey, it's going ok, but there's not much to report these days, which is probably the even bigger decision behind letting brokeGIRLrich sail off into the sunset. She's done her job. I set goals every January for the upcoming year and generally meet them. I'll keep doing this even if I'm not blogging. It's kind of boring, but I just steadily do my best to max out my IRA and HSA, contribute to the match of any 401k or 403bs I've had access to over the years, try to keep my emergency savings over $10,000 and add to a self-employed 401k and brokerage account in years that are particularly good.
It's been slow and steady and I'm pretty pleased that my last net worth update here is not too far off $500k at 41. A sight better than the $30,651.41 with $3,500 left on my student loans when I started with blog at 29. I suspect, barring crazy world events, cracking half a million is likely to occur next year, which also puts me on track for the kind of retirement I'm hoping for and possibly to buy a house one day. And seems wild to me that I have been able to chase my dream career, despite plenty of ups and downs, and not starve to death in the arts.
But for today, back to…
Spending & Saving
This month I paid my third quarter taxes, which were really pretty low, as digital producing has been quite slow but magically really picked up this month and next month.
My biggest expenses were my cousin visiting with her son, both to stock the house with foods he would eat and some games and toys for him, as well as their actual visit. We also ate a lot more takeaway than usual and went to a few nice restaurants with her, which you can see in the ridiculous food amount this month. While they were here, we took a day trip to York, explored some of the more kid-friendly areas of Peterborough and then spent the weekend down in London.
Utilities were fairly high since I paid the quarterly water bill this month. I also started buying a few Christmas gifts. I signed up for my third attempt at passing this insane driving test.
Expenses this month:
- Rent – $873.36
- Food – $767.95
- Taxes – $528.00
- Utilities – $279.25
- Cousin Visit – $196.34
- Trains – $170.31
- House – $92.52
- Driving Test – $83.31
- Council Tax – $76.59
- Ubers – $71.76
- Entertainment – $70.74
- Charity – $43.00
- Transportation – $30.93
- School – $21.78
Total Spending in September: $3,305.84
Hustling
This month's income:
- Adjuncting – $1427.52
- Digital Producing – $538.04
- Dividends – $43.20
Income This Month: $2,008.76
Net Worth: September 2025
Goals
Onwards to the goals!
- Max Out My Roth IRA for 2024:Done.
- Max Out My Roth IRA for 2025: $7000 to go.
- Max Out My HSA– $4300 to go.
- Go to Egypt with My Boyfriend and Family: This is paid for. Vacation is in August.
- Best Friend Summer Adventures: This is also paid for. Vacation is in July.
- Sunshine Getaway –This is officially pushed to the fall. We are aiming for some sunshine and cocktails over a long weekend to the cheapest decent all-inclusive we can find in Europe the week after my doctoral defense – whenever that winds up being scheduled.
- Save $1,200 for my US Car Insurance by June
- Buy a Used Car in the UK– I'm not sure I'll even need to do this because will I ever pass this test? Who knows? I currently have $10,000 in a new car account because my Toyota Matrix is on her last legs. I was saving to purchase a new car, but instead I'm looking to buy a used car in the UK after I finish my driving lessons for approximately £5,000 or less.
- Pay for a Graduate Visa– this is going to cost around £4000 and I have $4500 left in my tuition account, after pinching a bit from it to make it through the summer, so this should be almost good to go but needs a bit of a top up now. And fingers crossed that exchange rates don't get out of hand. We will see at the end of the year.
