That time we joked about $18 cocktails with Dumpster Doggy’s Amanda Holden
Pre-coronavirus we joked with Dumpster Doggy Blog’s Amanda Holden about her decision to upsize her life and move to New York City, and all the ridiculous expenses that were becoming part of her new NYC life.
Amanda’s Money Story:
Amanda Holden:
I just made the move. I came out to New York City alone. I've never lived on the East Coast before. I moved from Portland, Oregon, and so it was a super big change, but one that I had started thinking about probably about a little bit more than a year, a year and a half, two years ago as something that I wanted to do. And so I saved up my money. I built up my business. I waited until I was ready and then I moved out here for no reason other than I wanted to be here.
Bobbi Rebell:
I love that. Tell me more about what the change was like financially.
Amanda Holden:
Sure. So I did market research on rent prices and then also just normal cost of goods, groceries, also sales tax. I moved from a state that didn't have sales tax, so everything is going to be automatically about 10% more expensive in New York City, so taking that into account as well. And what I did, and this is not necessarily what everybody has to do, but what I did is I wanted to make sure that I had a year's worth of rent saved and a year's worth of my business taxes saved. So I actually saved quite a bit of money in cash before making the transition, knowing that it's really hard to understand how expensive it's going to be to live in a city until you're actually doing it yourself.
Amanda Holden:
I asked friends and I can hear from them, but they live different lives than I do and so what I spend money on is not what they spend money on. I knew that some of it's a guessing game and just getting to a point where I had a big enough cushion that I felt comfortable doing so was essentially all that I did. And I'm really lucky in that I am extremely light on my feet. It's just me. I moved with literally two suitcases and I'm not even exaggerating, and that just makes it really easy as well. If I need to pick up and leave and go back, then I can certainly do that, which helped give me some flexibility as well.
Bobbi Rebell:
So tell us more about what was as you expected financially and what surprised you financially moving to a bigger city and a more expensive city?
Amanda Holden:
Bobbi, every single cocktail here cost at least $18.
Bobbi Rebell:
Yeah, that's not bad. 18 sounds about right. Definitely, you can go more.
Amanda Holden:
It's truly terrible. So I moved from Portland, Oregon, but I also lived in California for the majority of my adult life. I was in school in L.A. and then working in investment management in San Francisco. Which is an expensive city.
Bobbi Rebell:
It's an expensive city.
Amanda Holden:
It's not cheap there either. No, it's not. But when I was there, the years that I was there, I left actually in 2013, which is crazy that it was so long ago, you could absolutely, the bars I went to, you could absolutely walk in and get a whiskey soda for $6 or $7. At least the places that I was going to. But in New York city, I don't think that I quite expected that my fun budget was going to need grow by more than double because Portland is a really cheap uneasy place to drink. And so that has been a surprise. Obviously, I'm paying more in rent, but there's some other things where I feel like I'm saving money. I don't have a car here. I had a car in Portland, and so that's nice. I love being able to walk. I love living in a walking city. I love public transportation.
Amanda Holden:
That's been really great to not have to have my car and so after it all shakes out, yeah, I'm definitely spending more money here, but I'm also just pretty naturally good at sticking to a spending plan and even in a more expensive city, I do a pretty good job of saving.
Bobbi Rebell:
One thing that a former guest here on Financial Grownup said, Barbara Corcoran, she talked about the fact that she liked having a little bit of a fire under her because it made her want to earn more. And she says it works, that needing to have more money to live the life you want actually motivated her successfully to earn more money. What do you think about that? Do you think that being here has helped your business because you want to do all the things, you want to be able to go have that $18 cocktail, if you want it?
Amanda Holden:
Absolutely. I think that's absolutely a driver and maybe even more than that, just being surrounded by people who are doing and who are ambitious and who are trying to squeeze every last drop out of life and it's not like people in Portland aren't doing that, people in Portland are absolutely doing that, I know some of the most wonderful and creative people there, but the pace of life is certainly slower. And so there's just a different cadence to being in New York City that I think helps and it's energizing and I feel very alive here. Man, nothing like walking through the streets of Manhattan and getting an umbrella right into the eye to really make you feel alive when you're here. Yeah, that's definitely a motivating factor.
Bobbi Rebell:
Looking back, are there things that you in retrospect would have done a little bit differently in terms of the preparation to basically up-size your lifestyle? I mean, it's just a more expensive place to live.
Amanda Holden:
I think that doing the saving is doing the work. Coming with some sort of financial cushion was imperative to me moving without taking on a whole bunch of financial anxiety, because I could see having a bunch of financial anxiety. If I was to do one thing differently, I probably would have worked on creating some more passive income streams before I got here, not only because having a passive income stream is really helpful, but also because the cost of building out something like, let's say, a video course or something like that is going to be much cheaper to create in Portland than it is going to be in New York.
“There’s just a different cadence to being in New York City ... it’s energizing and I feel very alive here.”
Amanda’s Money Lesson:
Amanda Holden:
I think that the lesson here is that if you have a financial goal, it is worthy and you don't have to listen to what anybody else says your financial goal should be, but just make a picture of it in your head, make a bank account to match it, and then just hit that goal hard. I'm a firm believer in the value of really conceptualizing your goals and really thinking about it often, like, whatever, put it on your mood board, I don't use Pinterest, but put it on your Pinterest, whatever it is, and working towards that specific goal because it is so much more motivating than if you have just some random savings account that you're just putting money into with no particular goal in mind.
Bobbi Rebell:
Did you have deadline and a specific amount of money and work back from there?
Amanda Holden:
Well, really my deadline was earlier this year doing my taxes.
Bobbi Rebell:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amanda Holden:
And so I had an idea of how much I would owe in taxes. Last year was my first full year self employed doing my own business and so I had an idea of what I would owe in taxes. But you always kind of are like, "Well, until I actually do it, I could be way off. Am I going to owe $1000 or am I going to owe $40000? Where is it going to fall?" And so luckily once I did my taxes, I hired a CPA to do my taxes for the first year, I found out that I owed exactly what I expected and so therefore I had enough cushion where I was like, "Okay," I told myself this was my deadline. If I kept my cushion and didn't pay it all to self employed taxes, that I would move to New York City.
Amanda Holden:
And actually one of my good friends, I don't know if you know Emma Pattie, but Emma in Portland, she, on tax day, literally looked at me and she's like, "So are you moving to New York City?"
Bobbi Rebell:
Oh.
Amanda Holden:
I know, and I was like, "Oh, I guess I did say that, didn't I? Yeah, I guess I should go. I guess I should go now."
Bobbi Rebell:
We love accountability. Accountability is everything.
Amanda Holden:
I know. I was like, "Dang, I forgot I had said that.
Bobbi Rebell:
Yes, tell people things. That's one of my favorite tips, is actually telling people because then you have more ownership and accountability.
“If you have a financial goal, it is worthy and you don’t have to listen to what anybody else says your financial goal should be”
Amanda’s Money Tip:
Amanda Holden:
So my everyday money tip, if you found $300 to spend at Target, then I encourage you to consider that you have money that you can also invest in a company like Target or invest in companies in general, invest in yourself and in your future,
Bobbi Rebell:
Right. So take whatever budget you were going to spend wherever you were going to go shopping and instead shop for the stock of that company. But make sure it's a good investment too. Don't just buy blind leave. We don't want to tell you to do that, of course.
Amanda Holden:
Right, right. And this is just an example.
Bobbi Rebell:
Right. But I love the analogy because when you rethink it and you approach something differently, wait, I was going to spend $300 on groceries for my very large family at Whole Foods, maybe I can spend less and invest the extra in Whole Foods. Not necessarily recommending that investment, but the idea is there.
“I’m a firm believer in the value of really conceptualizing your goals and really thinking about it often”
Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:
Financial Grownup Tip #1:
I love that Amanda's friend Emma held her accountable. Accountability is a great tool to use. Without it, I know I would not have accomplished many things in life, so however that works for you, tell a friend about a goal and give them permission to check in with you on your progress, and yes, to hold you accountable.
Financial Grownup Tip #2:
Let's talk about risk tolerance. It's being tested for a lot of us right now. Amanda took a huge risk uprooting her life and moving into a more, let's say, financially challenging city. Given the economic chaos we are all now seeing with the impact of the coronavirus, was it a mistake? I say no. We make the best decisions for ourselves based on the information and the goals we have at that time.
Episode Links:
Amanda's website - www.dumpsterdogblog.com
Follow Amanda!
Instagram - @dumpster.doggy
Twitter - @dumpsterdoggy
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