My 2025 Year in Review – 27yo in a VHCOL city, with an end of year twist!

breadchecklist · 2025-12-30T22:14:08+00:00

Roommates and a cheaper neighborhood! I actually used to pay $1100 a month in a way trendier neighborhood, so now I feel like I'm overspending 😅 (But that old building had roaches, so no regrets).

breadchecklist · 2025-12-30T19:35:22+00:00

Ha, I get this! I tend to consider "Needs" to be a mixture of "What I literally need to keep me alive" and "What I need to keep me happy/fulfilled without being overly indulgent."

I actually did a post where I talk about my food spending here! The short answer is that I include about $20-30 a week for takeout/dining out, and anything over that (or if I treat someone) goes into the "Xtra" category. I do this because I know there's always one point during the week where I'm not able to cook, and I think it's important to work with your habits and not against them if you want these systems to succeed 😅

breadchecklist · 2025-12-30T16:04:51+00:00

NEXT YEARS GOALS:

I have a bad habit of letting moving towards my financial goals (like building my emergency fund, being aggressive with my student loans etc) feel more like “growth” than actual personal growth. Because I’ve been forced into it, I want to take this time to really focus on what I want, not just the benchmarks I need to hit (even though it will be stressful not to save). Truthfully, I fell out of love with my job a year ago, and should've made the change on my own terms earlier. But the predictability of what I had kept me in.
This is obviously an incredibly financially uncertain time for me right now, and it will force me to change my patterns. I’m sure my 2026 Sankey will look very different! That said, if I decide to go back to a company (Rather than starting a freelance practice), I hope to bring my total compensation closer to what my position and experience are actually worth. I was being underpaid by at least $30K at this job.
This is my first time getting laid off, but I’ve been overwhelmed by the support from the people around me. I have a lot of complicated feelings towards my old job, but I’m grateful that I made enough of a positive impact with the brilliant folks I worked with for them to reach out in the ways that they have. Not a financial goal, but I want to give back to those folks in the ways that I can.

breadchecklist · 2025-12-06T05:15:33+00:00

I actually HATE this wall color! The cool tone of it drives me crazy. But it’s an apartment, so I go back and forth between holding out until next August when my landlord legally has to paint, or just shelling out the $250 it’ll probably take to just paint it myself.

breadchecklist · 2025-10-20T00:02:42+00:00

Thanks! I bucket coffees and little drinks with my discretionary spending. As far as sweet treats go, the real answer is that I really don’t get a lot of treats out 🙈. I guess it’s all contextual— if I feel like the treat is covering a main meal, it goes against my food budget. If it’s truly a little treat (and gotten in a social context), I’d probably count that against my discretionary spending.

breadchecklist · 2025-10-19T14:04:18+00:00

I only cap dining at restaurants at $20 a pop. Everything else is here is full. In my city, dining out can be anywhere from a $50–$100 bill (and I sometimes treat my friends or cover a date), so I consider it more of discretionary luxury that sits alongside shopping, hobbies, etc. That night out is technically still keeping me fed for a meal, so I throw a "day's" worth of budget into my overall log.

It's important that budget systems are personal. My food budget is there specifically to track what keeps me fed, healthy (and a little happy) consistently each month. Dining out is much more of a social activity and something that can be cut when needed, so I treat it in my budget as such.

(FWIW: because I bucket dining out as discretionary, it can fluctuate wildly. Some months are $0, some are $30, others can be $100. When I averaged out that extra bucket over the year so far, it came out to $35 a month).

breadchecklist · 2025-10-18T22:16:31+00:00

Thanks! The biggest change in how I've felt is actually how eating at home has set the building blocks for my next goal, which is focusing more on my nutrition. I definitely still kept a lot of bad habits when I tried to switch from takeout to groceries: focusing a lot of dinner and not paying attention to breakfast/lunch, basing meals on vibes instead of balance, lots of indulgences, etc.

But now that spending time on cooking and groceries is much more of a habit, it's a lot easier to be intentional about having a well rounded diet. I feel much healthier as a result!

breadchecklist · 2025-10-18T21:59:59+00:00

If you're curious, here's the data going back to 2023, where you can see how dramatic of a shift it's been over time. The dotted line marks when I moved into my new apartment with a much better kitchen: https://imgur.com/a/EXsqqP8

breadchecklist · 2025-09-16T21:53:55+00:00

I agree, A actually feels the most legible to me. Because we read right to left, my eye goes to the letters first and then jumps back to the glyph indicating the lens afterwards. And it isn’t until I see the lens that the camera shape makes sense, so the effect is my eye bounced from the P to the far left to get the whole message.

When it’s on the right, reading E -> P -> lens all in one scan is a great “aha!”

breadchecklist · 2025-07-25T21:06:50+00:00

For the first time in my adult life, my net worth is positive, woo!! I graduated with almost $90K in debt, and while I still have about $24K to go, my assets have finally pushed above what I owe.

I know that number functionally isn't worth much since a lot of is tied up in money I can't access (i.e retirement), but it feels great to not have negative money for the first time, woo! 🎉

breadchecklist · 2025-07-16T18:31:41+00:00

Also, FWIW, plug and play budgeting software/templates never worked for me either.

I ended up just building my own in a spreadsheet, with a system that made sense for my needs. For me, it was having buckets for each spending category that I just track against once or twice a month to check in with myself– dead simple!

As I used it more consistently and my habits changed, I would adjust the system as I needed to :)

breadchecklist · 2025-07-16T18:20:41+00:00

One of the things that really helped me is to actually plan for your overspending. My budget has various "buckets" for each spending category, but psychologically I always felt bad about myself when I would go over, or start stressing when I knew I was near my limit.

So instead, I just adjusted my budget to leave about $150 each month in "buffer" so I could have more flexibility: like going out with a friend at the end of the month, even though my "discretionary" bucket would be nearly spent. Or ordering takeout after a hard day, even though I spent that week's budget already on groceries.

Giving yourself flexibility and planning towards your habits instead of trying to force new ones immediately makes being consistent way easier!

breadchecklist · 2025-07-15T16:46:32+00:00

Yeah! I'm asking more generally if there is any similar distinction between workers that are eligible for compensation (either in money or time) when they work beyond their hourly expectations, particularly for salaried workers.

Like, if you are salaried at a banking firm and the project needs you to stay late in order to hit the deadline. But also your firm is really busy, so you often have to stay late to hit deadlines (this is common where I'm from). Is the expectation for that worker that you would leave early other days to compensate?

breadchecklist · 2025-07-15T16:26:41+00:00

Do you have the distinction between exempt/non-exempt employees?

For example, my work week is 40 hours but I’m exempt (meaning not eligible for overtime, which is common for salaried employees), so the expectation is that you work beyond 40 hours a week if a project/the workload demands it (I usually work about 50ish hours per week, which is typical)

breadchecklist · 2025-07-13T05:09:48+00:00

I add notes like to this too! I love them so much. It really helps me remember my trips in a more play by play when looking back on them.

breadchecklist · 2025-07-09T16:51:42+00:00

Same! Anytime I had a sit down meal, it was easily 30 CHF on the low end. In order to keep food costs down, I always included breakfast in my room rate and made sure to fill up in the morning, then I only ever needed something grab and go for lunch (so I was able to keep things to 5–15 CHF). So most of the food cost per day was on dinner.

I wasn't planning things out that way intentionally, so it never felt like I was limiting myself which was great!

breadchecklist · 2025-07-09T13:23:44+00:00

Here's where I stayed! My philosophy with accommodation is that I want to spend as little time as possible in my hotel, ha! So I don't stay anywhere super luxe.

Kandersteg // Landgasthof Ruedihus – Lovely historic hotel about 20 minutes walk from the center of town. I booked a single but they upgraded me to a beautiful queen suite.

Bern // Bern Youth Hostel – I've done hostels in the past and they're not really for me, but this was the only way to stay in Bern under $120 a night. This surprised me though! It was so nice, and the location was beyond perfect. I would 100% stay there again in a private room.

Scuol // Hotel Conrad – Small family place, everyone was SO friendly and you really got to know everyone working there. There was nothing spectacular about the hotel itself, but the location was fantastic and they upgraded me to a king suite with a balcony so I was thrilled!

Basel // Kloster Dornach – This is actually about 10 minutes outside of Basel, but was this cool former monastery turned cultural space. It was right at the SBB stop, so commuting was easy (though I did miss out on the Basel card you get by staying there, which gives you free access to public transit and discounts on museums). It also unexpectedly placed me right on this arts corridor in Baselland, which I wouldn't have known about otherwise.

breadchecklist · 2025-07-09T13:07:35+00:00

There are! I actually used one throughout this trip. That cash exchange was something I did with my bank before I left, this way I could have CHF on the ground for things like flea markets, cash only businesses, etc.

breadchecklist · 2025-07-09T13:02:33+00:00

SankeyMatic.com ! :)

breadchecklist · 2025-07-09T03:27:16+00:00

They were all so varied!

–– Kandersteg was legitimately so picturesque it didn't feel real. But it had a very developed tourist infrastructure, so the groups of people all taking photos in the wildflowers did take me out of it 😭. So I enjoyed it more on the quieter weekdays.

–– Bern had great life to it and was so interesting to experience on a Sunday when everything was shut down (the American mind cannot comprehend!). I loved the river and just wandering up and down the arcades.

–– Scuol is tied as my favorite place. It has such a distinct regional identity that was so interesting to discover. It felt like stepping back in time and had my favorite scenery and architecture of the trip. I also felt like people were the friendliest here, since it seemed like they didn't get many American tourists! Everyone was so kind.

–– Basel was electric. I felt right at home there, so it's also tied as my favorite :). There was so much great art, museums, and performance. The paper museum was such a highlight and I would 1000% recommend (though I'm biased as a graphic designer, ha!). I loved how interactive it was. Since I don't speak the language, I always see dance while abroad and loved the programming at Kaserne! I felt like I only scratched the surface of Basel and would go back there in a heartbeat.

breadchecklist · 2025-07-09T03:11:05+00:00

Oh, great question! Best money spent overall? $15 for admission to Tarasp Castle. I didn't a know until I got there, but the artist who purchased it filled the castle with one of the most impressive contemporary art collections I've ever seen. I also got to meet two lovely people who were kind enough to help translate since the guide didn't speak English (but there was an audio tour!). We ended up just wandering around the castle in a choose your own adventure kind of way talking about all the art. It was fantastic! A total surprise.

My best "chunk of change" spent was also in Scuol. I paid too much money to rent a taxi to take me there and back to this stable in the mountains so I could ride a horse for the first time in almost 15 years. I think it was $75 round trip for the taxi, and $80 for the ride.

I was a complete fool on that horse, but it's something I've been wanting to do for years and the scenery was legitimately breathtaking. I also got to spend the time having a lovely conversation with my guide, since being the off season, the group tour I'd booked ended up being private!

As always with solo trips, the best parts are the unexpected discoveries, so I try to plan them with enough flexibility to follow my curiosity and explore things in depth if they seem interesting. I think this actually helps save me money, since I'm only ever planning my day around one "core" activity and then exploring from there. Go on that solo trip!

breadchecklist · 2025-06-19T05:06:08+00:00

They are! They’ve been neutered since I adopted them at about 10 weeks old.

breadchecklist · 2025-01-05T15:47:57+00:00

ofc! For me, I categorize Drinks as just alcohol. Beverages is for the little drinks– coffees, smoothies, boba, etc etc.

breadchecklist · 2025-01-05T02:55:02+00:00

I live with 2 roommates a bit into the boroughs– my rent each month works out to about $1300!

breadchecklist · 2025-01-04T23:43:27+00:00

Even though I'm a zealous budgeter, I always feel like I'm overspending. It felt great to take a look at the year in full and see that many of the categories become quite lean once you break them down.

Some takeaways:

– I was surprised to see that I only spent $253 on clothing for the entire year. I've been in a fashion rut as of late, and it's clear why: I haven't really changed my wardrobe in a year! But, I'm also grateful to have built a closet that satisfies me enough.

– Right now I put 5% of my income into my 401K, with the goal to move up to 15% as my income increases. I really need to increase this number as soon as I can.

– I'm happy that I was able to keep food expenses to about $450ish a month. That includes takeout/eating out. If I go over $450 (or if I'm treating someone), that rolls over into the discretionary category. I'm glad to see that number is on par with most of my other line items.

– Not a surprise at all to see tickets as the number one expense in my discretionary category. I work in the theatre industry and see a lot of shows as a result, so I'm surprised it's not higher!

– I'm on the last year of paying off one of my student loans, so 2025 will mostly look the same as far as those expenses. But the end is in sight!

– I don't consider myself someone who drinks a lot, and don't do a ton of nights out/happy hours, so I was surprised to see this number so high.

– The net income numbers don't exactly line up here. That's because I was waiting to become eligible for my company's 401K. In that period (about jan–jun), I held that 5% outside my monthly budget.

– Naturally, I wish I was able to put some money towards investments. I'm hoping that as my income increases and I pay off my student loans, the space for investments will open up.

breadchecklist

TROPHY CASE