I Made A Stupid Money Mistake

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I was rather surprised recently when I received an email stating that I still owed $1,000 in tuition.  I didn’t pay my tuition for my Summer class because I expected it to be paid from my Fall financial aid. When the surplus from my Fall financial aid was deposited in my bank account I noticed it was less than I was expecting and assumed that my previous balance had been paid from the surplus.  That assumption was a big mistake.  If I had even done a ballpark estimate in my head I would have figured out that was wrong.

For some reason my school applied about $500 from the surplus to my previous balance but left a remaining balance of about $1000.  I’m now going to have to pay that out of the surplus amount.  This is kind of a pain since the school only accepts checks or cash for payment and I don’t have checks.  I’m not actually out any money because I owed the money either way.  I still feel like I’m poorer though.  This should serve as a reminder to me to not be so lazy when accounting for my student loan money.  I keep track of every penny I spend outside of financial aid so I should be more diligent when tracking my financial aid as well.

August Income- $1389.60

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Here is a breakdown of my income for August.

Job

$864.82

Online Income

$355.50

Bank/Referral Bonuses

$135

Interest

$16.88

Surveys/Selling Stuff

$17.40

Total

$1389.60

My income was decent considering I only worked for about half the month.  M y online income should be up significantly next month.  I use the cash method of accounting, I had a good amount of affiliate sales in August that won’t be counted until I receive them this month.  It will be difficult to make up the $864 in job income though.  I’m working on some ways to increase my online income but it will probably be a couple months before I see any results.

August Expenses- $1214.69

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for August.

Household

$437.32

Utilities

$90.60

Food

$32.51

Transportation

$149.15

Entertainment

$85.75

Charity

$200

Student Loan Debt/Education

$219.36

Total

$1214.69

I went over my goal of $1000 but that mostly was because of the $200 I gave to charity so I’m ok with that. Should be under $1000 this month because my education expense will be down since I’ve bought all my books and I won’t have a donation to charity. Transportation costs should go down since I’m not doing the delivery job anymore. My food costs were only $32.51 since I ate most meals at my girlfriend’s house. That cost will go up this month because I’m going to start buying some of our groceries. The other expenses should remain roughly the same.

How I Screwed Up Law School

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If you’re thinking of attending law school you need to ask yourself why you want to go to law school.  Once you determine why you want to go to law school you need to ask yourself if your reason for attending law school is a good one.  I read this advice before I attended law school but didn’t really heed it.  I just had a fuzzy idea of getting my law degree, making big money for a few years and then retiring.  This could be a good reason for some but it wasn’t for me.

This led me to make mistakes on deciding which law school to attend.  Since I wanted to make big money I felt I needed to go to the highest ranking school I could get into.  I was accepted to a top 25 school with no scholarship money and decided to go there and forego the scholarship offers I received at other schools.  After a year of attending law school it was obvious to me I wasn’t going to land a big money job and even if I did it would be something I’d hate.

This led me to transfer to my state school to save about $15,000 a year in tuition.  This was probably another mistake.  Once I had decided to attend the high ranking school I needed to just stick with it.  Things were going well for me there and I should have remembered the old adage,” If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”  After switching schools I had a hard time adjusting and struggled academically. Even though I’m saving tuition money here there is a good chance I could have made up the extra tuition expense at the higher ranking school with better paying job offers.  If I would have gone to the state school in the first place I would have received a good scholarship.  As a transfer student no scholarship was available.  It would have been much smarter to go to the state school in the first place or just stay at the high ranking school.

Now I’m not sure if I should have attended law school at all.  So far I don’t like any of the work I’d likely be doing as a lawyer.  I’m going to finish because I already have three years and many thousand of dolllars invested in it.  If you’re thinking of attending law school be sure of your reason for doing so and what you hope to get from it.

The Cost of Free Tickets

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I received a couple of free tickets to see the Kansas City Chiefs preseason game last night.  This was because some friends that live out of state have season tickets. The preseason games are included in the season ticket package.  They decided that it wasn’t worth the expense of travel to see a preseason game and since preseason tickets are almost worthless I was able to score them for free.

There was a $22 charge for parking which I thought was awfully high.  It was split between me and my friend so that was $11 each.  It had been a long time since I’d been to a professional sports event.  I had forgotten how expensive concessions were.  It was $7.25 for a beer.  It may have been a preseason game but they were definitely charging regular season prices.  I opted to not have any concessions since I couldn’t justify paying such a high markup.  My total cost to attend was only $12 but if I would have had any concessions that total would have risen quickly.  Even when you receive somethng for free you have to consider the costs involved.

That being said I’m glad I went.  I’m a life long Chiefs fan but have never seen them play at Arrowhead.  I actually prefer to watch games on TV in the comfort of my own home.  It is nice to have had the stadium experience at least once just so I know what it is like.  And the Chiefs won which is something they probably won’t be doing a lot of this season.  Overall it was a good deal.