Staying Put Until I Can't

 Honestly, I have looked at moving to the Santa Cruz - Monterey - King City area. I have also looked at living in Fairfield and working in San Francisco still. I have also played the lottery and lost. I am tired of being a renter and spending now 40% of my income on just shelter that not including the 15% I spend on travel other bills 18% ( credit card, loans, storage space ) I can only save 2% a month. 

I should be able to with budgeting save 20% of my monthly income which just does not happen as well as I would like it to because I do insist on having fun. By the way the Fun I am referring to is renting a hotel room so I can be at volunteer event on time or get to a dog sitting place reasonably timely ( one client is in Napa and another one is Concord ).

Oh yeah, I do a side gig of pet / house sitting but because the client doesn't want someone "spending the night" they just want visits which I understand but you can't check on a pet or property twice in a weekend without a car or being able to spend the day in the area and make sure your last visit is 8pm as they request. Its not a hassle and I have gotten really good at renting vehicles but that does get expensive because of the tolls and gas (last bill was $158! for 1 day running around ). 

I am working really hard on NOT changing my job trust me the itch is real like its in my bones to just start changing jobs but in this market I scream HELL NO! I know how to get a job and if I really want to budget I could save to invest 25% of my earnings into making the pet / house sitting thing a more structured gig (right now its just random people and Concierge Services are hiring all the time) but I need capital infrastructure and a stable of clients to do that. 

Hence, I am still commuting 50 miles to and from for work. I am still spending up to 3 hours commuting total($500). I am still walking 100 miles in a month. I am spending about $300 on expenses like groceries ( $100 ) and storage unit /telephone / subscription ($200) then my rent and cc bills just to live in San Francisco Bay Area by choice because there is no way I could do this in say Seattle, Washington! 

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