day 16: big spender

i spent a lot of money today

i'm still unemployed and i'm dropping even more money. hysterical for someone who says he's into personal finance. this morning was typical: woke up, brushed my teeth, made avocado toast for breakfast, and chilled out. but i decided to read a book called "steal like an artist" by austin kleon.

this was a short book about creativity, how artists have no original ideas but steal from many sources of inspiration. the cumulative theft of ideas and combination into a new interpretation is seen as original. the book was interesting, but didn't light a fire under me to start creating. I guess that has to be done my myself.

after reading book, i met a french guy named Hugo who worked in venture capital after asking him how he likes his 13 inch macbook. starting these small conversations really brings me joy. it's crazy, i can approach people. but it gives me confidence because i often overthink about approaching people.

after this, i decided to walk around and explore the westside of manhattan. i walked from the apartment all the way down to the west side pier, up to little island, and into chelsea. that's a sizable distance tbh.

there's a reason for the title of this blog to be big spender. it's the same reason i asked Hugo about his macbook. spoiler: a bought a macbook pro today. WOW. that was one of my big purchases today. I've been trying to edit the youtube video on my old laptop and it's so horrendously slow. the laptop parts aren't suitable for video editing, hence why i bought this macbook pro.

i researched macbook pros on the apple store, but these m2 macbook pros start at $2499. HELL NAH. I definitely knew that much was not justified. I browsed around facebook marketplace and decided to pick up a 2021 m1 macbook pro. this laptop has great performace due to the upgraded m1 chip over previous gens and costed $1400. half the price after tax for the m2 macbook pros. value.

i met up with this super nice guy at the oculus, which is a shopping mall with pretty cool architecture. he was selling the laptop because he purchased the m2 to dj since there was some lag time with all the applications he was using. valid. we chatted it up while setting up the laptop and he was intersting. he was born in guyana and moved here at 3 years old, worked for apple and now does it for a mortage company, lived in sj for a couple months for apple, and lives in the bronx, and djs events as a side hustle. shoutout lex for being a cool guy.

i sent him the 1400 and we parted ways. i headed back to the apt to drop off this laptop and got word that anderson and i got approved for our apartment. yay! now we have to pay the security deposit, 1st months rent, and the rest of the broker fee. not yay.

between the two of us, we have to pay $10,346. nutty right? that's also with a $3695 deduction since i paid that part of the broker fee to take the apartment off the market. we have to pay with either check, cashier's check, or money order and neither of us have those ☠️. I use SoFi so the checks will take 10-14 business days, but Anderson has BofA so we're going to see if he can grab checks at the local branch tmr. which would be quite lovely.

since i paid equivalent of 1st month's rent to take it off the market already, I'm only going to be sending anderson $3810. only, how funny. my bank balance has been depleting these last two weeks. i haven't sat down and calc'ed the numbers but it was above 40k and now it's about to touch 30k. that's crazy.

but thinking about it now:

• $7505 - broker fee, security deposit, 1st month's rent
• $1750 - june rent for sublease
• $1400 - macbook pro

total of those things i just thought of the top of my head: $10,655

GODDAMN 😫

i am FOR SURE going to chill out on spending. will probably buy some more work clothes but besides that, NO OTHER BIG PURCHASES. I HAVE NO INCOME FOR TWO MONTHS.

also i'm going to stop being lazy and start doing the spending summaries again.