my name is Sienna Frey I am the outreach
and admissions coordinator for the
Colorado outward-bound school and I make
forty two thousand dollars a year my
relationship to money started when I was
a very young girl my mother is really
proud of being financially independent
and she really wanted to instill those
values and my sister and I so when we
first started raising rabbits and sheep
and goats and all of these animals on
the farm she worked with us on budgeting
as I got older I had more and more
responsibility with the managing of the
money that we would put into these 4-h
and FFA projects and by the end I was
solely doing it through my own savings
and checking accounts I was actually
able to pay for college without taking
out any loans my sheep and rabbit
business paid for my college two years
of college
coupled with scholarships that I was
eligible for I paid for the second two
years because I worked I was a resident
advisor in the dorms which through my
university was a great decision I got a
thousand dollar tuition stipend per
semester free room and board and was
paid for the hours that I was required
to work at the front desk of the dorms
they were weird hours like 3 a.m. to 8
a.m. but I was able to do my homework
during those hours to keep myself awake
so that was one of the smartest
decisions that I think I made throughout
college so my pre-tax income monthly is
3500 the government takes out about 400
of that and of course that fluctuates a
little bit month-to-month so the
take-home income comes to about 3100 per
month my mortgage payment is fourteen
hundred she's a really big chunk but
actually fairly comparable to rent in a
lot of places in Denver especially if
you want to live alone you're gonna be
paying about that in rent
feels nice to essentially be paying it
back to myself as a mortgage
I'm very stingy with my gas and electric
I'm constantly unplugging things when
I'm not using them and don't run the
heat if I'm not at home or if I'm asleep
so my gas and electric bills are pretty
low I average about thirty to forty
dollars a month I don't have TV just the
internet and I pay thirty a month for
that my phone bill is about fifty a
month on my family plan I do pay a
hundred a month in gas and a lot of that
is because I'm always going up to the
mountains to explore these great
activities that Denver has I don't have
a student loan and I don't have a car
payment I pay about 200 a month in food
and again that fluctuates it's gonna be
more in December because I have holiday
meals to procure and then of course that
can get a little bit higher if for some
reason I'm too lazy to cook and I go out
to eat a lot that month I pay about a
hundred and fifty a month on my credit
card that's whether or not I'm paying
down a balance I try to always pay at
least 150 and I try not to have a
balanced carryover every month I do set
aside about a hundred and fifty for
entertainment that some beers with
friends that concerts maybe going into a
state park that I don't have a pass for
already so I'm left with about nine
hundred and ninety and I try to put
about 300 of that directly into my
savings account that gives me six
hundred and ninety to have towards an
emergency fund or to make improvements
around the house or I gotta buy kibble
for the dog too and that comes out of
that six hundred and ninety dollars the
only loan that I currently have is my
mortgage it is large because it's
brand-new so I haven't gotten to pay
much off of it yet
and that's my only loan right now I was
pretty blessed because of my savings
outlook to not have car payments I also
just didn't necessarily see the value of
taking out a giant loan to pay for
something that appreciates every time I
use it like a car so I saved a good
portion of what I think a lot of people
would normally spend on a car or on rent
in a fancy apartment lived with
roommates and was able to use the
difference towards becoming a homeowner
and while the mortgage was incredibly
terrifying to sign because I've never
seen numbers that large associated with
my name before um it was incredibly
empowering