What I Spend in a Week as a YouTuber in LA
Well, you asked for it, so here it is... I tracked all of my expenses this past week and tallied it up for you to laugh/wince/critique. On a daily basis, the one thing I spend the most on is food. Even though I prepare most of my meals at home, they are pretty expensive ingredients!
INTRO
I don’t generally spend a ton of time watching Youtube videos, but since I’ve started this new channel, I’ve been interested to see what other people in the personal finance space make videos about. One popular topic I’ve noticed a lot of people are interested in is the What I Spend in a Week videos. I wasn’t sure if people were sick of watching videos about it yet or not, so I ran a poll on my Twitter and it turns out, people are still interested. At least from the small sample size based off people who follow me on Twitter. So I figured I’d give it a shot.
If you aren’t familiar, people essentially vlog their typical week, sharing what they spent money on. Some use it to maybe flex a little showing off cool stuff they bought and others use it to flex on how much they didn’t spend. I’m not entirely sure where this video will end up, but I’m guessing it’ll fall somewhere in between those flexes.
To be honest, I’m kind of nervous about doing this because I’m basically opening up my personal life for criticism and ridicule, but for the sake of transparency, I’ll go ahead and do it.
Now personally, I enjoy saving money. When I can take a paycheck and stuff 50 or 70% of it into savings, I’m pretty happy. But with this pandemic going around, I’ve also succumbed to certain conveniences like Postmates and grocery delivery.
Now, obviously, you typically pay a premium to get anything delivered. But at this point in my life, one thing that I really value is my time… since it is truly finite. I can always earn more money, but I can’t get back lost time. So this year, my wife and I pretty much always get groceries delivered, because since the pandemic, there is almost always a line to get in the grocery store and if you watched my video on how I spend my time, you’ll know that most of my days are pretty jam-packed. Also, we live downtown, where our car is parked in a garage separate from our apartment building and it’s still just a little too far from most places to get there by walking. So for me, getting most things delivered is worth the extra cost than spending an hour getting groceries myself.
And on that grocery note – my wife has a lot of life-threatening food allergies, so we do the vast majority of grocery shopping at Whole Foods where they have more specialty foods that she can eat. When we can, we like to shop at Trader Joe’s or Sprouts first for produce and non-perishables where its cheaper, but they aren’t super close to us. So I know Whole Foods is expensive, but it is what it is. And I am 32 and I don’t really want to eat food with a bunch of ingredients of I can’t even pronounce, so I’m okay with spending a little more to get higher quality food.
Also, the way I have our business set up is all of our revenue comes into our LLC, and any costs associated with the business come out of the LLC. It’s a completely separate entity apart from me and my wife. So I’ll differentiate between personal and business expenses as I tally things up.
And lastly, since there is a pandemic going on, we mostly just stay home, but even when there isn’t a pandemic going on, we are homebodies and while we may go to the occasional movie or meet up with some friends, we spent the vast majority of our time at home or just around the Downtown LA area.
SUNDAY
I started off the day by making a pot of coffee. I’m not super picky about my morning coffee, so i have a 2 and a half pound of Starbucks coffee that I got at Costco for $20.89. I brew enough for two large mugfulls and splash in a little 2% milk, so this costs me roughly 45 cents.
I eat the same thing for breakfast almost every single day. My favorite yogurt is this Brown Cow whole milk yogurt which is a little pricier than generic, but tastes a bit better. I top it off with frozen blueberries and granola and sometimes fresh berries if they are on sale.
Together, this costs me $2.46, so along with my coffee, breakfast comes in at $2.91 total.
So Sunday was actually a pretty chill day for me. I was all caught up on editing, so I watched a little football on YouTube TV. This is a pricey service – they actually just raised the price to $65 per month, so while I like that it can automatically record any shows you want and stores it on the cloud and has a ton of channels – we don’t really watch much live TV and if we were looking to cut expenses, this would be one of the first to go.
For lunch, I made a sandwich. There are a few main things that I will splurge at the grocery store for and one is good bread. I got this half loaf of bread for $3. I use about a dollar’s worth of deli meat and twenty cents of cheese. And I top it off with chipotle mayo and mustard for about 30 cents.
But this bread is already moldy, despite it being a few days old, so I had it refunded and used a brioche bun that costs 83 cents.
I also ate a handful of Late in July Cantina chips, which are pretty expensive at $4 a bag, making my handful about 80 cents.
And I usually have a can of sparkling water, but since I just got off of a round of antibiotics I had an Oli Pop, which is a very low sugar soda with a prebiotic in it, so it’s a bit of a splurge drink, but I got it on sale for $1.70.
So altogether, lunch was $4.83.
Every afternoon I have another coffee. I am a huge fan of cold brew and no matter what anyone says, cold brew is not just putting regular coffee in the fridge and watering it down with ice... it’s brewed cold, it’s less acidic, and tastes way better than bootleg iced coffee. In fact the business I own was kind enough to buy a cold brew kegerator so I always have nitro cold brew on tap. Normally, a 5 gallon keg of nitro cold brew costs me $150 and lasts me about two months. This makes the standard cup around $2.30 which isn’t much of a deal, but darn it if it isn’t just convenient and freakin’ tasty. My business pays for it though, which makes it not hurt so bad, but every since the COVID shutdown, I haven’t been getting the kegs delivered and thus, have opted for getting cold brew from the grocery store. I got some cold brew concentrate on sale for $7.91 and should last me 5 days, making a cup + a 5 cent splash of milk cost $1.63. So if Graham Stephan wants to roast me, he can, but it’s something I enjoy and am okay with spending money on.
For dinner, I made spaghetti with meat sauce, featuring another grocery store splurge – Rao’s Marinara sauce. It’s really good and really expensive at $10 for a 32-ounce jar. When it goes on sale, I stock up.
I used a pound of ground turkey at $5.39 and half a jar of sauce for $5, along with an onion and some garlic for another $1.
I’m not gluten-free, but these brown rice noodles taste really good and it’s a little easier on my system. I used half a pack for $2.
And I had a cola-flavored la croix for 63 cents.
Altogether, dinner was $14.02, but it was enough for the two of us plus Rachel had leftovers the next day.
We then watched a live Zoom show from one of our favorite musicians through his Patreon, which is $25 per month, but I’ll add that in at the end.
My total amount spent for Sunday was $23.39.
MONDAY
On Monday, I was up early for the stock market. I made a pot of coffee… and had the same breakfast as the day before, for $2.91.
It was a pretty uneventful day… I just worked on a new video for Mango Street and cleaned the house. For lunch, I had the same thing as the day before yet again, but swapped out chips for a bone broth soup. Bone broth has a bunch of health benefits, and thus, is pretty expensive. This bag of soup was $4.50.
$6.83.
I also had one of my favorite sparkling drinks – blackberry New Wave Soda. It’s got a little caffeine and just a small amount of sugar. But, it’s super pricey so I don’t get it all the time. A pack of six costs… 8 dollars – which is pretty ridiculous… so if anyone at New Wave wants to sponsor me…
That makes this one can $1.33 bringing lunch to $8.16.
In the afternoon I had another cold brew for $1.63.
For dinner – I made some grown up mac n cheese with green beans and onions. And a little sriracha. I guess I’m carb-a-loading. Freakin’ delicious.
The green beans and onion were $1.10 and the mac n cheese was $2.29. Plus a splash of milk, a little butter, and sprinkle of cheese on top for an extra 25 cents. I also had my go-to dinner drink of la croix soda for 63 cents.
This brings dinner to $4.27.
So my Monday total was $16.97.
TUESDAY
Tuesday started the same as Monday… coffee and breakfast for $2.91. I traded some stock options and worked on a Mango Street video… and then I ran some errands.
I dropped off four rolls of film to get developed and scanned for $72.27 – and while that’s a lot of money, at least it’s a business expense.
I then couldn’t resist being so close to a Chipotle during lunchtime, so I ordered my usual, but I had a free entree reward, so it only cost me $2.46.
Next, I went to a small grocery store looking for something for Rachel – but they didn’t have it, so I just grabbed some bread, cheese, and milk for myself. This cost me $14.25.
I ended up driving 10 miles, getting 25.8 miles to the gallon… and I haven’t filled up with gas since like July, but it was probably around $3.20 per gallon, making this trip cost about $1.25 in gas.
I ate Chipotle at home and had another Wave Soda for a buck 33, making this lunch cost a total of $3.79.
Then I had my afternoon cold brew for $1.63.
For dinner, I made turkey burgers with onions and guacamole from three avocados. The meat was $5.39, the avocados were 90 cents apiece, and the onion was about a dollar. Including some seasonings, this meal was $9.59 for both me and my wife.
Overall, I spent $108.15 on Tuesday.
WEDNESDAY
Wednesday, was pretty much the same daily routine for me.
Same breakfast, trading stocks and worked on a video for Mango Street.
For lunch, I made a sandwich with the bread I bought the day before and tossed it in my panini maker. It’s also scientifically proven that sandwiches taste better when cut diagonally. And Iadded a few chips… and a few more.
I had a cold brew with lunch, bringing the total to $4.38.
For dinner, I made nachos of sorts. The meat was $5.93 cents and I cooked up an onion and then added some seasonings, about 90 cents worth of cheese, and salsa. And I topped it off with a cola la croix for a total of $10.41 for both me and my wife.
Then, Rachel made me some oatmeal raisin cookies with her sourdough starter. We already had all of the ingredients, but we used about $4.08 worth to make the batter.
My total for Wednesday was $18.87.
THURSDAY
You can probably guess what I had for breakfast at this point.
And lunch…
And my afternoon drink…
And for dinner, I made a bake, with onion, apples, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and chicken for $13.18.
My total for Thursday was $17.59.
FRIDAY
Friday was a continuation of my groundhog day routine.
I was running low on my cold brew concentrate, so I had a bottled cold brew I got on sale for $2.70.
For dinner, I made the same meat sauce from Sunday, but since it’s honestly almost like chili, I skipped the noodles. The meal was $12.02.
My total spent on Friday was $21.71.
SATURDAY
So Saturday, I actually mixed it up for breakfast… no I didn’t. I eat the same thing every day.
And lunch was the same. ($3.10)
And dinner I made a taco salad. It ended up being $10.47 with two avocados worth of guacamole.
But my current computer chair is kind of falling apart, so I decided it was time to order the chair I’ve been wanting since 2008 – The Herman Miller Aeron chair. But I found it for like half off, so I got it for $659.09. And the business paid for it.
So my total for Saturday was $675.57.
MONTHLY EXPENSES
So now let’s talk about monthly expenses. Our biggest expense is definitely rent… and it’s not cheap. We’ve been living in LA for five years and rents have gone up a lot while we’ve been here. We’ve moved several times since and this is by far the biggest apartment we’ve lived in, with loft space for two filming sets and plenty of room to shoot. We used to have two separate studio spaces, but we were able to cut one of them and just shoot here in our apartment.
So rent here is $4,355. We also have to pay $165 a month to park in a parking garage, but our business pays for that since our car is a company lease, which also costs $360 per month.
I’ve gotten a few comments about people wanting to see a house slash studio tour, so if you want to see what about $4500 per month in LA looks like, leave me a comment below and let me know.
We then still have our photography studio a few miles away and the rent there is $1875 per month.
Studio rent | $1875 / $468.75/wk
Unfortunately this place isn’t very affordable to keep cool in the summer with the old windows and high ceilings. Together, water and power are about $340 per month.
Water & Power: $340 / $85/wk
Internet $65 / $16.25/wk
Health Insurance - Bronze PPO Plan - $378.72 / $94.68/wk
CheddarFlow / $85 / $21.25/wk
Youtube TV $65 / $16.25/wk
Spotify $15 / $3.75/wk
Dog food / $25/wk
Patreon | $25 / $6.25
Sparkletts $37 / $9.25/wk
Subaru | $360 / $90/wk
Parking | $165 / $41.25/wk
Total monthly expenses per week:
Personal: $993.43
Business: $1500.84 + 131.25
Sunday: $23.39
Monday: $16.97
Tuesday: $108.15
Wednesday: $18.87
Thursday: $17.59
Friday: $21.71
Saturday: $675.57 ($16.48 personal)
$882.25 in weeklong expenses.
So, all-in-all, I spent $3,507.77 amount this week if you include all of my monthly expenses broken down on a weekly basis. $1,216.59 amount was actual personal expenses, with about $900 of that going towards rent, utilities, and health insurance.
I think tracking your spending for a week or a month, or whatever – is a great way to get better control over your finances and truly realize where your money is going. Plus, when you are in the habit of tracking your expenses, it can make you more reluctant to spend, which in turn, can help you save.