Monthly expense report: June

June has come and gone already. Times sure flies when one is working! Second month of being back to work again and things are starting to fall into place.

Personal account:

Income: 2 037,74 euro

Expenses: 1 670,36 euro

Savings: 367,38 euro or 18%

Things are back to normal with a 1.200 euro contribution to the joint checking account to cover mortgage, electricity, gas and food. I did spend a bit more but I had maintenance done on the girlfriends electric bike I used for 10 months (I did do some maintenance myself but since we are thinking about selling it I wanted it in perfect condition). Then there was the road tax for the Vespa (61.5 euro, about one fourth of our car!), a modest restaurant visit in Leuven at 40 euro and my dad’s birthday. The swimming pool is costing me some money and I could lower this cost by getting a year subscription. No I pay 3 euro per visit, with subscription it would be around 2 euro. Main question is if I will keep it up for an entire year? I have a history of quitting things like this. I’ll make a decision after the summer.

I also made 300 USD in day trading profits but for the moment I leave them at my broker. When I transfer them to my checking account I will count them as income. I’ll keep them to smooth out any bumps in income when I take my two week holiday or make the transition from interim to fix contract (and from being paid weekly to being paid monthly).

The joint bank account

Income: 2 440,59 euro

Expenses: 2 128,91 euro

Savings: 311,68 euro

We each transferred 1 200 euro to the joint account and got a 40,59 refund form our electricity and gas provider. The month proved to be a bit expensive as we got the bill for the road tax for our car (231,13 euro) and our water bill which is only every three months (143 euro) and hopefully the last veterinary visit (another 79 euro).

Adding half of these savings to my own savings gets me a savings rate of 25,7%. I should continue to hover around this rate for the rest of the year. This means that working three weeks a month covers all of my spending and I can save the 4th weeks wages.

All in all this was what should be a typical month of earnings and savings.

More important than the savings rate (as all savings will be spend on home renovations eventually) for me is if I can indeed survive on a 1.500 euro a month budget AND enjoy it.

I always thought my spending was around 1.500 euro and these six months of using a budget did proof that. Average spending the first 6 months of 2017 was 1 576,46 euro. Pretty close for what was essentially a guess.

We did have the onetime tax refund of around 3.000 euro but we also had the onetime expense of buying a Vespa scooter.

In my first six months of expenses is also the holiday in September which I prepaid in full. And a few other onetime costs because we both have been re-examining our live, what makes us truly happy. And as a result we have been somewhat re-orienting our life. I also had some costs linked to looking for a new job. With those costs gone, no more other one-time expenses in view (well, I could use some accessories for the Vespa …) I should be able to get my spending down to 1.500 euro in the second half of the year.

Have I been enjoying the last 6 months? Hell yes!

There was the mini-retirement for three months, the Vespa and a rediscovery of lots of old school kick-ass trance classics.