Monthly expense report: November

Another strange month for the expens report. I really need to rethink the way I report this.

The problem is I took the budget spreadsheet from Nomorewaffles . It is a very nice spreadsheet but made for people who are in the build up phase of their stash and want to track their savings rate. For me this is not so useful as all my savings will be used for home renovations and are not going to the stash. The reason I keep a budget is to see if I can have a fun life on 1,500 euro a month or if I need more, and thus need to adjust the exact size of the stash.

So I’ll keep this format for the rest of 2017 but as of January 2018 I’ll be only focussing on my expenses and no longer report my saving rate or the joint bank account.

Personal account:

Income: 5 125 euro

Expenses: 1 590 euro

Savings: 3 535 euro or 68,97%

The higher income is not another withdrawal from my investment account but actually a gift from my parents. To be more precise, the full 5 125 euro is a gift from my parents.

Splitting it up there is 125 euro for Sint Maarten (Sint Maarten is like Sint Niklaas but limited to region around the river the Dender where I was born. A different Christian saint on a different date, 11 november, but everyhing else more or less like Sint Niklaas) and 5 000 euro because my parents want to pay for some of our home renovations. I have resisted this so far because well, I am stubborn, and on track to have a bigger stash then my parents. So my parents first resorted to giving money guerrilla style. Whenever there is an excuse, any excuse: birthdays, Eastern, New year, us going on a holiday … they would give me and the girlfriend some money. Now they have decided this approach isn’t going to cut it so they just tranferred 5 000 euro to my account. I know, it is good problem to have.

I will book my wages of November in December which is also the month they actually are deposited in my account so that is a bit easier to keep track of.

Expenses were 1 590 euro. Only 90 euro higher than the 1 500 euro goal and that includes almost 200 euro for the purchase of a raspberry pi and stuff. A raspberry pi is one of those things I want to play around with once I reach FIRE. Because of the low cost I have decided not to wait until retirement to start. More about this in a future post. But core spending was actually below 1 300 euro for the month.

The joint bank account

Income: 2 200 euro

Expenses: 2 441 euro

Savings: – 241 euro

An expensive month but mainly because we had to pay our property taxes this month. A full 380 euro just because we own a house. On the other hand, 380 euro for a large garden and big 4 bedroom house isn’t a lot. There are some advantages to buying an old farmhouse.

We also had veterinary bills for a total of 100 euro and took my parents out for dinner for 140 euro (this was actually to thank them for the house and pet sitting during our holiday, so before the 5 000 euro gift).

Anyway, with the overspend in the joint account my savings rate drops to 66,6%. But like I said at the start of this post, as of next year I am going to drop the savings rate and focus exclusively on my spending in every month.