Monthly expense report: March

Things are chugging along nicely. 4,5 Months into my new job I am once more used to the regular pay check and socking away 500 euro’s each and every month. Not going to lie, it is a nice feeling to see the savings account go up, up and up. After a year of not renovationg we are now looking around to have some more work done in our house.

Income: 2 356 euro

Expenses: 1 673,06 euro

Savings: 682,94 euro

Income is a bit higher than usual because easter came early this year! We visited my parents a week before easter so we got our present a week early as well. My parents continu their guerrilla tactics of using every excuse in the book to give us money. They even invent a few of their own. For instance: they give us money when they go on holiday because we told them a few years ago we preferred them not to buy us any local ‘trinkets’. I do prefer the money above some useless crap that will end up on a landfill eventually but really? Giving us money because they went on a holiday? It’s ridiculous and I can not explain it to a sane person. On the other hand, I also have no sane explication why I just do not relent and let them pay for our last home renovations …

Expenses are more or less the same as last month. But this month I did not have a faulty hard drive to replace. So where did the money go to?

Well, 50 euro went to a very stupid thing. I got a traffic ticket for the Vespa. Remember when I bought the Vespa I said it made me feel like a 16 year old again?

Well, I am riding it like a 16 year old as well. Difference is I now have a plate (50cc motorcycles did not use to have a number plate when I was young). Police is also a lot more active in trying to issues speeding tickets. It is a stupid waste of money. It also highlited the difference between me and not so furgal ffriends. When I told a friend about it she just shoughed her shoulders and was like, ‘yeah speeding tickets happen, just pay it’. Because she looks at it as 50 euro expense on a 2 350 euro income. That is only 2,2% of the monthly income. Not worth to overthink.

But I have a (self imposed) budget of 1 500 euro AND 1 100 euro of those are going to the joint account to pay for life necessities (house, heating, food …). So in my mind, my monthly budget is only 400 euro. And wasting 12,5% of it on a speeding ticket sucks big time.

There was the Flemish health premium to be paid (51 euro) and the mutuality (86 euro). Ridiculous low amounts compared to health premiums in the USA but I am not too happy with them anyway (there is a lot that could be improved upon in our health system). They are also expenses you can not do anything about …

In the fun category we went to Brussel and visited a few multimillion homes like villa Empain. They are great to visit and look at but I rather not own one of them (the parents of friends of us used to own a country estate in every sense of the word. The heating bill alone was above my total annual budget and that was 15 years ago when they finally came to their senses and sold the money pit). But we drank and ate our way through Brussels so it was not a cheap day. But 60 euro’s well spend!

We also went clubbing. Usually not a big fan of it. But some friends roped me into it and the girlfriend definitely needed some good fun so we went. At 120 euro for the both of us not exactly a cheap evening. But great fun. Still, I prefer the home approach as my drinks selection puts most clubs selection to shame (no, in my world Bacardi is not an A label Rum) …

In the joint account we got hit by insurance costs (all of them at once even) and we also paid a visit to Ghent (and pizza) form the joint account. But previous months had us well under budget there so we are still good for the year.

All in all I had a fun filled month for a 1 700 euro budget. 1 500 euro definitely is a stretch as the first three months (and last year) show but 1 700 euro I find very comfortable. And the goal of all this bookkeeping isn’t actually to see how low I can go but to determine at what level of spending I achieve optimal happiness. After one year and 4 months of budget keeping the amount appears to be around 1 650 euro a month. I’ll see if I can lower it a bit in the next 16 months …

On the topic of lowering the expenses. My inner sloth was pretty happy with discovering this site (the energiegids site appears to have dissapeared, but you can still compare energy compagnies here). It provides a very easy and lazy way to switch energy supplier! An estimated 250 euro savings for 5 minutes of work? I’ll take it!