Bummer, an unexpected expense in July pushed me slightely over my self imposed 1 500 euro budget. The savings rate is still great thanks to tax avoidance shenanigans at work but I am a little bummed that I broke my 5 month streak of remaining below budget.

Income: 2 657,21 euro

Expenses: 1 565,20 euro

savings: 1 092,01 euro or 41,10%

Income:

My income was my standard wage + part of a bonus for a total of 2 657,21 euro. The way our bonus is being payed out at my job has changed to reduce the level of taxation on said bonus (aka tax avoidance shenanigans). I am guessing I got a part of my end of year bonus now. Guessing because this year we are in this sort of weird, hybrid situation which makes things complex. After paying little to no attention to the several Teams meetings about the changes I figured out that if I send mail A, registered on portal B and choose option Z I would get some money now, have to pay less taxes later and the company got a ruling that it is al legal and such! So that was what I did and a few days later money appeared in my account: succes!

Expenses:

1 100 euro was transferred to our joint account to pay for the roof over my head, utilities and groceries.

On top of those groceries I also bought some icecream, sandwiches and a pizza, because I have no will power if it comes to food, for a total of 46 euro

We also went to a restaurant with some friends where I spend 70 euro

A gift for my mother was 25 euro. I am glad to spend more here but the woman never wants anything. Then again, I am not one to speak as I never want anything for my birthday either.

A local small festival was cancelled due to covid restrictions. But the organisation also organises a small summer bar in the woods. So that summer bar got an extra edition, the headliner DJ of the festival got some GPS coordinates and told to make sure to not be followed and fun was had by all! Entrance was free but I did spend 5 euro on drinks.

And the suprise expense? That was once more the Vespa!. I have only driven it for around 2 000 km over the last year and somehow something broke! Goddamn! I was on the road to a record low expense month and the Vespa repair bill of 319,20 euro pushed me over budget!

I also realized that nowhere in July I have a phone expense so I probably have spend 12 euro more than this but I am too lazy to log into my bank account (no, I do not have a banking app on my phone because paying stuff shouldn’t be easy) check and correct the above post. Over the years I have learned to not sweat the small stuff (or come up with better sounding excuses for my lazyness).