As last month, I'll start with my New Years goals, but the money part is a doozy this month. Skip ahead if you want cash-voyuers.
Do physical fun stuff 4x a week
Still nope. It's the 'fun stuff' that's killing me - I do a quick morning workout, I've expanded the get-home-from-work workout and I bought a barbell and some weights, but that's not really 'fun'. The boyfriend and I went out slack lining twice, but we haven't found the time to go rock climbing. And despite getting a zippy new mountain bike I didn't make it out trail riding. And derby is still heavily theory at this time, yay new ruleset.Grade: D
Create something each month
I created two things! Both on this blog. I always want finance calculators to do things a little differently than they actually do, so I made some myself. Check them out- I made a calculator that helps show how much you need in Superannuation to last from 65 to forever versus how much you need to get to 65 (or whatever age you're allowed to access your Super)
- I also worked out why I'm not a millionaire (yet!). This handy dandy little calculator lets you plug in your recurring expenses (like coffee, gym memberships, the usual culprits) and shows you how much you would have if you stopped spending that and started investing it. It helps show how little changes can really add up!
Grade: A+
Apply for one freelance task a week
Well, technically I did this. I applied for six different contracts and didn't get the courtesy of a reply from any of them. I find this to be pretty normal using UpWork. I generally get replies from maybe 1 in 10 applications, and of those less than half translate to actual work.Grade: B
And now, the money!
Here we go
January Totals
Income
| Salary | $3891.98 |
| Sidegigs | $194.40 |
| Home | $600 |
| Investment Property | $1097.30 |
| Dividends | $0.00 |
| Total | $5783.68 |
Salary
This is a normal 2 fortnights worth a pay. How exciting *cough, not really*Side gigs
 |
| They did not want me to go to work that day |
Home
I bought home entirely in my name, but my partner lives here. He pays half of all the bills, plus $150 a week in rent. Pretty sweet deal.Investment Property
A full months rent! I haven't seen that since September! Also my tenants lease was originally signed for six months at $299 a week. I've now locked them in for a full year at $305 so starting next month this will go up again.Dividends
No cash dividends paid in January, but through reinvestments I now own 1 more share in the Vanguard Australian Properties fund, 104 more in the Aus Shares Fund, 109 in the High Yield Aus Shares Fund, 39 International, and 12 Australian Bonds. And my Acorns account paid out $4 in dividends. A whopping $4!Expenses
| Spent | Budgeted | Annual Average | |
| Home | $1,548 | $1,250 | $1,313 |
| Investment Property #1 | $1460 | $1,250 | $1,668 |
| Personal Bills | $140.99 | $142 | $89.83 |
| Groceries | $276.67 | $200 | $191 |
| Pets | $29.35 | $25 | $12 |
| Derby | $163 | $108 | $100 |
| Travel | $0 | $108 | $131 |
| Other | $844 | $250 | $525 |
| Total | $4,464 | $3,333 | $4,031 |
Home
Only a smidgeon over, which is nice considering I paid my home insurance in a lump sum. Covered for the year, so I won't see that bill for twelve months! Whee!The average is reasonably over budget because I have set an ambitious goal. I refinanced my home loan back in September and it's down a bit over $100 a month. I'm going to have to keep an eye on the utility bills, but I'm pretty confident that I can bring that average down where I want it.
Investment Property #1
Council rates (quarterly) and the Water Bill (every 4 months) decided to fall in the same month. Lucky me.The average for this property is over budget because of last years renovations. If I removed them from the calculation I'd be smack on budget. I'm not going to take them out to fake the numbers though, I'm keeping it in for a realistic perspective of what the last 12months has cost.
Personal Bills
This is my phone bill and health insurance, it should never change.The average is low because I upgraded my health insurance to include hospital cover in January. So the average is reflecting the old, lower cover and will steadily come up across the year.
Groceries
Almost 40% over. I have no excuses. I learned to make salad dressing and spent a fair bit on fresh delicious things. I also stocked up on rice, beans and dried fruit which will hopefully last a while and lead to lower costs in February. I'm hanging out for winter and soup. The grocery budget loves soup season.This average is in line with my goals! Woo! But.... I spent a couple of months on crutches last year when my partner did most of the shopping, that may have skewed things. Time will tell.
Pets
Hey Big Spender! I bought a 20kg bag of chicken feed and 4kg of cat food, which should last two months and 1month each. I figured out how to make my own budgie seed bells which should cut down on wastage moving forward. Store bought seed bells are stupidly expensive, so I'm keen to DIY this.Derby
Ahh January Derby. I didn't actually pay league dues yet, but I ordered an official shirt so I can be involved in sanctioned tournaments, paid for camp ($35 for two nights, five meals and a whole lot of awesome!) plus the food and drinks at derby events fall in this column. Januarys are generally a pricey month.The average is behaving itself quite nicely! I only plan to travel once this year, and I think I'll have enough frequent flyer points to cover the trip.
Travel
No travel, no spend. Easy peasy :)Other
Remember how I said my bike was stolen? Yepp, good times. The bike replacement and necessary accesories (rack for my panniers and commuter lights) was $700. I also had to pay over $50 in bus fares for the few days I was bike-less. So if you take that absolute *insert excessive swearing* out of the equation, I spent $30 at the movies, $30 on two overpriced craft beers, $25 on a set of weights, and $8 on a coffee/networking meeting. Not to shabby.The average though... is in a terrible place. I paid through the nose for knee surgery last year. By the time Medicare and my leagues health insurance were done, I was still about $5k out of pocket. Hence why I now have hospital cover. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Total
Yepp. It was a great month *feel the sarcasm flow*. Even without the $700 on the bike, I'm still over by $400 (12%). It mostly comes from being a big bills month, but I still want to watch it really carefully. The average is also over, so I need to find some changes to bring everything in line.Savings Goal
High Interest: $5,017.59Offset Balance: $4285.00
Credit Cards: 1,402.37
Total: $7,088.91
Remaining: $12,911.09 ($2,582 per month)
No, that's not a typo. I have less in my offset account this month than I did last month. Even though my income for this month was $1,319 higher than my expenses. Umm, I'm not sure. I think it might have to do with the way I'm tracking what goes on my credit card. Because I track the expenses when they occur, but it doesn't effect my offset balance until a few weeks later. It's also due to the fact that I only report my mortgage payments as the interest, and I'm still siphoning money off into my Vanguard Investments. I know it looks a little skewif, but I promise I'm not hiding any spending!
Edit: I've backtracked, added credit card amounts and this hand-dandy chart!
See where we were in December.
No comments:
Post a Comment