I saved a lot, spend comfortably, and invested a little along the way.
Read on for details!
Firstly, I've ditched the lifestyle goals wrap up for this report - I honestly forget about the goals until each time I tried to write this blog, so clearly new years resolutions aren't for me! Oh well, this gives me more space for the savings goal wrap up. So much to say!
June Totals
Income
| Salary | $4129.98 |
| Sidegigs | $200 |
| Home | $600 |
| Investment Property #1 | $1097.30 |
| Bank Interest | $12.10 |
| Cash Dividends | $85.50 |
| Total | $6124.88 |
Salary
Nothing exciting here. I work, I get paid.Side gigs
I made a couple of referral bonuses from ING - I hope you're all loving fee free banking! ING is a great place to park some cash if you're trying to hide money from yourself and unfuck your budget.
Home
I bought Home entirely in my name, but my partner lives here. He pays half of all the bills, plus $300 a fortnight in rent. Pretty sweet deal.Investment property #1
Nothing broke! But the water bill came in for almost DOUBLE what I'm used to. What the heck!
Bank Interest
I bank with ING Direct, pay no fees and receive 3% p/a interest. If you're looking for a kickass new bank, sign up with promo code EBB062 and we'll both get $100 bonus (thanks ING, you're a bit alright).
Dividends
I bought some bonds way back in 2013 and they're still paying me quarterly dividends like clockwork.Investment performance
| Deposit | Reinvested Dividends | Annual Return | |
| RateSetter | $100 | $95.34 | 6.888% |
| ASX | $0 | $0 | 7.655% |
| Vanguard | $1,630 | $0 | 3.981% |
| Acorns | $120.20 | $0.04 | 5.624% |
So, my next post will detail how 2017-18 is going to be the Year of Investing, but I ah... got a little excited and some premature investing happened. Oops! All the money in Vanguard came from overpaying my mortgage. I love using my mortgage as a set and forget forced saving so I over pay it each month, but I'm a firm believer that while interest rates are so low I'm better off investing than overpaying my mortgage so when I saw spare money in the mortgage, I pulled it out to invest!
Expenses
| Spent | Budgeted | Annual Average | |
| Home | $1,270.82 | $1,250 | $1,340.31 (down $6.52) |
| Investment Property #1 | $1,614.85 | $1,250 | $1,558.24 (down $22.38) |
| Personal Bills | $146.91 | $147.08 | $123.16 (up $6.83) |
| Groceries | $201.89 | $200 | $198.20 (up $1.56) |
| Pets | $15.97 | $30 | $25.24 (up $1.33) |
| Roller Derby | $233.51 | $100 | $125.40 (up $12.73) |
| Travel | $0 | $108 | $131.19 (no change) |
| Other | $121.00 | $250 | $182.94 (down $25.84) |
| Total | $3,604.95 | $3,333 | $3721.50 (down $32.28) |
Home (Over $20.82)
Bills, again, every month.Investment Property #1 (Over $364.85)
Bills are the devil.Personal Bills (Under $0.17)
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 (Under $14.61)
Almost scraped under even after a cheese and wine date. Then on the very last day of the month Mr. FIRE got sick and demanded comfort food - even on sale chocolate and custard are pricey.Pets (Under $14.03)
Nothing too exciting here. Still trucking along on the bulk supplies of chicken food and kitty litter I bought back in February. I do need to pick up some budgie seed soon though.Roller Derby (Over $133.51)
I traveled to Queensland for five days. I'd already paid for the flights, but I needed to pay for the accommodation and all the Uber's to and from the airport. Ouch. Oh, and I need new safety gear soon... and we're probably traveling again in October / November... and we have a league party coming up soon... roller derby is expensive yo!Travel (Under $108)
No travel, no spend. Easy peasy :) Any travel for derby is counted in the derby category. The average isn't dropping because I also spent nothing this month last year.Other (Under $129)
Considering this is the category for spontaneous fun things, booze and books, I'm always happy to see it's under. Especially considering I didn't put any special effort into keeping it low. I have a huge collection of wine, plenty of old books to read, and had friends over a couple of times for games.The Big End of Goals Wrap Up
High Interest: $4990.40Offset Balance: $10,742.26
Owing on Credit Cards: $216.80
Total: $15,515.86
Increase from last month: $2,071.23
Amount below target: $4,484.14
Back in December I declared that "By the 1st of July, 2017 I will have $15,000 in my mortgage offset account, and $5,000 in my high interest savings."
On the sixth of December last year I had $161.24 in my bank account. Now I have $15,515.86. A fairly large bit less than my lofty goal of $20,000, but still more than $40 a day. Can I get a hell yeah! Give me a shout out on Twitter, I'm a bit chuffed with myself.
Success?
Did I hit my goal? Absolutely not! I'm a massive $4,484.14 under what I wanted, but I really don't care. I used to save $20,000 in a year and I set myself a crazy goal to save it in a little over six months, so this 'failure' is still a massive success.I've also kept a bit quiet on my debt payments and investments during this time. Since December, on top of trying to hit my savings goal I kept up with overpaying my mortgage and investing regularly to take advantage of dollar cost averaging.
Since December I have invested:
- $328.13 in Acorns
- $737.52 in RateSetter
- $4,430 in Vanguard
Magic tricks?
I guess the most amazing part was that I didn't bend over backwards to pull this off. I've been focusing on eating well on the cheap without resorting to dumpster diving (though I was tempted). I used credit card rewards to get cheap flights. I went on cheap but fun dates with Mr. FIRE, and embraced hobbies that cost next to nothing. The life I've lived in the past six months is one that I would be happy to keep living for many more years - although I'd like to work less and travel more please!I also didn't go hugely out of my way to earn more. I earned an average $100 a month on top of my regular income through small jobs on UpWork, a little bit of pet-sitting, going to a focus group and some referral bonuses (which I largely reinvested).
My average spend has gone ever down by being aware of what I was spending on and planning ahead. I don't buy a beer just because I happen to be having a meeting at a pub. I packed lunch and dinner when I was going out after work - I still eat with everyone but I have a much smaller serve because I'm not super hungry. I think I've bought three items of clothing since this started and they were all things that I either needed (stripes for reffing roller derby!) or I spent a good 3 months wishing I had before I found the right thing (mid-length winter 'shorts' for riding to work are out of fashion!).
As a result of all the small changes, my average monthly spending has dropped from $4,000 a month back in February, to $3,700 now. That's $300 more I have free to invest each month, but it's also $90,000 less that I need in my retirement accounts.
Where to from here?
A very small part of me is disappointed that I didn't hit my massive goal, but the rest of me is grinning and doing cartwheels at this massive success. The next twelve months will be devoted to investing like a mad woman - check back here Friday for my game plan!Here is my final handy-dandy chart showing how the savings journey went.
Check out the history of this goal:
- December 2016 - $6,992.39
- January 2017 - $7,088.91
- February 2017 - $8,735.62
- March 2017 - $11,804.82
- April 2017 - $12,452.77
- May 2017 - $13,444.63
Wow wee! You might not have hit the goal you initially set, but my gosh that is a massive effort! I think you are definitely to be commended on it. I can't wait to hear about your game plan, you are quite the inspiration!
ReplyDeleteNaww - thanks :) I spent last night writing up the game plan and I'm pretty excited to share it. Sometimes sticking to the publishing schedule is hard - not because I don't have time to write, but because I need to wait to put things out there :D
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