Life is super busy right now, and also not. I have a lot of balls in the air that aren't coming back down, so I'm stressing out waiting to catch them, but can't do anything till they drop.
The analogy was really vague. Here's the problem - I can't rent my house out until we've moved out and had it painted. I can't schedule painters until I know when I'm moving. I can't move until I know when the new house is ready. The new house won't be ready until it's painted. We can't get quotes to paint the new place until we get keys. We got keys on the 1st of March.
A lot of things need to be done, but none of them can be done until the step before is done. That's how everything feels right now, at home and at work. I'm doing as much prep work as I can, but I still feel like I'm running in place like Wile E Coyote, except I'm sure I'm not the villain of this story.
It's exhausting, and it's been expensive. Thankfully so far it's just been expected costs, but I'll be glad when we've moved. And I'll be glad 6-12 months on when we've actually settled.
February Goals Update
Investing Goal: $110,000 in Vanguard
The goal is to have $110,000 in my Vanguard account by the end of the year. I started with $78,424, which means I want to gain just over $31,500. I hope that $5,500 will come from growth and dividends, and the remaining $25,000 will be investments.
Full year
Opening Balance: $78,424.57
Deposit: $2,225
Dividends: $1,214.86
Market Gains: $5,994.09
Dividends: $1,214.86
Market Gains: $5,994.09
February
Opening Balance: $82,828.55
Deposit: $325.00
Dividends: $0
Market Gains: $4,704.97
Current Balance: $87,858.52
Umm, wow! Nice. I cancelled all my automated deposits this month (except the first one) so I would have cash on hand for home maintenance and the market went absolutely bonkers!! That's a 5% return in a month. I wanted $5,500 growth over the year and it's happened already in February. It will be interesting to see what happens as the year goes on.
Dividends: $0
Market Gains: $4,704.97
Current Balance: $87,858.52
Umm, wow! Nice. I cancelled all my automated deposits this month (except the first one) so I would have cash on hand for home maintenance and the market went absolutely bonkers!! That's a 5% return in a month. I wanted $5,500 growth over the year and it's happened already in February. It will be interesting to see what happens as the year goes on.
Spending Goal: Under Control!
The goal is simply to have my spending under control, and for February it is ... not
Here's what I spent in February, which includes the save-to-spend amounts.
Category | Spent | Budgeted | 12 Month Average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home | $400 | $938.17 | $212.74 (new category) |
| Under Budget! Updated the budget to reflect my new rent, and transferred all the utility bills over from what is now Investment Property 2 to get an average. Detailed post to come once the dust settles! | |||
| OG Investment Property | $2,139.11 | $1,190.83 | $1,470.23 (up $113.31) |
| Over Budget. Ouch. Yepp, that's the big bill that comes every four months for Strata Fees. Apparently it's pretty low considering we have an on-site pool. Still not fun. | |||
| Home turned Investment Property | $1,991.93 | $1,042.33 | $1,218.26 (new category) |
| Over Budget. Hello!!! Ouch. I created this column by moving the property specific bills here (council rates, insurance, emergency services levy, mortgage) to create a baseline estimate. I'm spending heaps getting it up to snuff for renting out. I haven't painted yet, but I have done most of the required maintenance work. Still crossing fingers and aiming to have this on the rental market by the first of April, and anticipating a positive cash flow of about $30-$50 a week | |||
| Personal Bills | $126.60 | $126.67 | $138.71 (down $1.33) |
| Under Budget. Still waiting for that health insurance bump for the new year. Happy for it to take its time though. | |||
| Groceries | $79.30 | $190 | $196.45 (down $6.16) |
| Under Budget. Still working through that voucher I bought back in December, and I'm back on the meal planning bandwagon which is saving heaps, and meaning I have more tasty meals. Win win! | |||
| Pets | $4.75 | $50 | $63.51 (up $0.39) |
| Under Budget. Eggs out, food in, and I made a DIY litter tray from a plastic storage tub. It's rainproof, prepping for a wonderful outdoor cat run I'm planning for the new house. | |||
| Roller Derby | $360.85 | $175 | $239.39 (up $19.72) |
| Over Budget. I paid full price for flights for the first time in years. I don't like it. Derby might be slowing my wealth growth but I love it, so nyer. I also know that I'll have this money free in retirement, because by the time I'm ready to quit the office, my body will be begging me to quit contact sports. | |||
| Travelling | $110 | $122.50 | $66.70 (up $9.20) |
| Under Budget. With the house purchase, we've dumped the idea of going to Canada this year, however I'm still saving to go somewhere. Ideas include Tasmania again, New Zealand, or road tripping around Australia. | |||
| Comfort Food | $126.90 | $40 | $46.47 (down $4.17) |
| Very over budget. Shit. Oops. Did you hear the tale about my $18 beer? It wasn't even the worst part of this month. Thankfully(?) I did worse in February last year, so my average came down. Yay? | |||
| Other | $266.75 | $187.00 | $270.19 (up $1.19) |
| Over Budget. Oops, this whole month is a spending train wreck. I went to Bunnings, bought things for the new house and forgot my damn gift cards. I also bought champagne glasses so we can celebrate our new place! And apparently I recorded $68.95 of spending without writing down what it was... well done me :( | |||
| Total | $5,606.19 | $4,062.50 | $3,922.61 (up $219.57) |
| Over budget overall, 5 out of 10 categories over. Avert your eyes... gross. This kind of crazy month is why I have a separate tracker that average my spending for as long as I've been recording. It's currently coming up on five years of tracking. Because sure, most years and most months, my spending is pretty low. And then we have outliers like this one where I spend almost double my usual - and it's important to keep track of these. | |||
Bonus Goal, if we can: $10,000 worth of an Asia focused ETF
A very small update on the bonus goal. Since I am putting my house up for rent, I pulled all the extra payments I'd made back out of the mortgage. That mortgage is now tax deductible! This means I currently have just under $10,000 in savings - however I still need to finish renovating my property. Once that's done I'll review where I stand on this goal.
Given that I'm going to be running two investment properties, I need a bigger cash cushion in case repairs are needed, or my tenants skip out on their rent. I'm planning to keep approximately $7,500 on hand - just in case.
Given that I'm going to be running two investment properties, I need a bigger cash cushion in case repairs are needed, or my tenants skip out on their rent. I'm planning to keep approximately $7,500 on hand - just in case.
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