June 2020 Update

Happy Financial New Year (how many times can I make that joke? As many as I like!)

Pandemic life is starting to get to me. As an introvert, I was quite comfortable with the shutdown and working from home. I made a big point of always putting 'adult' clothes on for work every day, and changing to comfy house pants at the end of the day. In June I added an end of day walkies - just taking myself for a lap of the neighbourhood and a podcast. However, the same-samey environment is starting to get to me. Weekends don't feel relaxing because it's the same space I've been working in for the last five days.

It's an interesting look into what FIRE life could be if I wasn't consciously filling the time. It's also a bad comparison because when I reach FIRE I have a lot of things I want to do that I can't do now because A. I'm still working 40hours a week, and B. there's a heckin' pandemic on and the world is shut down. Sports have started to go back, and pubs have started opening but every outing is a potential danger.

Plus it's hard to start anything not knowing if the pandemic will spike back up (forcing things to close) or conditions will improve, and I'll have to head back into the office.

I am actually really looking forward to office life again. I don't want to be there five days a week (and commuting an hour each way) but I'm hoping to go back two days a week. All those big meetings will be much better in person, plus actually seeing people in person.

Goals For 2020

Goal #1: 50% Savings

I have a confession to make: I'm a FIRE blogger and my savings rate sucks.

At the end of The Year of Investing in 2018, my savings rate was sitting comfortably at 55%. At the start of 2020, it was a weenie 35%.

Getting my 3-year average savings rate to 50% is going to be next to impossible, but I'm going to track it for interest. The actual goal is for this 12month period to sit comfortably above 50%.

June Rate: 15% 

2020 Average: 37% 

Three-Year Average: 36% 

 

Goal #2 Reduce Average Spending by 10%

Having two investments has gotten expensive, and my spending has been creep-creep-creeping. From an average $3,500 spending back in 2018, now I'm sitting at $4,800 at the start of 2020.

The goal is to reduce my average spend by 10% from January - excluding donations. My goals to do better with my money shouldn't limit my hopes for changing the world

June Spend: $5,280.82 
2020 Average Spend: $4,506.69

Goal Spend: $4,378.30 (or less)

Another not great month, which I'm starting to accept as normal. In June I had to pay to rewire one of my rental properties because it tried to burn down. Okay, not quite. The circuit breakers kept tripping, and when the electrician came out they found part of the wiring starting to melt. Thankfully they were able to put an emergency fix in, re-wire and bring everything up to safety standards for just over a thousand. I didn't see much of my rent this month, but IMO I got off lightly.

This meant paying for the re-wiring, and not seeing any rent from that property (the rent went towards the bill, but wasn't enough alone). Outside of that I also paid the big Body Corporate bill for that property. Almost half of the months expenses came from that house alone.

It is interesting (read, frustrating) trying to control my spending/saving when it's so far out of my control. It makes me wonder if it's time to revisit how I record expenses and split out 'investment expenses' from 'life expenses'.

Spending

Here's what I spent in June, which includes the save-to-spend amounts.  

Category	Spent	Budgeted	12 Month Average
Home	$1,176.63	$875	$924.31 (up $32.44)
Over Budget. Rent and the quarterly utility bills. Even though I've been WFH for three months, our gas and electricity bills are pretty normal.
Original Investment Property	$2,003.46	$1,145.83	$1,186.13 (up $101.58)
Over Budget. Mortgage, plus body corporate fees, plus my house tried to burn down (see above).
Home turned Investment Property	$608.15	$1,000	$1,050.16 (down $38.99)
Under Budget! Just the mortgage and I got all the rents this month. Yeehaw.
Personal Bills	$127.26	$127.33	$127.26 (no change)
Under Budget! So this is basically it until either my health insurance premiums change, or I get a new phone.
Groceries	$134.29	$190	$207.08 (down $4.23)
Under Budget! Nothing fancy happened to make this a cheap month - I just had a lot of leftovers from May, and did a big shop on the first of July. It was just the timing of the shopping more than anything.
Pets	$102.66	$100	$85.43 (up $0.56)
Over Budget. It was an expensive month where everyone wanted to be fed. I bought my first big bag of cat food since November and restocked the chicken snacks. I also caved in and bought another food puzzle for my cat - after making three from cardboard earlier in the month.
Roller Derby	$120	$175	$251.49 (down $6.33)
Under Budget! Derby is back! I actually spent more this month to replace my toe-stops and my wheels, but thankfully that cost came out of the month I've been putting aside for the last three months.
Travelling	$0	$122.50	$171.46 (down $16.67)
Under Budget! Nothing... no surprises.
Comfort Food	$55	$40	$71.66 (down $0.42)
Over Budget. This is a spend I'm really annoyed about. Mr. FIRE and I went out on a date night to an 'American Style' burger joint. The burgers were expensive and average. There were no chilli cheese fries. And it took over an hour to make. Super let down.
Donations	$0		$92.50
Nothing here. It was a quiet June.
Other	$150	$187.00	$234.66 (down $3.43)
Under Budget! It was a mish-mash of spending - I bought three puzzles (and did one and a half of them), two console games on super sale, and one game on Steam for my partner and I to play together. I also bought some seedlings for the garden, and put a lot of money aside for random bits and pieces in the future. Including new glasses... I've been wearing these for at least eight years.
Total	$4,477.45	$3,987.67	$4,402.13 (up $65.35)
Total ex. Donations	$4,477.45		$4,309.63 (up $65.35)
Over Budget. with 4 out of 10 categories over! June was a quiet month, but when the big bills come in it doesn't matter what your day-to-day lifestyle expenses are.