A quick 2023 check-in

I have been away for a tumultuous 12 months. I made a lot of changes. I changed career, I removed my birth control, and I very nearly ended my 9 years relationship. I met someone new, discovered the polyamory is actually more expensive (despite my naive blog on the topic) and strongly considered moving out on my own. All these changes made me busy, shook up my spending, but importantly they made me happier.

February 2022 Update

It's almost the end of March as I write this - I am a very forgetful human being.

January 2022 Update

Welcome to 2022 - the first month was a financial whirlwind to say the least.

December 2021 Update

In December we get paid bonuses and atone for what we spent in November.

November 2021 Update

I need to warn everyone before you open this - it's expensive.

October 2021 Update

October is over and after an ACL tear at the start of the month I'm not surprised by these numbers... they aren't great.

September 2021 Update

September is over and I'm hitting a point that these updates are for me to see the numbers, and not much else.

August 2021 Update

August is over and my spending has really settled into a dull, unchanging rhythm.

July 2021 Update

Another month, another very late update.

June 2021 Update

Have you ever spent so much in a month, it causes Excel to relabel your chart axes? Because I have.

 The worst part is I didn't really spend on anything interesting - the vast majority boils down to 'all the houses had bills in the same month'.

May 2021 Update

As I write this on the second of July I can honestly say I have no idea what happened back in May

April 2021 Update

I forgot about this post!

March 2021 Update

Did you know libraries exist? And they're free!

Not much exciting happened in March except my discovery of the library. I need to make the embarrassing confession that I have lived a mere 5minute walk from the library for almost two years and just.. never went. The suspicious millennial in me just couldn't grasp the idea that it was truly free.

February 2021 Update

I turned 30! It was less exciting than you'd think.

As an introvert, I never throw parties. Add in a pandemic and my birthday slid by without anyone noticing. Except for my mother, who took me out for the usual steak dinner.

January 2021 Update - New year, same me

January is already over, how does this keep happening.

I read a theory that as you age, time seems to accelerate. When we encounter novel things, we form strong memories about them, but when we encounter common things, our recall is weaker. As we age and have more experiences under our belts, we form less strong memories - because our brains see 'oh, that again? not saving that'. 

December 2020 Update

Y'all we did it. The human race survived the year. Mostly, I guess.

I'm writing this in February and I honestly can't remember December. So I'll skip straight to the numbers.

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 12 month period to sit comfortably above 50%.

December Rate: 33%

2020 Average: 30%

Three-Year Average: 34% 

 

words about the year as a whole.

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.

December Spend: $4,814.69
2020 Average Spend: $5,005.41

Goal Spend: $4,378.30 (or less)

Closing words

Spending

Here's what I spent in December, which includes the save-to-spend amounts and a no-longer new category for the car.  

Category	Spent	Budgeted	12 Month Average
Home	$1,227.90	$954.17	$962.07 (up $9.48)
Over Budget. Utilities are no fun. Well, having them is fun. Paying for them isnt.
Investment Property 1	$1,100	$1,145.83	$1,260.22 (up $37.84)
Under Budget. The mortgage and $500 set aside for later.
Home turned IP2	$750	$833.33	$1,098.39 (up $4.09)
Under Budget. The mortgage, plus $210 for later needs.
Personal Bills	$130.74	$130.83	$128.13 (up $0.29)
Under Budget. Trucking along
Groceries	$353.71	$200	$210.96 (up $11.66)
Over Budget.  A little bit christmas, a little bit hungry.
Pets	$331.77	$150	$251.06 (up $19.31)
Over Budget. Our last vaccination (woo!) and our second bag of puppy food. In January I'll probably pay for her sporting and showing membership.
Roller Derby	$94	$166.67	$171.51 (down $2.16)
Under Budget. Christmas camp with the team, not much else.
Travelling	$50	$105	$37.50 (up $4.17)
Under Budget. Just putting aside money for the future
Comfort Food	$40	$50	$33.98 (up $1.04)
Under Budget. Christmas Snacks :)
Car	$659.74	$200	$693.23 (up $54.98)
Over Budget. A year of registration fees.
Donations	$0		$6.25 (down $86.67)
None. December last year was when I made all my big donations, so the average dropped a lot as well.
Other	$76.83	$183.33	$189.42 (down $66.87)
Under Budget. A little clothes shopping, and a couple of books. I was going to buy a Switch, but my partner beat me to it.
Total	$4,814.69	$4,119.17	$5,042.71 (down $3.85)
Total ex. Donations	$4,814.69		$5,036.46 (up $82.81)
Over Budget. Entirely due to paying car rego. It's part of the reason I'm spending more on food as well. I can just pop over to the shops now with a lot less effort. I think as a family our spend is about the same, and I'm picking up the slack from my partner.

November 2020 Update

Have you ever had a puppy? They consume your life.

November was utterly consumed with this adorable little rugrat. We went through so much in the first month. Sleepless nights, constant supervision, and endless amounts of car vomit. Whether it was our good parenting, or sheer dumb luck, we didn't have to deal with things being chewed on or any major housebreaking accidents.

We do still have a whole 'nother round of teething to get through, so it's entirely possible my next round of expensive spending will be replacing the things her new teeth found. Stay tuned..,

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 12 month period to sit comfortably above 50%.

November Rate: 33%

2020 Average: 30%

Three-Year Average: 34% 

 

Thanks mostly to the car purchase, inspired by the puppy purchase, this year has been pretty flat. My three year average has gone from 35% to 34%, which is of course the opposite of what we were aiming for. Part of me is disappointed, but a bigger part of me knows I made a huge life change that I'm very happy with, and survived a pandemic - so I can't be too disappointed.

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.

November Spend: $3,580.17
2020 Average Spend: $5,022.75

Goal Spend: $4,378.30 (or less)

Still above the desired average thanks largely to the car purchase, but otherwise looking good. Without the car we'd still be slightly over ($4,386.39)

Spending

Here's what I spent in November, which includes the save-to-spend amounts and a new category for the car.  

Category	Spent	Budgeted	12 Month Average
Home	$700	$954.17	$952.59 (no change)
Under Budget. Just the rent this month.
Investment Property 1	$1,100	$1,145.83	$1,222.38 (up $35.50)
Under Budget. The mortgage and the water bill, plus $110 set aside for later.
Home turned IP2	$750	$833.33	$1,085.30 (up $11.49)
Under Budget. The mortgage, plus $190 for later needs.
Personal Bills	$130.74	$130.83	$127.84 (up $0.29)
Under Budget. Health insurance went up
Groceries	$343.52	$200	$199.30 (up $8.54)
Over Budget.  Nothing special happened here.. I was just hungry 😁
Pets	$325.52	$150	$231.75 (up $33.72)
Over Budget. Puppy preschool, flea and worm treatments, vaccinations... puppies are expensive! But from December things should start settling down.
Roller Derby	$90.75	$166.67	$173.67 (down $2.44)
Under Budget. Just some drinks with friends, and a bit of saving for new gear.
Travelling	$50	$105	$33.33 (up $4.16)
Under Budget. Just putting aside money for the future
Comfort Food	$0	$50	$32.94 (down $8.13)
Under Budget.  I probably could shift some of the grocery spend here, if I'd thought about it.
Car	$34.64	$200	$638.25 (up $2.89) $635.36
Under Budget. After six weeks I finally needed a tank of petrol. Car usage will increase when my puppy is old enough to go hiking and gets over being car sick.
Donations	$5		$92.92 (up $0.42)
None
Other	$50	$183.33	$256.29 (down $36.95)
Under Budget. All saving for future spend. Puppy is still taking over my life.
Total	$3,580.17	$4,119.17	$5,046.56 (up $49.48)
Total ex. Donations	$3,575.17		$4,953.65 (up $49.07)
Under Budget. It was nice to come in under budget considering pup consumed my life, and my wallet (figuratively). You can tell she kept me on my toes because this post isn't out until December is basically over.. woops!

October 2020 Update

It happened! We bought a puppy!

On the 17th of this month, we went and finally picked up the puppy we've been impatiently waiting for since June. She is an absolute joy - super attentive and smart, already toilet trained, sleeps through the night (after a couple of weeks) and really affectionate - to me and my partner.

She's also expensive, and nervy around strangers. I knew she wasn't going to be cheap, but this first month has been overwhelming. However, it is reassuring that we're mostly paying puppy costs - in the first month (some of the spend in October, some in November) we've been to the vet three times for vaccinations, paid for two rounds of puppy preschool, collected up flea and worming meds, set up our grooming supplies, bought a lot of chew toys, plus the simple purchase of food. I've registered her with my local council, and need to pay for her membership with our local kennel club so we can trial for sports. Plus, we're definitely getting Pet Insurance - because she loves eating grass seeds, and any other junk she can find...

So October was predominantly getting ready for the puppy and then having a puppy. It's been amazing. And tiring.

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%.

October Rate: 41%

2020 Average: 29%

Three-Year Average: 34% 

 

So this year is going backwards, both on what I intended for the year, and what I planned for the 3-year period. This isn't okay, as in I am letting things fall by the wayside, but it is okay in that I bought a flipping car, survived a pandemic, and expanded my family. Puppyhood is expensive.

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.

October Spend: $4,802.41
2020 Average Spend: $5,167.01

Goal Spend: $4,378.30 (or less)

As I mentioned last month, buying a car has thrown everything out of whack. Prior to that, I was tracking nicely. I'm not sure there is enough time left in the year to bring the average back down again.

Spending

Here's what I spent in October, which includes the save-to-spend amounts and a new category for the car.  

Category	Spent	Budgeted	12 Month Average
Home	$700	$954.17	$952.59 (down $1.58)
Under Budget. Just the rent this month.
Investment Property 1	$1,851.09	$1,145.83	$1.186.88 (up $41.05)
Over Budget. Body corporate fees, council rates and mortgage.
Home turned IP2	$814.80	$833.33	$1,073.81 (up $16)
Over Budget. Mortgage, and electrifying the roller door. I always do a quality-of-life uplift to the property when a tenant renews their lease.
Personal Bills	$130.74	$130.83	$127.55 (up $0.29)
Under Budget. Health insurance went up
Groceries	$62.73	$200	$190.76 (down $2.02)
Under Budget. I guess I just didn't get out much :p
Pets	$630.35	$150	$198.03 (up $44.62)
Over Budget. We finally brought out puppy home!! I had $700 saved towards the price of the puppy, and the rest of this spend includes some last-minute purchase of essentials (i.e. cleaning products!) and our first vet trip for vaccinations.
Roller Derby	$119.35	$166.67	$176.11 (up $9.44)
Under Budget. At the start of the month, we went on a road trip to the country. It was great fun, even if the floor felt like we were skating on mud.
Travelling	$50	$105	$29.17 (up $4.17)
Under Budget. Just putting aside money for the future
Comfort Food	$8	$50	$41.07 (up $0.67)
Under Budget. I can't remember what I bought. Maybe a tin of fancy biscuits?
Car	$373.37	$200	$635.36 (up $31.11)
Over Budget. Just paid for insurance. Haven't bought petrol yet.
Donations	$0		$92.50
None
Other	$61.98	$183.33	$293.24 (down $5.29)
Under Budget. $8 on books and the rest is saving for future spending. The puppy took up my life and didn't leave much space for anything else.
Total	$4,802.41	$4,119.17	$4,997.08 (up $73.50)
Total ex. Donations	$4,802.41		$4,904.58 (up $73.50)
Over Budget. With 4 categories over. As usual, it's the big categories that are over budget. We spent a lot on puppy outside of her purchase price, however, most of it is set up costs (special cleaner, vet checks, stocking up on toys and chews, etc.). Puppyhood is likely to be expensive, but adulthood should come down.

September 2020 Update

Big month, big spend, new car! Still no puppy.

Welcome to the last 3 months of the longest year on record. It's pretty wild that this time last year I was recovering from a big overseas trip. This year no one in their right mind would be going to the States. A big trip for this year was a 4hour road trip to a regional town - which technically fell in October.

September update is much the same as Augusts - I've been prepping for the puppy to come home and failing to organise my finances. Mr. FIRE and I still need to organise a shared bank account of some time, and we still need to do our tax returns. I was feeling guilty about not having completed my tax returns, but while I was pulling together the paperwork I couldn't find one of my end of year statements. Turns out they didn't send it until the last week of September! Wild.

On this side of this, the big important change is that I bought a car. For the first time in six years, I own a car. I'd been putting off buying it and just hoping that a friend would sell a good car, and it finally happened. A friend of a friend sold me a 10year old car with only 50,000kms on the clock for a measly $7k. Based on my digging a car in that condition could easily have gone for double, so I'm quite happy with the outcome.

While this is obviously a big hit to my savings goals, and will impact the path to FIRE, it really does show what a savings focussed lifestyle can do. I didn't have to stop and think 'wow, where am I going to find this money?'. It was already sitting in my loan offset account waiting for a big purchase. If I didn't have that money available, I would have had to skip out on this undervalued car and probably bought something cheaper - that would have cost more to run long term.

Now that I have a car I expect to go spend on things I've been avoiding, like new glasses. My current ones have lasted close to a decade and while the prescription hasn't changed, the lenses themselves are definitely not in good condition.

 

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%.

September Rate:-78%   

2020 Average: 28%

Three-Year Average: 34% 

 

I'm going to roll this goal over to next year 😟 obviously things haven't gone the way we planned.

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.

September Spend: $12,015.57
2020 Average Spend: $5,207.52

Goal Spend: $4,378.30 (or less)

Remember when I complained spending $8k in January was ruining everything, well, I went and bought a car.

Spending

Here's what I spent in September, which includes the save-to-spend amounts and a new category for the car.  

Category	Spent	Budgeted	12 Month Average
Home	$1,511.91	$875	$954.17 (up $10.87)
Over Budget. So this house sucks in winter. The solar panels obviously generate no power, and the heater uses a fair bit of juice. Electricity bill was not nice.
Investment Property 1	$1,100	$1,145.83	$1,145.83 (down $24.82)
Under Budget. Paid the mortgage and tucket $500 away for the future.
Home turned IP2	$750	$1,000	$1,057.81 (up $9.53)
Under Budget. Mortgage and $189 for future repairs and maintenance.
Personal Bills	$127.26	$127.33	$127.26 (no change)
Under Budget. It is what it is
Groceries	$259.75	$190	$192.78 (down $10.34)
Over Budget. Making up for last months lower spend, I shopped a lot :(
Pets	$300	$150	$153.41 (up $17.66)
Over Budget. Still saving for puppy. Everytime I get impatient on waiting I buy more toys for her. One on hand this is terrible budgeting. On the other hand, every toy I buy is a furniture protection device - so this is great budgeting!
Roller Derby	$280.70	$175	$166.67 (up $8.31)
Over Budget. ooft, ouch. So we held a game, so I needed to buy facepaint (needed) and were going to play a regional bout for funsies, so I paid for accomodations for that. Plus the usual dues.
Travelling	$100	$122.50	$25.00 (up $8.33)
Under Budget. Still not going anywhere (except derby, which is counted above). Just putting aside money for future travels and puppy.
Comfort Food	$50	$40	$40.40 (up $4.16)
Over Budget. We went camping, which I guess could have been called travel? Anyway this spend covers the bakeries we visited on the way, and the snacks we ate.
Car	$7,251	$200	$604.25
Yikes! Paid for the car, then paid the stamp duty - which is basically paying for paying for a car. Rude. Next month I'll need to sort insurance.
Donations	$0		$92.50
None
Other	$284.95	$187.00	$298.53 (up $19.37)
Over Budget. The expensive part here was a couple of sports massages... I've been feeling old and creaky. It's definitely not a regular indulgence, and given how painful a deep tissue massage is it's barely an indulgence.
Total	$12,015.57	$4116.67	$4,923.58 (up $712.30)
Total ex. Donations	$12,015.57		$4,831.08 (up $712.30)
Over Budget by a lot. Even without the car, this was going to be an expensive month. It would have been $4,700+ which is not great. Utilities bills hit, derby got expensive, and I threw money at every other category as well. I'm going to have to find a 'new normal' being a car and dog owner.

August 2020 Update

 The days are getting longer and it's pretty wonderful. We even got to go camping at the end of the month

August is another month of the days getting longer. We tipped over to double digits for daylight hours and it's making me so keen for FIRE. Sitting inside looking at this nice weather is frustrating.

In August I made a bit of a change to my finance planning - each month I'm now going to round up my 'spending' on my investment properties ($1,100 for the original, and $750 for the new one). This roundup is going into my offset account for the mortgage so that I'm ready to cover the costs of big maintenance items. I really should have started this earlier - as shown by the shock of having to spend $5,000 repairing the air conditioner at the start of this year. I knew it was coming, but I didn't put money aside for it.

I'm also still looking for a car for our new puppy-parent life. We've booked puppy in for two sets of puppy preschool, and I've already reached out to obedience and agility clubs. While this might be an expensive way to have a dog - we could just have a couch potato with no need for classes - it's not what I want from a dog. I want a pal I can do sports with - just not the energiser bunny that we had a trial with earlier this year! Couch potato in the house, adventure pal in the streets. That said, I'm pleasantly surprised by the costs. Puppy preschool isn't the cheapest ($20 a class on average) but the agility and obedience clubs are both less than $100 for an annual membership. 

Lastly, Mr. FIRE and I are looking at combining finances - just a bit. We've made it six years living together with completely separate bank accounts, but due to our COVID lifestyle changes, and now getting a puppy we've completely changed spending habits. It used to be that we both did groceries while we were out and about - now Mr. FIRE does most of the spending, and I make a point to do a big shop once a month to share the spending. On the flip side, I buy all the puppy supplies, because... online shopping 😅 We're planning to get a shared spending account to even things up a bit.

 

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%.

August Rate:  59% 

2020 Average: 41%  

Three-Year Average: 37%  

 

I think this is about where to average will stay for the rest of the year. With the purchase of puppy and a car coming up we're not going to magically drag the savings rate up. I'm going to repeat this goal next year just so I can keep tracking it and see what impact puppy and car truly have.

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.

August Spend: $4,112.21
2020 Average Spend: $4,356.52

Goal Spend: $4,378.30 (or less)

And we made it! I've got a couple of big spend months coming up with buying a car and a puppy, which I think will tip us over the top, unfortunately. I'm not super concerned about this, it's been a strange year. Purchasing a car and a puppy are things we've planned into our lives for a long time.

Spending

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

Category	Spent	Budgeted	12 Month Average
Home	$700	$875	$943.30 (no change)
Under Budget. Just the rent, easy days.
Investment Property 1	$1,100	$1,145.83	$1,170.65 (up $31.73)
Under Budget. Paid the water bill, and tucked $87.92 away for future repairs and maintenance. Something I should have started doing a long time ago.
Home turned IP2	$750	$1,000	$1,048.28 (up $8.30)
Under Budget. Mortgage and $188.06 for future repairs and maintenance.
Personal Bills	$127.26	$127.33	$127.26 (no change)
Under Budget.
Groceries	$103.45	$190	$203.12 (down $10.34)
Under Budget. So, I didn't really shop this month. My mum bought us a kilo of coffee beans, which means I didn't need to go to the central markets for beans, so I didn't leave so house, so Mr. FIRE did all the shopping.
Pets	$300	$150	$135.75 (up $24.48)
Over Budget. A bit of saving for the puppy, a large bit of buying an exercise pen so that we can contain her when we can't supervise and hopefully cut down on potty accidents and teething destruction.
Roller Derby	$137.50	$175	$158.36 (down $3.14)
Under Budget. Still not travelling, still paying dues and saving for new gear. We are doing a rural tour in early October though, pandemic pending of course.
Travelling	$100	$122.50	$16.67 (down $6.25)
Under Budget. Again, not going anywhere. Just putting aside money for future travels and puppy.
Comfort Food	$0	$40	$36.24 (down $35.71)
Under Budget. We went back into stronger restrictions for half of August, so we couldn't really have people over. I'm not sure why we didn't go out, just never occurred to us.
Donations	$0		$92.50
None
Other	$794	$187.00	$279.16 (up $48.07)
Over Budget. We bought a couch! We've been complaining for a couple of years now that we could barely fit both humans and the cat on the couch. My friend was selling their couch and ottoman set, and now both humans can stretch out and still leave space for the cat. It'll be crowded again when pup comes home though - good thing cat has claimed the ottoman as her own!
Total	$4,112.21	$3,987.67	$4,211.28 (up $57.14)
Total ex. Donations	$4,112.21		$4,118.78 (up $57.14)
Over Budget. with only 2 out of 10 categories over! The couch was a big blowout spend that I'd been planning for, but forgot to actually save for 😛 outside of that both investment properties recorded higher than actual spends because I've started putting money aside for maintenance. Arguably I should have done this a long time ago but... live and learn.