Monthly Status Report: August 2016

Why do I do a monthly status report?

I find it best to do a month­ly sta­tus report for a few reasons.

• It helps me eval­u­ate how I did the pre­vi­ous month. Did I hit a tar­get reduc­tion in spend­ing or did I go way over bud­get for a par­tic­u­lar cat­e­gory? Did I earn more? What was my over­all sav­ings rate?
• It helps keep me account­able. How can I make an extra pur­chase know­ing I’ll have to explain myself to all of you? Talk about awk­ward when the blog­ger can’t walk the walk and talk the talk.
• I want to prove this crazy thing called finan­cial inde­pen­dence works!
• It pro­vides an exam­ple of real world bud­get­ing and expens­es. Some of the peo­ple I talk to haven’t ever seen a prop­er bud­get or seen one put into action, and part of the pur­pose of this blog is to lead by example!

I use Mint to help me track my spend­ing and keep an eye on my accounts. I also use a real­ly awe­some and super in-depth spread­sheet. So many for­mu­las….. Some peo­ple use Per­sonal Cap­i­tal and oth­ers use You Need a Bud­get (YNAB). What­ever tool (or com­bi­na­tion there­of) works best for you and your needs is the best one for you, since every­one and their bud­gets are different.

Spending:

August seems like it went by in the blink of an eye. I can’t believe sum­mer is almost over! (Not that it real­ly mat­ters a whole lot as I spend most of the days work­ing in a frigid office).

I spent most of August close to home except for one very mem­o­rable and enjoy­able week­end in Chica­go! I met up with friends from my Chau­tauqua trip. Chica­go was a great place to meet as one cou­ple lives there and it’s a good halfway (ish) point for me and our oth­er friend. We explored down­town, got some Fran­go Mints, wit­nessed an amaz­ing Car­di­nals win at Wrigley Field and had sev­er­al deli­cious meals. We also got the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet local Mus­tachi­ans at a meet­up Sat­ur­day night. It was a blast!

Oth­er than that week­end, I read a lot of books, worked on my side hus­tle, fin­ished up my sum­mer soft­ball league and enjoyed spend­ing some time out­doors in the warm weather.

But I’ve segued far enough from the num­bers. With­out fur­ther ado, I present my spend­ing (for bet­ter or for worse) for August 2016.

Rent	Stil­l­l­ll pay­ing rent.
Util­i­ties	I’d expect this month to be the high­est of the year. It was HOT. Thank­ful­ly, I’ve been able to turn the AC off recent­ly so next mon­th’s bill will be lower.
Food	Very rea­son­ably over bud­get for a month with trav­el in it.
Phone	So low. I love Project FI!
Auto	Park­ing charges sunk this cat­e­go­ry. Sigh. I biked to work for a few days to use less gas.
Inter­net	Same price as always.
Insur­ance	Health insur­ance is paid direct­ly from my pay­check, and the oth­ers are an aver­age from my 6 month payment.
Pet	I got the priv­i­lege of pay­ing to make my cat mad. It was time for shots! Good news is he will be rabies free for 3 years now! Woo!
Sup­port	Month­ly allot­ment to my sister.
Blog	I bought a new plu­g­in for the blog.
Shop­ping	Clothes, some new sports equipment…
Trav­el	Train tick­ets and some spend­ing cash.
Fees	Quar­ter­ly fees on my retire­ment account
Gifts	Start­ing to find good presents for Christmas!

All told, my spend­ing totaled $2616 for July. Look at me get­ting a han­dle on my spend­ing! I’m quite pleased with the spend­ing drop­ping this month. My total sav­ings rate for August was 49.81%, or almost 50% on the nose! Woot!

Income

Gross: $5,810.00

Adjust­ed: $2,966.82

Tax­es: $1,180.32

Very nor­mal month of income. Hope­ful­ly this will go up in a few months when I get my new job!

Savings

401k: $2,091.60

Roth IRA: $450

HSA: $100.00

Total sav­ings: $2,641.60

A very nor­mal month for savings.

As of 1 Sep­tem­ber, my net worth sits at $105,442.73. The mar­ket con­tin­ues to go up and I con­tin­ue stash­ing away mon­ey. Life is good.

Accord­ing to the Lab over on Mad Fien­tist’s site, my FI date is now 9 years and 7 months away, which means I’m now at March 2026 instead of Feb­ru­ary 2026. I’m sad this remained the same amount of time, but I think I need to save more or spend way less to get it mov­ing again. Maybe this win­ter when I’m not traveling.

Side Hustle

This month: $300

Total: $1015

Income: $30 (!!!)

I actu­al­ly sold some pieces this month! They’re being very well received and I have plans rolling to include them at a booth in a fall sale. Wish me luck!

Thanks for read­ing! What did your month look like? Did you stick to your budget?

 

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