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Fiery Millennials

Financial Independence from a millennial's point of view.

Monthly Status Report: September 2016

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Sor­ry this is so late this month! I’m cur­rent­ly typ­ing this up with a steam­ing cup of Earl Grey tea next to me as I sit next to a win­dow and look out over the pic­turesque Eng­lish coun­try­side. I can’t wait to share all the won­der­ful expe­ri­ences I’ve had on this trip with you. But first- a look back at my finances from Sep­tem­ber 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:

Sep­tem­ber was prob­a­bly one of the most fun months I’ve had this year. I took trips to Port­land, ME; Dal­las, TX/Oklahoma City, OK; and San Diego, CA. I only spent one week­end at home this month! I vis­it­ed friends from the Chau­tauqua in their homes and also made tons of new con­nec­tions at Fin­Con. Usu­al­ly over a glass of hard cider 🙂

It was def­i­nite­ly a busy month as I attempt­ed to do all my nor­mal activ­i­ties, work, and trav­el. I’d say I did a pret­ty decent job at all three, but I am def­i­nite­ly look­ing for­ward to being home for awhile (wher­ev­er my new home may be if I move) and deal­ing with all the chal­lenges as I move into this next phase of life.

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

screen-shot-2016-10-08-at-1-31-31-pm

Rent Stil­l­l­ll pay­ing rent. One of the last “low” months due to my lease end­ing soon.
Util­i­ties High­er than I’d like but trend­ing down for the rest of the year.
Food Very rea­son­ably over bud­get for a month with trav­el in it.
Phone So low. I love Project FI!
Auto Super low this month as I most­ly did­n’t dri­ve or took Ubers.
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 Nor­mal spend­ing. Some wet food and a bag of kit­ty litter.
Sup­port Month­ly allot­ment to my sister.
Blog Tick­et to FinCon17 in Dal­las and a deposit for some graph­ic design work I’m hav­ing done.
Shop­ping Last minute stuffs while not at home.
Trav­el Should actu­al­ly only be clos­er to $1k. Some expens­es are for Octo­ber. I also bought my Camp Mus­tache SE ticket.
Fees $450 for my Chase Sap­phire Reserve card. Ouch.
Gifts Start­ing to find good presents for Christmas!

All told, my spend­ing totaled $4,029.56 for Sep­tem­ber. Ouch. How­ev­er, I con­sid­er it mon­ey well spent as the biggest chunk was on trav­el. My nor­mal spend­ing cat­e­gories remained rea­son­able. I have no doubt I will now get the 100k UR point sign up bonus for my CSR. I’m look­ing for­ward to set­tling in for the win­ter and see­ing my sav­ings rate go back up, as it was a pal­try 16.6% this month.

Income

Gross: $5,501.70

Adjust­ed: $2,817.84

Tax­es: $1,180.32

A bit high­er and low­er than nor­mal. A friend paid me for my old trum­pet and I got reim­bursed $300 for trav­el, but I got low­er pay from my day job since I bought 5 extra days of vacation.

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 Octo­ber, my net worth sits at $104,100.32. I paid more towards my rent to get the cred­it card bonus this month and paid the fee. I wish this had gone up, but it will bounce back to the nor­mal tra­jec­to­ry soon.

Accord­ing to the Lab over on Mad Fien­tist’s site, my FI date is now 9 years and 10 months away, which means I’m now at July 2026 instead of March 2026. This is def­i­nite­ly mov­ing in the wrong direc­tion, but again, it will bounce for­ward a few months when I resume not spend­ing so much money.

Side Hustle

This month: $300

Total: $1375

Income: $0

I promise I will write a post soon that will show all and answer every ques­tion you have. But not now. Now I need to get ready to go to after­noon tea! (Clot­ted cream gluten-free scone anyone?)

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

Dis­claimer: This post con­tains affil­i­ate links. They help off­set the costs of bring­ing you new and excit­ing content!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. My Sep­tem­ber was very sim­i­lar in terms of the dol­lar amount spent and the effect that it had on my FI progress in the Lab.…the Sep­tem­ber spend­ing post will actu­al­ly be going up on Mon­day. The “fun­ny” part is that were it not for var­i­ous side hus­tling (bank and bro­ker­age bonus chas­ing), I’m pret­ty sure I would have had a neg­a­tive sav­ings rate for the month.
    TJ recent­ly post­ed…State of the Blog Update After 1 MonthMy Profile

    Reply

  3. Nice sav­ings Gwen! Always nice to see some pet expen­di­ture in an expens­es report; cute 🙂

    I hope you’re hav­ing a great time in Eng­land and enjoy­ing the tea and scones! What is your adjust­ed income? I don’t under­stand that (maybe because I’m Australian).

    Nice month! Good luck for the next one.

    Tris­tan
    Div­i­dends Down Under recent­ly post­ed…Help­ing fam­i­ly with finances?My Profile

    Reply

  6. Great job! I’m sure you have addressed this pre­vi­ous­ly, but I’m curi­ous about the mon­ey for your sis­ter. Is she in school?

    Reply

  7. Hey Gwen,

    Decide if you’re renew­ing your lease yet? Do you have a invest­ment allo­ca­tion post?

    Thanks for the content!

    Reply

  8. That’s sweet you sup­port your sis­ter!!! Char­i­ty and fam­i­ly help all in one. I hope the changes in your job work out. I have to say that in some ways I real­ly regret not spend­ing more when I was younger on trav­el, pets, etc. But I’m also glad now that I’ve saved. Prob­a­bly more glad than I can express as I too hate the world of work. 

    I have to say that in my for­ties I spend less than you on a month­ly basis!! And I think I’m a spend­thrift! I guess it depends how much you are sav­ing. Have you con­sid­ered putting your sav­ings rate in your month­ly post also?

    Reply

    • It’s at the bot­tom of every Month­ly Spend­ing Report! This month was a measly 16% as I spent a lot. Oth­er­wise, I’ve been aver­ag­ing about 43% for the year.

      Reply

    • Sep­tem­ber was prob­a­bly my favorite month out of the year so far. I loved get­ting to meet so many new peo­ple and see­ing so many new places!

      Reply

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