Thriftism

Happy Half Year! With a new month rolling around, that means we need another budget update. For a quick reminder, we run our budget solely on my income of $2,400/month which gives us a gross income of $31,200. We do not include health insurance in our budget as ours is currently covered by our jobs, but if this was our household income we would also be taken care of by insurance subsidies. We do not include all discretionary spending such as traveling or major home renovations, but we do include all entertainment, grocery, dining out, and every day expenses. It is our essentials budget that we live on before adding in trips! If we can do it, so can you! The Budget Our goal budget is balanced with total income minus expenses equal to zero. Numbers in red are expenditures, while black is income. The green background indicates under budget. Red squares point out our overspending.  We did change up the budget a bit to reflect that the student loan is paid off. W...

May is long gone and we were slow this month getting our monthly update out, but here it is (finally). We did get the video out quite a bit sooner, but never got around to this post. Here is a complete update of our 2018 goals as of June 1, 2018. Financial Goals Gain Employment (Race) ☑ Done - Race started working in February. Save 50% of our income We are back on track with this goal. While April was a rough month, in May we were able to save 74% of our income bringing us to around 61% of our income for the year. I am not posting both with and without mortgage anymore as the extra payments on the mortgage are increasing our net worth and should therefor count as savings. We are also planning on paying off the mortgage this year and will then start putting money back into our regular savings.   Increase passive dividend income by 25% We are on track for 24% increase this year - slightly below our goal. We haven't been contributing to dividend earni...

Happy June! With a new month rolling around, that means we need another budget update. For a quick reminder, we run our budget solely on my income of $2,400/month which gives us a gross income of $31,200. We do not include health insurance in our budget as ours is currently covered by our jobs, but if this was our household income we would also be taken care of by insurance subsidies. We do not include all discretionary spending such as traveling or major home renovations, but we do include all entertainment, grocery, dining out, and every day expenses. It is our essentials budget that we live on before adding in trips! If we can do it, so can you! The Budget Our goal budget is balanced with total income minus expenses equal to zero. Numbers in red are expenditures, while black is income. The green background indicates under budget. Red squares point out our overspending.  We did change up the budget a bit to reflect that the student loan is paid off. We split t...

Hard to believe we're already 1/3 through 2018 and that it's time for another Goals Report. Here is our update from April. Financial Goals Gain Employment (Race) 🗹 Done-Race started working in February.  Save 50% of our income We have been trying to stay on track with this one, but tax season was not favorable for us this year. Race's previous company had many mix-ups regarding tax withholding and also withheld money from his final check. So after months long battle, I think we are finally through with them. That being said, we didn't save as much in April, but we were still able to make extra payments on the mortgage. We are currently saving 52% with mortgage, 17% without, and are on track for 52% with mortgage and 6% without. We changed this goal slightly to be aimed at paying off the mortgage rather than putting money into an investment account.  Increase passive dividend income by 25% Right on track for 25% increase. Apri...

As, promised, we are back checking in on our yearly goals to stay accountable. Here is our March Goals Report.  Financial Goals Gain Employment (Race) ☑ Accomplished in February.  Save 50% of our income At the end of March, we are at 65% if you include the mortgage or 35% if you don't include the mortgage. We have been counting the mortgage as we are trying to pay off the house to allow us greater financial flexibility and allow us to save more money in the future.  Increase passive dividend income by 25% Year over year for March, our dividend income has increased by 37.4%. This is a major increase compared to the first two months of the year, but still not the best indicator. Our goal is to increase dividend income for the entire year and thus a YOY analysis is not the best estimate. We have earned 22% of the total amount needed to hit our goal this year. This is almost on track for 1/4 of the year having passed. If we do not contribute an...

**Please excuse the formatting - blogger is not cooperating and for some reason will not let me use default colors for this post. This will be fixed for next month's goals post** Every year we set goals to improve ourselves, our situations, or to help those around us. While setting goals is the first step (as Tony Robbins said in the quote above), accountability is what holds us to these goals and pushes us to achieve them.  This is our February Goals Report. Financial Goals Gain employment (Race) 🗹 Race signed a job offer in mid January and had his first day of work January 31.  Save 50% of our income For the first two months of the year, we saved 72% of our income if you include the mortgage, but only 36% not including the mortgage. So either we are not quite there, or really overachieving depending on how you look at it. We have been counting the mortgage as saving since it is increasing our net worth, but will continue to provide both numbers. Our bu...