Q2 recap

Okido, another quarter gone, another recap to be made. Even though I've been talking about an insane savings rate, you could have also been reading my moving story which turned out pretty costly yet still worth it.

All things added up my real savings rate isn't up-and-running so far. And to undisclose another thing, I actually calculated my SR a bit wrong (since I was calculating it as a percentage of my total expenditure and not of my total income). Anyway. I updated my spreadsheet (also in my Q1 recap) and now it's telling no more lies (actually, my SR comes out a bit better with the correct formula). So here are the numbers for Q2!

Savings rate ramp up!

With my monthly income somewhere around 2.5K and my fixed charges (rent, utilities, insurance) being less than 600 euro’s monthly my savings rate is extraordinary since the beginning of this month. Including some money for groceries, fuel and even a fun thing here and there I’m up and running 60%. Whooha!


Did I mention I didn’t even include my vacation allowance and end-year bonus within this net income? So truly, vacations and other stuff aren’t even influencing my SR here.

Pretty neat, but the challenge for now truly is not spending more. As you’ve read, my spending while moving was quite a lot. Of course this made my living place cozy and neat, but for now I’ll have to stay put for at least a year before even breaking even here.

The Move, was it worth it?

So I moved. As stated, I moved within my block to a 31% smaller place for 26% less rent. Initially, I calculated some redecorating costs (including painting the place white and putting in some roof windows since this attic living place was kind of dark) and was hoping to break-even somewhere around 6 months. As these things tend to go, I also ended up putting in a laminate floor and creating a fancy OSB designer-style kitchen (which could partly be used from my old place since I already had done that there). 

As you can imagine, flooring doesn’t come cheap and with everything added up I spent somewhere around 1.600 euro’s for everything (including lighting and other miscellaneous stuff). With me saving 125 euro a month on rent, this means I need to stay here for at least thirteen months to break even. I really don’t have a clue whether I’ll stay that long (I did live in the former space for sixteen months and I do like my new place, but you never know how life moves you). So was it all worth it?