As for Q1 I think I managed quite well. Despite my cravings for stuffff (which I didn't buy at all in Q1, go me!) I managed to stay on budget very well.
I did take on another personal training even though I kind of wanted to see this budget slowly soak into my stocks account, but hey, I budgetted for it and in hindsight, this is a training which brought me a lot of personal insight and took care of a lot of issues in my system. Very nice.
A spending recap then? Okido.
Nice! My SR is just over 30%.
Some explaining here on the numbers.
Savings: up and running.
Vacation: Hell, nothing there? Way to go! Other years I'd blown around 1K on snowboarding and weekends away, but way to go here! Ok, I must confess that me and my significant other do need to get a weekend away, but chances are that won't be until summertime arrives.
Groceries. Oops. I wanted to save 10% on my budget here this year, but it seems like I'm not going to make it. I enjoy simple meals but do also like to drink some wine and beer now and then. Instead of going nuts-and-bolts crazy on this thing for 200 a year, I adjusted my budget back to 200 a month and want to keep it that way.
Fuel is going really well, the Cuore rocks!
Diner is one hell of an item. This bugs me a bit, almost 50% of my yearly budget spent here. Budget was cut down with 25% since last year, but for some reason, I happen to really like to go out and drink a coffee here and eat out lunch there and get some sushi or eat out or whatever. I also took a very good friend having a tough time out for diner. He took me out for diner a lot of times in my life, so that's a favor well done. But it still means this one is killing my savings rate a bit for now. I have to take action here and see how this one goes this year.
Clothing: steady. Bought some items in January and that's it. Don't really need much now, but some cool shirts would be good. I could get rid of some other items I never wear. Budget is pretty OK.
Utilities is OK. Water bill came in late in January and early in March (normally every three months). A bonus here is I'm getting a 225 euro return since I managed to use up way less gas and electricity than I'm paying for up ahead. Showering cold wasn't only suffering I guess!!
Personal Care shows a peak in February. That's because we went for a sauna day and I immediately bought tickets for another sauna day at 50% discount. It keeps me super relaxed during winters so why not.
Miscellaneous is up a bit. In January, it's my first half of the graveyard insurance which cuts in. In March, it was me paying upfront for some stuff for our D-I-Y days here in my apartment block. That will be refunded to me in April. So nothing special there.
As for the student loan, I put it on hold. As said before, interest rate is 0,01 cent every month untill the end of 2020. I better invest these euro's the next four years and pay of my loan by the end of 2020 (because for sure the interest will go up from there). So I adjusted my budget. One more month or something and it'll be zero for the rest of the upcoming years (unless I get really bugged by the feeling of owing my country 600 euro).
This all ads up to my current net worth of...
Happy now?
Am I happy? Hell Yeah! Compared to Q1 of 2016 (where I spent around 23% of my budget, but most of it on fuel, holidays and clothing while still having a debt of over 15.000 euro with a net worth far below minus 12.000 euro!) I'm way ahead of things now. That's an awesome feeling. But at the same time I'm feeling a bit grumpy about where life is taking me now. The more I save now, the more I see how easy life could be in the future. As of this year, I even could get away with working only three days(!) a week(!!). And still manage to set aside a fair amount of money!
But for now, that's a crazy idea (or at least I'm really trying to convince myself on that point). I'm young and quite able to work the four days I do now. Seeing my family and friends work at least 5 long days a week, I'm in a luxury position compared to most of them, so I feel obliged to take advantage of my possibility to save my ass of. But when it comes to that, I do feel a bit worried about my groceries- and eat-out spending. Especially the latter. I have to see how things work out. There is some space here and there and I'm constantly looking at ways to sustainably adjust.
Housing remains a thing here. With current interest rates being as low as possible, it's almost a killer not to buy a condo or something. For the money I'm spending on rent now, I could get a place of
So, a lot to think about and muse on, which I'm sure I'll do. Maybe I'll share some of my thoughts here.
For now? Sleepy time!
Well then, that's all the time we've got folks, see you next time!!
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