April's spending looked pretty similar to March, and both looked very different from months prior. COVID-19 spending looks like food, drink, and housing expenses, with very little else. While this might change a little bit through the summer months, I expect things to look pretty similar for much of the year. When travel isn't really…
Well, life is certainly different than when I wrote up these goals back in January. Our world has gone topsy turvy, and I'm so glad that I've spent the last couple of years working on my SlowFI journey with a focus on living in the present. With so many long term goals behind me (degree,…
March was the first full month that our lives were entirely impacted by the Coronavirus, and this financial update clearly shows how different the month looked than previous ones. April will look different yet again, and it's hard to know right now what the rest of the year will bring. For the same reason that…
Going through our February expenses was a serious trip back in time. I really, really didn't have my heart into while reviewing credit card statements this month, because February feels so long ago. Even earlier in March feels like long ago. One thing I'll say for this global pandemic thing - weeks and months feel…
January was a month we'd expected would be an expensive one, since the majority of our Iceland trip landed then. We also had our "second Christmas" with my in laws in January thanks to the sickness that pushed off celebrating on the actual day. Even so, July was a more expensive month with our dog's…
It may be the end of January before I'm finally publishing these goals, but I've had them written down since the beginning on the year and they have been informing my choices already. This will be my third year of publicly goal setting and sharing on the blog, and I've found that having them written…
2019 was my first year tracking the books I read. Ever since I learned to read at just two and a half years old, I rarely stopped. There were a couple of years post college where I read less than normal, but I've since resumed my voracious appetite for written content. That includes blog posts…
And with that, it's a wrap on 2019 and the second full year I've tracked our expenses to the last dollar. I feel like maybe I should be more frustrated that we ended our year short of a fifty percent savings rate - even short of last year - but I'm really not. I would…
While December hasn't officially yet ended, I feel it's close enough to the end of the year now for me to do a follow up on my 2019 goals. (ha, just kidding, it's very much January now). I started really laying out annual goals for myself last year, in 2018, and I find that I…
We had dinner last Wednesday night with our old neighbor's family while we were in Austin, and it turns out that his sister works in finance. We had some great conversations in general and I really liked her (and the kiddo had a great time with her two girls), but one comment really stuck with…