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…
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…
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…
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…
At this point, we are absolutely not going to hit a 50% savings rate again this year, though we should be above the 40% mark. Much more than last year, I'm actually okay with that. I expect that we will hit that savings rate eventually (or, at least, when we stop paying for childcare), but…
September was a month of quite a few travel expenses, from FinCon (both 2019 travel and my 2020 ticket) to the weekend in Gig Harbor for a wedding, and Leavenworth for my grandmother's birthday. Between all of that, I only spent two of the five weekends in September at home, and it showed with our…
Every time I'm behind writing a monthly finance update (like this month), I'm reminded of why I've committed to sharing our spending here on the blog every month. Two thirds of the way into September, it would be easy enough to ignore my August recap and just continue on forward like the month didn't happen.…
Let's just say that this has been an expensive summer. Between vet bills, backyard fence replacement, and spending for future vacations, we have spent significantly more money than is average for us. That said, for July in specific, we knew it was going to be expensive because of our dog's surgery, so we spent accordingly…