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…
The month of May was a busy one for us. We returned from our Arizona trip the last day of April and went back to work May 1st, and then spent the following weekend at Fred Meyer and Home Depot and at home setting up my two newest raised beds for Mother's Day. At the…
April was a good solid month for us, with a nice balance of travel out of town and hanging out around home. The weather has finally warmed up enough that I've gotten to spend a decent amount of time in the garden, more time on the trails behind our house, and it's now light enough…
I adore three paycheck months. While I realize that our overall income doesn't change whether we get paid twice a month or every other week, I do prefer it this way because it feels awesome to have a big "bonus" month two times a year, and it's a big mental boost to be sure. Money…
I have to say, I certainly started off 2018 on a better foot in terms of total savings rate. Then again, we also didn't take my grandmother to Hawaii at the start of 2018. The good news is, March is a three paycheck month and it should go a long way to balancing things out,…
Again, I think this is one of those months where I am way too hard on myself. After missing out on my 2018 savings goal by a few percentage points, I went into 2019 with a renewed focus to hit that full fifty percent savings rate this year. Of course, January was also the month…