The money part:
A reminder to myself of why I’m doing a month in review post:
- Stay accountable. It is soOOOooOOOoo easy for me to be semi ok with my spending knowing there’s at least a couple thousand in my checking account, but I know I’m currently bleeding money and can’t reach my 100K goal unless I know where my money’s going
- Track trends. I find trends the easiest to track, and the easiest to tackle. I can’t really control an unexpected $2,000 tax bill (true story) but I can re-evaluate trends. Am I eating out more? Spending more on clothes? Why?
- See the progress. It’s easy to forget where you come from (jk, it was $0.00 and I remember it like yesterday!!) but seriously, it’s nice to be able to look back on progress, and progress is more important than an arbitrary goal anyway.
| October 2019 | Last month | |
| Cash | $8,226.13 | $4,982.62 |
| Investments | $11,539.77 | $10,439.28 |
| Net Worth Total | $19,507.01 | $15,421.01 |
Caveat: I don’t include my 0% interest car loan in my net worth, because it’s now worth as much as I owe. I also have other assets and a joint account with my husband (but that’s our money and not my money).
A breakdown of my expenses
| Travel | $383.64 | This includes food related spending on our vacation, hotel rooms for one of the nights. Technically this month we spent a cool $300 something on rental cars but that didn’t show up here since the bill isn’t due until November… #networthnewbie |
| Car | $413.25 | My car payment 🤷🏽♀️(I drive a brand new car I bought at 0% interest) |
| Restaurants | $279.86 | WHOO HOO This went down!! I brought my lunch from home, started buying frozen breakfast sandwhiches, and kept a pack of granola bars at work. The coffee spend is still outta control, but in November my goal is to continue improving. |
| Healthcare | $257.58 | I made a $250 payment on an outstanding medical bill. Next month will be my final payment! |
| Personal Care | $80.99 | |
| Clothing | $189.76 | A giant Abercrombie haul. New work jeans + shirts for the house. I’ve found their jeans last much longer with proper care. I don’t buy designer jeans, but I still found this post helpful in making all my clothes last longer. |
| Charitable Giving | $70.56 | Just some recurring donation things. |
| Entertainment | $28.16 | I bought a ticket to Joe Bradford’s Fiqh of Finance seminar happening in DC next month! I may not agree with everything he says, but I strongly feel he’s doing a lot of the leg work in educating muslims about their options in the world of personal finance. |
| Groceries | $22.01 | Girl’s gotta eat. |
Wait – where’s the rent?!?!
My typical rent, utilities, and grocery bill is $1,000 but because I helped Mr. H out a couple months ago, I’m not paying rent until December. Whoo hoo!
How I feel
Ahhh much better this month, since it was a 3 paycheck month. In retrospect, I should have changed my 401(k) contributions the third paycheck to go there, since I’m good for covering October expenses with just the two. Definitely something I’ll keep in mind for the next one (March or April, I forget).
Last month I was committed to staying inside $250 for Restaurant/Food spending and I did pretty well, since $70 was a impromptu sushi dinner with my family.
This was a huge jump in net worth, especially since I didn’t have to pay rent this month. I’ll be using some of this to finish off paying for our vacation expenses, like the rental cars and food we ate as well as the Dyson vacuum I just bought 😀
The life part:
I also want to document some general life wins, because it’s easy to forget all the good things that happened:
- We took a vacation!!! A proper, long one to a typically very expensive city. We saw some incredible mountains, and then hopped over to another city for sunshine and sea.
- I am so beyond grateful for this time in my life, where we didn’t choose between mountains and the beach, and instead went to both. I even laid on a beach with absolutely nothing to do except think and it was great.
And that’s it! Until next time!