It’s NOVEMBER and I have no idea what’s going on with my money. I thought about going back month by month to take a look at my expenses… to be honest, I still think it would be a healthy exercise. But since there’s a pandemic and life as we know it is no longer a thing, I’m not even going to try and stress myself out by going back and figuring out why I feel like I have JUST ENOUGH to pay our credit card bill every month.
Oh, a big part of that might be that Mr. H hasn’t been employed UNTIL NOW! Tbh this was unexpected (he quit his job pre-pandemic! He was going to find something right after the new year!) and is also probably the reason I avoided looking at my net worth or logging into Personal Capital.
I made sure bills were paid on time, did the best I could to manage our money, and made sure to actually live life assuming the best (that he would be employed soon).
In the end, things mostly have worked out. We did have to sell a car (to be honest, this was a great decision, we weren’t really ready for the financial commitment of a very expensive car payment, insurance, and premium gas. I also stopped all post tax contributions and used up my entire rainy day fund (which, I mean, if we don’t use it during months of unemployment during a pandemic then when??)
Actually, now that I look back, I’m REALLY impressed with how well we managed. We paid for lots of unexpected expenses (I spilled water on my MacBook! We paid for an airbnb during a wedding! OMG THE DENTAL WORK!), did a ton of fun stuff (sunrises at the beach! cooked more than I have…ever!), and still (mostly) contributed to my 401k.
Ok brb while I log into personal capital after… yup, six months.
~~ brief intermission while I check personal capital which I have been avoiding like it’ll give me COVID ~~
| October 2020 | May 2020 | |
| Cash | $13,917 | $9,523 |
| Investments | $29,091.01 | $25,032.40 |
| Net Worth Total | $39,076 | $34,555.4 |
I’m skipping the breakdown of expenses for now, just so I can quickly document my thoughts and get this out.
How I Feel
WOW ok I am shocked. Apparently, I DO have a handle of my life. Net worth has gone up which I didn’t fully expect. I had taken $5k out of taxable accounts but we ended up not spending it (which is why cash is higher than our usual).
Logging into PC, I didn’t expect to see the net worth that I did of $39,076. I don’t think we’ve paid November rent yet but this is still the upwards trend I like to see. Interestingly, I think most of the overall upward trend is due to keeping my 12% 401k contributions throughout the year, even on one income (I did stop almost all post-tax contributions).
I definitely want to get to a point where both Mr. H and I are each contributing 15% to our 401k (and eventually 20% in the next 2 years). I’ll probably start as soon as he gets his first paycheck ~
The Life Part:
I also want to document some general life wins, because it’s easy to forget all the good things that happened:
Some wins from October:
- Visiting my family and spending my time eating all of my mom’s food (and of course local faves)
- Seeing a really beautiful waterfall and witnessing the incredible fall foliage
- Hosting my family for dinner!! This was such a highlight, as I’ve never had the chance to do this before.
- Upping the baking game – ugh why do I love baking so much! I successfully made swiss meringue buttercream, which has so far eluded me. I think it tastes incredible when it’s fresh, but it’s pretty buttery after that.
- Cooked lots of new things successfully! Big highlights are chicken 65 and brioche buns.
- Dinner from our favorite restaurant – it’s on the more expensive side so we hadn’t really been getting takeout. It was a nice change from the norm though.
- Spent a really cold day in DC eating really spicy and hot gyros
And that’s it! Until next time!