Well then. I’ve been gone for a few months and so.much.has.happened. A global pandemic, a stock market crash, a recession on the rise, a black lives matter movement awakening.
Right around the time that I was writing my February 2020 recap, the world changed very quickly – we were told to take our laptops home in case we needed them to work and…. we never went back. I can honestly say I didn’t expect this – I thought we might be working from home for a couple of weeks, maybe a month at the absolute maximum. It is now June, and we likely won’t be back in the office until August, possibly September.
Things have also changed in the economic front – companies froze hiring and interviews crawled to a stop for Mr. H. Still, we are far better off than most people in this country. We’re perfectly comfortable on one income and have even made some outrageous purchasing decisions while maintaining a 10% contribution in my 401(k).
There’s been a big jump in numbers, mostly because I got paid my annual bonus at the end of February.
Let’s jump into the numbers…
| May 2020 | January 2020 | |
| Cash | $9,523 | $4,086.46 |
| Investments | $25,032.40 | $15,699.03 |
| Net Worth Total | $34,555.4 | $19,737.50 |
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 most of my expenses
| Car | $910.91 | My car payment (I drive a brand new car I bought at 0% interest). This month I also made Mr. H’s car payment, since he’s on sabbatical. |
| Restaurants | $108.76 | Pandemic still has our Restaurant spend at a low. |
| Gifts | $1450.81 | Lots of Eid gifts! I also bought Mr. H a new iPhone for Eid. Certified refurbished, but a new phone nonetheless. |
| Healthcare | $897.44 | Up from $0 – I paid for the remaining balance of Mr. H’s dental work. We managed to use all $450 from our FSA. If we had known, we of course would have put more money in our FSA. Lesson learned for sure! |
| Personal Care | $0 | No gym and no salon appointments during a pandemic to worry about. |
| Clothing & Shopping | $322.73 | Three pairs of jeans ripped (all of which I had bought at the same time from the same retailer so never buying from there again!) I also bought myself some flowers for Eid. |
| Home Improvement | $1,809.15 | Wowza. This is mostly some new furniture for the deck. |
| Amazon, Dues, & Subscriptions | $393.90 | A brand new category. I’m still figuring this all out. Amazon basically needs to be it’s own line item since it can be hard to place in other categories. Dues include annual Microsoft subscription, linkedin premium, etc. This is still pretty high but I’d like to keep an eye on our Amazon spend and see what that looks like. |
| Travel | $0 | Thanks pandemic! |
| Groceries | $151.40 | Back up from January which was $24 and some change. With the pandemic and restaurant spend so low, we’ve been spending more and more on groceries. |
How I feel
Wowza. This was definitely the most spendy month I’ve had in my entire life. I also got my own brand new credit card, thinking it will make net worth tracking easier (previously we had a joint card, in which every month I paid Mr. H for my expenses).
In reality, getting a credit card has made me spend wayyyy more than I normally do. I truly do think I need to switch back to charging my debit card, and use the credit card for large purchases and travel only.
Investments are still climbing
Considering the pandemic had wreaked havoc on the stock market for a while, things seem to be getting more stable, I’m still contributing to my 401k, and am hoping to slowly increase my taxable investments as well.
The life part:
I also want to document some general life wins, because it’s easy to forget all the good things that happened:
- Where do I even BEGIN! Some home improvement wins to start: we bought deck furniture and added some string lights, which has made the space far more usable.
- I took a mid pandemic trip in early June to Florida with my family. I’m also spending the next four weeks at my parents’ house – this opportunity does not come often to work from home indefinitely.
- We had a quarantined Ramadan and Eid and honestly it was chill and lovely.
And that’s it! Until next time!