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. 

Net Worth: $15,421.01

Income: $4,258.98

Expenses: $3,875

And of that net worth: 

Investments: $10,439.28 (I crossed the $10K mark! This is a big milestone for me)

Cash: $4,982.62

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 (mostly in the form of gold #desi) and a joint account with my husband (but that’s our money and not my money). 

A breakdown of my expenses:

Restaurants: $373.48 

• YIKES this is very very high. There’s two main issues here. One, I haven’t been bringing breakfast from home, and two, I haven’t replenished my snacks at work
• I also spent more on coffee than I typically do, so to combat this for October, I’ve already loaded my Starbucks card with $100 for the month. 

Personal Care: $210.10 

• I bought an orange theory heart rate monitor which was $115
• I spent some $$ bulk buying our laundry detergent, soaps, etc 

Healthcare: $200 (made $200 payment towards a medical bill from last year) 

Clothing: $184.92

• 3 new lawn shirts from Republic (why designer lawn? I’ll talk more about this another time in another post because I have THOUGHTS and OPINIONS)
• 3 new shirts from Loft

Entertainment: $80.84

• $45 of this was to support a friend so no regrets
• This includes my NYT subscription, some parking fees, and other things that don’t fit anywhere else 

Travel: $2,400 (This is almost the entire cost of our vacay, minus car rental)

Car: $415 (my car payment, yay)

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 the new year. Whoo hoo! 

How I feel

To be honest, this was eye opening. It was the first time I properly tagged all transactions in personal capital (the website I use to track spending) and man, I spent a lot more than I thought I did. 

Food and restaurant spending continues to be a big part of my spending so I’m hoping to reduce that next month. If I can stay inside $250, it’s a dub. This month just happened to be when all the travel expenses needed to be paid, so that’s technically not a regular expense.

I’ve been putting this post off because I honestly thought it was going to take me forever to put together, but it really didn’t, so that’s a plus! And it’s really great to see my spending out in the open.

What’s next: 

October is a three paycheck month, which is pretty exciting (although I’ve already spent some major $$$ on a big purchase). Overall, I’m pretty excited: there’s three more months until the end of the year and I can definitely see myself saving up to hit the $22K goal. I also have managed to pay for two big vacations this year, contributed to rent and utilities, and am on track to save the most money I’ve ever had at once, alhamdulillah.

The life part: 

I also want to document some general life wins, because it’s easy to forget all the good things that happened: 

• Visited some family and showed Mr. H one of my favorite natural wonders
• Made some moves at work! We launched with a 1.0 version of a project I’ve been leading and have poured my heart into. While there’s no conclusive data yet on how successful the project is, I’m proud because I worked really hard and had to learn a lot of new skills.
• Worked out 7 times (!!!!!!) (up from 0 last month)
• Put some art up in the in the house (gah, the payoff on this was so high, I can’t believe I waited so long!) 
• Read Crazy Rich Asians, Big Little Lies, and The Happiness Advantage, and I loved all of them
• Supported a coworker. It was so rewarding to see a friend succeed doing something they love. 
• Baked a quiche! And a crumble! 
• Made money with the side hustle ~~~ 

And that’s it! Ok wow that was a lot. But also, very…. cathartic getting that all out. Until next time!