Financial Update – December 2023

Background

Each month I will post an update on my finances to both give you, the reader, some insight into my situation and to give me markers of my progress on my financial journey. My updates include both spending and net worth.

Spending is divided into joint and individual spending. My husband gets $600 a month and I get $150 a month for our own individual spending as an “allowance” which go into our personal bank accounts. This is filed under “Lifestyle & Services” in our spending summary.
I don’t include charitable contributions in our numbers below, but we allocate 10% of our post-tax income to this each year.
Our net worth goal tracked using undisclosed units of money. Our goal is to hit “Financial Equilibrium”, based on Thomas J. Anderson’s book The Value of Debt in Building Wealth. This is fairly close to our FIRE number.

Net Worth

Spending

Monthly Update

Net worth continuing to jump up, largely led by the latest crypto run-up.

Otherwise, mostly a dull month. We had to cancel holiday plans due to illness since we all got hit with a week-long stomach bug. So that was a bummer. But on the bright side, I was able to join husband and baby on a bunch of outings to the children’s museum, indoor play spaces, nearby libraries, etc. which was a lot of fun!

In general, I’m enjoying life and looking forward to 2024.

How was your December?

Financial Update – November 2023

Background

Spending is divided into joint and individual spending. My husband gets $600 a month and I get $150 a month for our own individual spending as an “allowance” which go into our personal bank accounts. This is filed under “Lifestyle & Services” in our spending summary.
I don’t include charitable contributions in our numbers below, but we allocate 10% of our post-tax income to this each year.
Our net worth goal tracked using undisclosed units of money. Our goal is to hit “Financial Equilibrium”, based on Thomas J. Anderson’s book The Value of Debt in Building Wealth. This is fairly close to our FIRE number.

Net Worth

Spending

Monthly Update

I think we need to stop doing food delivery. We’re spending so much on food. And it’s not like we don’t cook! We cook most nights, eat mostly vegetarian (just one meal a week with meat). In terms of snacks I usually get one bag of popcorn a week and my husband has pretzel nuggets. Despite all that, we’re spending so, so much on food. This isn’t new, obviously, but for some reason it frustrates me so much that we are so profligate in this way.

Other than that, we spent a lot on winter clothes and some toddler toys this month. Also a much-higher-than-normal water bill that I need to call the city about (they replaced our meter so I think that messed things up a bit).

In other news, I’m back in the doldrums at work. Looking for another job but that’s going quite poorly. Sigh. Oh well.

At least our net worth is up? If things continue apace, we’ll probably reach all time highs pretty soon. It’d be nice to hit a “you could probably semi-retire now” point, which it seems like we might do in the next year or two if things continue to go well. That said, our expenses just seem to be going up up up (house, baby, etc.) so we’ll see if that’s actually feasible.

How was your November?

Financial Update – October 2023

Background

Spending is divided into joint and individual spending. My husband gets $600 a month and I get $150 a month for our own individual spending as an “allowance” which go into our personal bank accounts. This is filed under “Lifestyle & Services” in our spending summary.
I don’t include charitable contributions in our numbers below, but we allocate 10% of our post-tax income to this each year.
Our net worth goal tracked using undisclosed units of money. Our goal is to hit “Financial Equilibrium”, based on Thomas J. Anderson’s book The Value of Debt in Building Wealth. This is fairly close to our FIRE number.

Net Worth

Spending

Monthly Update

We bought a new Avocado bed and mattress this month for baby’s room, which was around $3000. My husband and I use it now for when we have to help take care of baby overnight (they are still in their crib), but once baby is ready for the “big” bed, then it’ll be theirs! It’s a platform bed, so it’s low enough to the floor that they can climb in and fall out of it and it’s no big deal.

In terms of what happened this month, well, we got Covid. We’re all doing alright and it never got worse than a gnarly cold, but I’m still waiting to get my sense of smell and taste back. Other than that, I’ve just been cranking it out at work. Enjoying life, day by day.

How was your October?