Mr. FightToFIRE

Financial planning for our baby

With a baby comes not only a new family member but also an extra mouth to feed for the next 20+ years as well as an extra person to dress. In other words, there are some extra costs involved. This is all part of the game, but what is sometimes forgotten is to generate some extra income for him or her.

My monthly Savings Rate report: March 2021

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March Savings Rate

March turned out to be a good month for my Savings Rate. While on the expenses side I spend a lot on the home and ownership part and again on food, I also received a nice extra on the income side thanks to evening deployments for work. I ended up doing a bit of work between 1 am and 3 am.

Apartment progress: 30%; finally above ground!

Delays are normal in life. A train that’s delayed because the machinist overslept, bad weather causing you to get stuck in traffic and arrive late at work.
A lot of them are due to circumstance and you can’t do much about them. However, my apartment that only now has reached ground level clearly didn’t just have delays due to Force Majeure from Corona.

Startling Extra Costs To Get A Better Turnkey Apartment

While we are crawling closer to the delivery date of our baby girl (27 May), there is another delivery that is causing more headaches: my heavily delayed turnkey apartment.
Progress is being made of course, but at the current speed, I shouldn’t expect a delivery sooner than March 2022. Given these delays, I was startled when I recently received a mail about the fit and finish of my delayed turnkey apartment. My shock continued when I saw the standard finish and how much they charge for extras.

Buying And Selling Secondhand Online In Belgium

Having an extra family member means more stuff to get such as clothes and furniture to give her a proper home. While this could be an endeavor that goes into the thousands of euros, there is a way to keep it manageable: secondhand!
Here is how we bought and sold our stuff online, not only for the baby but also the microwave or washing machine we didn’t need anymore after moving into my grandmother’s house.