My monthly Savings Rate report: April 2020
This page can contain affiliate partner links to products that I purchased this month.
April was the prelude to a life-changing May (more details will follow soon 😉 ). Since quite a few preparations were being made in April, it’s only a given that some money was spent. Add to that the higher grocery expenses due to the corona measures and you can already guess that April wasn’t a cheap month. Luckily I received my profit participation which prevented me from going negative.
Income
April’s income has two major components to it:
- My regular income for April at 2,650.45 EUR.
- Profit participation for the fiscal year 2019 at 2,726.98 EUR.
This translates to a total income of 5,413.43 EUR for April. Clearly quite a bit lower than last month 🙂 I doubt I’ll be able to top March, income-wise but I don’t think I can complain about April either. Though the coming month should be interesting as well since my employer gives a nice extra when your family situation changes ;).
Expenses
Personal
The largest expense I made this month, was for the wedding bands (which I classify under ‘personal’). We got two lovely rings of white and yellow gold. They were made by a local jewelry store for 1,594.00 EUR. I originally looked online, but after adjusting all the variables to match with what the jewelry store would do, the online rings were actually more expensive!
The second most expensive purchase this month was the wedding dress. Since we planned a civil wedding, we stuck to a cocktail style dress from Zalando which came in at 50.90 EUR.
Including some other small stuff, my total personal expense was 1,973.81 EUR.
Food and Supplies
Groceries dropped quite a bit compared to March. We spend a solid 394.54 EUR on groceries. A bit less than previous month, but not actually by that much. Though it’s not strange. Eventhough we didn’t do anything special this month, we both ate at home due to the lockdown that is still in effect in Belgium. Nothing else stood out here besides my parents helping a little bit with some orders (+100 EUR). Adding it all up gives us 5326.08 EUR on food.
Home and ownership
This is the same as last month. The interest is a bit more as it’s the first full month I borrowed the 45K. The interest for a full month is 54.90 EUR. Besides that, I really only have the rent (322.50 EUR), some flower pots and insect nets for the windows (96.10 EUR). The total cost of homeownership and renting comes down to 473.50 EUR.
All the expenses
I wouldn’t call April ‘calm’ as it was a preparatory month for May. I originally expected the wedding bands to be closer to 1000 EUR than 1500 EUR so I spend a bit more there. Besides the major expenses, I also made some “smaller” ones such as paying for my yearly Amazon Prime, finally giving in and getting the new YNAB, and paying my ‘zorgkas’ (it’s a Flemish thing) of 53 EUR.
May will see some extra expenses as well, but no rings, big party venue, or anything of similar magnitude at least. Anyhow, for this month, it all comes together to a solid 3,019.01 EUR in expenses.
It’s crazy to see how each month has been such an adventure. I don’t think I have had a calm month so far. Of course, I got “lucky” in March and even now in April. Thanks to additional income my expenses have been covered more than a bit. I hope they remain to be in the future.
Coming from an 87% Savings Rate in March I quickly dropped a few levels in April. It was fun to revisit such a high SR number after a long time, but unless I get another windfall this year, I doubt I’ll reach it again this year. For this month I landed on 2,394.42 EUR / 5,413.43 EUR = 44.23%. In other words, back below 50%. The main “culprit” isn’t hard to find: the wedding bands. Without these, I’d be well over 70%. But that’s water under the bridge. On to May!
This was my April. How was your month? Were you able to continue strong? Did you get a tax benefit as well or did you get another maybe even greater windfall? Be sure to check out fellow Belgians Ambertreeleaves and Euromoney. Their months were interesting as well. Euromoney is still trying to reduce his stake in P2P and AmberTreeleaves is seeing a real change in expense due to the Corona measures.
Please share your thoughts in the comments below!
Nice savings rate and thanks for the mention!
I think 400 EUR is quite low for 2 people, how do you manage to do that? Do you pay extra attention to what you buy?
1500 EUR for wedding rings, totally worth it but I would probably be scared to lose them 😉
P.S. your screenshot is from March
No problem. I really enjoy reading your blog as well.
Really? 400 low, interesting. Maybe because, up until I started living together with my now wife, I only paid like 100 EUR on groceries living at home, I see 400 as a lot.
Yeah, we both saw a design we liked and I wanted a more solid feel so we opted for 18K gold, and a width of 5mm for me, and 3mm for my wife.
Thanks, I’ll update it right away.
Wait what? 100 EUR on groceries? Even if I am “Frugal” and I only go shopping once a week, I would spend about 60-70 EUR there. And that includes doing most cooking myself.
Under groceries I do count everything I buy there, including cleaning products..
I stated that I did that by living at home. My parents have a garden and I didn’t have to pay for dinner except when I felt like it. Times have changed in the meantime of course 😉
On my savings page, you can find an example: https://www.fighttofire.com/savings-rates/#1578231399248-daf0df51-d729
Though I have to be honest, 100 was exceptional. Usually, it was more around 150 – 200 EUR.
400/Month in groceries for 2 is below my budget. I guess it depends what you put where. I am very lazy and put everything I buy in grocery shop here. Even my cava (and that is more entertainment for some) and cleaning products (some would put that in housing expenses)
Wedding comes at a cost… Look at it positively: buying wedding bands and a positive savingsrate…!