My monthly Savings Rate report: December 2019

My income for December is straight forward as always; though with a little extra thanks to my grandparents. Besides my regular income from my day job of 2837.00 EUR, I received 75 EUR extra from my grandparents, and rectification from my bank (1.94 EUR). All of this gives me a total income of 2913.94 EUR for December.

Unlike last month, I expected my expenses to be ridiculous in December. One reason is the holiday period, but a quick rundown of the events that took place in December per category reveals there is more to it than that.

Food

Restaurant visits

One category more expensive than usual was restaurant visits. There were multiple reasons for that:

• Celebrating our anniversary at the restaurant of our first date: 34.30 EUR
• Lazy Sunday: 4.75 EUR
• Ramen: 25.50 EUR
• Drinks with friends of GF: 12.80 EUR
• Double date day trip to Bruges with friends: 14.30 EUR

For 91.65 EUR. Going out to eat is easy and fun but it can go up quick. I and my GF already agreed to keep it much simpler in 2020. These visits were not even related to Christmas or New Year’s for that we have to look at my groceries.

Groceries

I spend 38% more in December in this category compared to November. This is because I ordered delicacies from my GF’s home country for us and my parents. On top of that, we made our own Christmas dinner with Turkey and had friends over. All of this caused me to spend 312.26 EUR.

Food ends up costing me 458.70 EUR.

Housing

Spending time with friends or just the two of us at home is made possible because we have a place of our own that we rent. This was for once a normal month. A few utensils were still missing but besides that I only had rent. As a result, housing was only 363.70 EUR. Not that we spend a lot of time at home during the holiday season.

Luxury

New Year’s was spent in… Istanbul! It was a mesmerising and wonderful time. Being able to welcome 2020 with my GF on top of a Balcony in Sultanahmet and seeing all the surrounding fireworks was beautiful. I will provide a detailed account of our trip soon. While it didn’t help my Savings Rate, this wasn’t the main culprit for the huge expense in this category. My trip to my GF’s home country is. The plane tickets for me and GF -which she pays back partially- was. A solid 1300 EUR!

These trips added to the total expense that was already higher because of various gifts that I bought (241.70 EUR). In total, I spend 1789.85 EUR this month.

This trip was our first trip together, just the two of us. Discovering a new city with my GF was a delight that I had never felt before. Talking about expenses can make it seem like it’s a burden, but these past days is why I do this. It helps me align my thoughts and keeps me focussed on what I need in life.

Health Insurance

Talking about health, I’d like to drop in this expense. Attentive readers might notice this was always 3 EUR with the quarterly 25 EUR for the mandatory health insurance and the special “zorgkaspremie” of 52 EUR. This has changed. Since September, my GF is now part of my employers’ hospitalisation plan. As of September, I now pay roughly 10 EUR/month, so 7 EUR more, for not only me but my GF as well. In December I thus paid for the previous months that weren’t charged yet to bring the total to 86.36 EUR.

All the expenses

As you can see, December was a busy month. Not only did we go to Istanbul for New Year’s, but we also purchased tickets and some hotels for a visit to my GF’s home country at the end of January. I also added my GF to my employer’s hospitalisation plan.

It all comes together for a whopping 2801.18 EUR for December.