My monthly Savings Rate report: July 2020
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If I had to describe July in one month it would be ‘fun’. Bit of a weird thing to say during a pandemic, no?
Thanks to a couple of trips and celebrating my wife’s graduation from her Master (yeaaaah! well done!) we were able to forget the return of the Jedi coronavirus.
The fun we had did reflect in this month’s Savings Rate. Coming from a string of excellent or at least good rates the past few months, I now have to report a more expensive month. But don’t misunderstand me calling it expensive as complaining. It is just what it was, expensive, especially since I don’t have any extra income to support my regular one.
Income
Starting with the income, in July I only received my salary. What did surprise me was the fact that I got again around 2500 EUR. I thought that thanks to the marriage, it would remain around 2800, but I misread it. June had an extra benefit from my holiday pay.
It is unfortunate but it confirms that the tax benefit of my marriage won’t be visible until I I have to fill in next year’s taxes. Since it can take up to a year to get a confirmation of my return I probably won’t see the money till the end of next year.
Until then, without the extra marriage benefit, my salary remains the same: 2,613.16 EUR.
Dividends
Besides the salary, I also received some dividends. Do note that I don’t put them as income as I leave them in my trading account to reinvest them or withdraw them on a later point. It’s once I withdraw the money that I will consider it as income.
- ISHARES S&P SMALL CAP 600 (IUS3): 26.43 EUR
For a total of 26.43 EUR.
Expenses
Food and Supplies
July was another expensive food month. We went shopping in a couple of different (more expensive) grocery stores and ended up spending 469 EUR. Shopping wasn’t the only thing we did. We spend 65.50 EUR on eating out once and getting a very special dessert: eatable dough.
Besides that, I spend a bit on some small snacks but nothing major. As a result, the total food and grocery bill tallied up to 556.58 EUR.
Home management and ownership
I don’t think this category needs any introduction. Our usual rent and my interest payment are still a big expense. We did end up -finally- getting a full body mirror from Ikea and some fake plants to add color to the apartment hallway. This added 47.97 EUR to this category for a combined expense of 527.15 EUR.
Online businesses
In the same vein as last month I spend money on my website. This month, however, I only invested in my SEO optimization. It’s still the professional SEO-expert that I got last month. This month I invested 463.12 EUR in my ‘online business’.
To be transparent I have to say that 125.62 EUR was in software to manage the hired freelancer. Which is pretty expensive but it works like a charm. The alternative is to continue with Upwork but they charge a hefty 10% commission per transaction which after a few transactions will be more expensive than the software. Besides the staffing software, 72.49 EUR was in a subscription to MonsterInsights which provides clear reporting of my Google Analytics. Though I’m not sure if I’ll continue it next year.
It’s interesting to see how much I already spend on my website +domain. The total expense from the time I started FightToFIRE until now is 1725.78 EUR.
All the expenses
With the extra expenses linked to my site and the management of it, July became a heavy month expense wise. The rest of the expenses were fairly basic (talking family insurance, some snacks, etc.). This brings the total expense for July to 1,875.91 EUR.
The bottom line
Bringing it all together gives us a paltry 737.25 EUR remaining cash or a Savings Rate of 28.21.
This was my July overview. Unfortunately my Belgian friends Euromoney and AmberTreeleaves were pretty quiet this month. I’m curious what they have been up to but we’ll have to wait and find out later.
One person who hasn’t been sitting still is JoneyTalks. First of all, we wrote a post together! We looked into the most popular Belgian brokers and find out what they have to offer. I provided my take on my broker Lynx.be and Joney gave his review of Bolero. Be sure to check it out.
Next to that he shares his experience with renting out (and selling) parking spots, the art of investing in art, and the basics of Bonds. Enjoy!
Please share your thoughts in the comments below!
Hey,
Good savings rate and congrats to your wife for her Master.
I did not give my blog a priority. I did save all the numbers so I consider doing a June and July wrap up.
Cheers
Hey Amber Tree,
Thanks for your kind words :).
You are right that even now it’s still pretty decent. At least it’s positive 😉
Aha, gotcha. I hope you’ve been enjoying your holiday?
Greetings