My monthly Savings Rate report: June 2020
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After a live-changing May, June was a lot less crazy. That is not to say that nothing happened in June. I actually invested quite a bit in the site. These investments made my SR drop but thanks to my holiday pay, I was able to keep the damage to a minimum.
Income
Starting with the income, in June I received my salary and holiday pay. The extra pay is nothing new for this time of year. What was new, however, was the increase in net salary thanks to my marriage in May.
Where my salary is around 2,500 EUR in a normal month, I now received 2833,05 EUR. That’s a 6.89% increase compared to last month which was already a bit higher due to a working-from-home bonus. The increase becomes even bigger when compared to April: 10.18%. A big asterisk though: this increase will last till my wife finds a job.
Add the holiday pay of 1,841.81 EUR to that, and I received 4,674.86 EUR in June.
Belgium might have the highest average income tax and salary wedge in the world, but that is only for singles. For a single income married couple (with kids), it’s still crazy high but not the highest! Yah for us. I guess.
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.
- COFINIMMO (COFB): 56.00 EUR
- NVIDIA (NVDA): 1.85 EUR
- SPDR US DIV ARISTOCRATS (SPYD): 18.35 EUR
For a total of 76.20 EUR.
Expenses
Food and Supplies
In June I and my wife went on a grocery shopping adventure. Instead of our usual shopping at Lidl, we decided to spice things up a bit and get something different at Carrefour. My wife had to close my mouth when I saw the bill: 230 EUR!
Yikes, Went grocery shopping yesterday. Paying attention to where you shop makes a huge difference. Average Lidl bill for 2 weeks worth of groceries? 110 EUR; Saturday’s bill at Carrefour? 230 EUR?.
— fightToFIRE (@fightToFIRE1) June 28, 2020
Compared to our usual bill at Lidl, on average about 110 EUR, is a huge difference. As a result, our total expense for food and groceries went up quite a bit. We clocked in at 691.65 EUR for the month. Of course, this wasn’t just because of Carrefour. We also treated ourselves to a Sushi night (76 EUR).
Home management and ownership
Next up is our usual rent and my interest payment Nothing special or unusual here. Oh, we did get some plants. I guess that’s exciting for our botanical lovers out there. With the three expenses combined, I spend 729.90 EUR in this category.
Online businesses
The last category worth mentioning in detail is what I spend on my website. I aptly named this category “Online businesses” as I do consider this blog a serious business. I believe doing so creates focus and dares me to make the necessary investments; which I did.
I invested in three ways, one of which was a one-time thing (for now):
- Hire a professional copy-writer to clear up one of my blog posts. This has given mixed results but that is a separate issue from the work delivered. This cost me about 239 EUR. I think you can see why I kept it a one-time thing for now?
- Hire a professional financial writer to help with the more technical articles. This resulted in 2 improved blog posts and cost me 105 EUR.
- Finally, I hired an SEO-expert that will continue to help me improve the overall performance of my site and set out my search engine optimization for the future. Up till now, I invested 658 EUR in this business agreement.
The total expense until now is 1001.99 EUR*. 543.42 EUR was paid in June and is visible in this month’s overview. The rest will be in July’s expense overview. As you can see, I’ve been putting my grandmother’s inheritance to good use. Sharing this also serves as proof that I take this blog very seriously.
*Using 08/07/2020 exchange rate
All the expenses
As shown above, June had some extra expenses due to my website improvements and our “grocery spree” at Carrefour. The rest of the expenses were fairly basic (talking family insurance, some snacks, a cheap pair of indoor slippers, etc.). Everything combined brings my total expense for June to 2,202.90 EUR.
The bottom line
Bringing it all together gives us 2471.96 EUR remaining cash or a Savings Rate of 52.88. A pretty good result given the specific expenses this month.
This was my June. Obviously a more normal income side to what I received in May. When it comes to income and expenses, it’s always fun to look over the fence at my neighbors.
Euromoney Saw a drop in income due to the lockdown and had higher expenses resulting in quite a different SR compared to the previous month. He also wrote off his P2P and shared a lessons learned.
AmberTreeleaves has yet to share his month but he did share his thoughts on some of the options trading he did.
Finally, while it’s not about income and expenses, Joney Talks has a heart-stirring article about inequality. He also has a podcast you should give a listen.
Please share your thoughts in the comments below!