Savings Rates

As you could have read in my most recent post about moving around and in into my rental appartment a lot of fun things happened. These fun things did come at a cost. It’s the second month this year where my savings rate is pretty horrid to look at, 32.78%.

As you can read in the post the majority is due to very high expenses at IKEA and the rental car. Including some smaller stuff for the apartment and the rent, the total housing costs come in at 1238.74 EUR. This is uncluding my gf share! Luckily my gf’s mom covered for most of the expenses of the car but even then Luxury expenses are 176.04 EUR.
Finally, a third big expense this month was groceries as I also bought some things for the family-in-law.

Too bad the income side of things didn’t improve, heck due to moving closer to the trainstation I lost my bike renumeration which was a solid 45 EUR per month. Because of that I earned 2812.91 EUR.

August was a decent month. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make full use of it and stay above 75%, I got stuck at 72.11%. There were a few unforeseen expenses in the luxury category such as paying for half of the rental car for the time I will spend with my girlfriend’s parents. Other than that there wasn’t anything else besides tha I really need to cut back on the snacks I buy during the month. More than 100 EUR really is too much. That should get sliced in half and preferably be completely gone now that I’m going to live on my own.

At least my income was decent with an income of 2900 EUR.

What isn’t visible here is the transfer of the rental guarantee. It’s not an expense just a transfer from my debit account to a dedicated account afterall. Though it’s worth mentioning since it’s 3 months worth of rent or 395 EUR x 3 = 1785 EUR that is blocked for the next 1 year and 8 months.

July was a fun but above average expensive. This is of course in large part due to my Italy trip,. you aren’t going to hear me complain but the fact remains that I unfortunately wasn’t able to maintain a SR of at least 50% let alone 75%. The 48.28% SR is because of my income that was the normal 2852.62 EUR + some dividend I withdrew of 39.77 EUR but the higher expenses where 1475.30 EUR.

you will find a detailed overview of my expenses in Italy in a separate post later but in total I spend 757.06 EUR on this trip. Although 102.58 was for cloths that I bought upfront. I count them as the holiday expenses because I wouldn’t have got them if it were not for the tirp. At least I got 40% discount because of the sales. Hooray for sales!

Important to note on the expense side is that I already bought tickets for new years to celebrate one year together in Turkey. These cost me 337,98 EUR. Without those I would actually sit at 60.13%. But ok, that’s playing with numbers.

June was an interesting month. Just like April, I received double pay. This time it was my holiday pay which is 92% of my gross salary. As a result, my income was 4696.17 EUR. Together with that, I withdrew a bit of (dividend) cash from my tradings account. As I counted transfers to my trading accounts as expenses I now have them as income on the expenses side in YNAB. This results in my expenses being a bit lower at 785.29 EUR.

I spend a bit more on groceries (152.38 EUR) as I made dinner with dessert multiple times for my girlfriend while she was studying for her exams. Besides that, I also did a little extra because we were 6 months together (Presents: 147.70 EUR). That is why the luxury category is higher this month. Finally, I bought new running shoes because my old ones were really worn out and were even starting to cause blisters. I got myself a pair of Asics DynaFlyte 3 (160 EUR).

My new pair of Asics DynaFlyte3 BLACK/RICH GOLD. Image from Asics.com

Phew, finally a really “normal” month. Besides some a bigger expense I made for discounted cinema tickets (102 EUR) everything else is the basic stuff like groceries a few times, a gift for my girlfriend, and some smaller snacks and alike during the weekend with my girlfriend. In total, I spend 653.55 EUR.

As far as my income goes, my only source was my employer who deposited 2853.74 EUR on my checking account.

Compared to the previous two months, April was more normal when it comes to expenses. I had a few unforeseen expenses which were medical related but with a similar root cause, a viral infection. One was to my right eye and then my gut. Though this is covered by the my profit participation that I received.

Thanks to this additional income through my employer, This month’s salary was a solid 5,616.98 UR.

As mentioned, on the expenses side, April was a more normal, though still high, month because some higher expenses for my doctor visits and a weekend trip to The Hague with my gf. I spend 977.12 EUR.

March is not completely over but I have no expenses planned for the last two days so without further ado I give you my SR of March!
This month’s income was only my day job income + a small extra for being on-call. It came in at 2797.58 EUR.

For my expenses, March was an expensive month due to the last expenses from my holiday in the Alps. I spend 1,057.64 EUR! As you can see in the image on the side, a big chunk comes from my yearly winter vacation (404.20 EUR). Another hefty sum comes from my registration for my blackbelt exam in a month and a half (126 EUR). Then, I have heavier fuel consumption because I drove a lot with the shared car to visit my GF and go places (114.97 EUR). Finally, my last “big” expense (that I will recuperate later) comes from my yearly dentist appointment where I had a starting cavity filled just in case (75 EUR).

These were my most noteworthy expenses and with my yearly winter holiday over, the next 9 months should be more in the 500 – 600 EUR range.

My February income was only my day job income + a small extra for being on-call. It came in at 2700.88 EUR.

For my expenses, February was a very expensive month. I spend 2464.24 EUR! This is the first time since I started this blog that I had such an “expensive” month. The majority comes from the paying of the invoice for my snowboard trip from 1 March till 10 March. It comes down to1095.01 EUR for the trip. This includes bus and hotel.

I had this planned about 5 to 6 months in advance so I knew it was coming, but having it visible like this, using the Savings Rate (SR) really shows that was barely able to save anything.  What I didn’t plan as much, or rather didn’t realize would have such a big impact, was my new snowboard. At 764.45 EUR it took out a big chunk of SR as well. Of course, just like my first snowboard, I will use it for the next 10 years.

Other noteworthy expenses were a budget for the first infographic (103 EUR) of my bog and progress stats in 2018 (look forward to this 😉 ) and electronics (182.87 EUR) with the purchase of a new SSD (154.36 EUR) and the game CIV VI (28.51 EUR).

My income for January, 3,408.41 EUR, came from different sources this month. The majority is still from my salary but this salary actually has a few extras for this month.
roughly 865 EUR gross comes from a refund of my cafeteria plan. I choose additional return on my pension fund through my employer and this got paid out this month.
Additionally, in January I receive a tax-free 35 EUR “new year’s gift”.
Other income this month comes from my side hustle, the remaining interest of my closed Moneyou savings account, and I sold a pair of headphone for 150 EUR.

On the expenses side this month, 989.56 EUR, was more than normal but I expected this. A good chunk comes from celebrating new year’s with my GF, and getting some stuff I had planned to buy for a while but never got to. The online business part is for all the expenses related to hosting my site(s).