Savings Rates - Fight to FIRE

Latest Savings Rate (SR): April 2019

If you wish to reach FIRE at a certain date, you have to keep a close watch on your Savings Rate (SR).
This page does exactly that. Here you can find a monthly overview of my SR per month and year. For completeness sake, I started in January 2018.

My MO for my SR

My SR-graph will get updated at the end of every month. These updates will be fairly short and follow the same pattern as much as possible:

I use YNAB4 to generate a detailed overview of all my income and expenses for each month in a clean table.
From this table, I make a collapsed and summarized screenshot that I then upload to this page.
In the sidebar, the SR of that month will be shown. It also links back to this page.

Since a picture says more than a thousands words, you can find the details of October 2018 right below the SR-graph. In case of large outliers or one-time income or expenses, I will give a bit of context with the image.

My Savings Rates

2018
2019

Savings Rate Details

2019 Average Savings Rate: 56.13%

April 2019

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 2019

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.

February 2019

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).

January 2019

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).

Savings Rate History

2018 Average Savings Rate: 76,766%

December 2018

The average SR shown above is based on the entire year. While I only shared my detailed SR as of September 2018, you can still double check my average by taking the average of the monthly rates in the bar chart above.

As I mentioned in my looking ahead, my personal situation changed last month as I got a girlfriend. We went on various excursions which weren’t excessive but they do add up, especially due to the holiday period (Christmas and the New Year celebrations).

In terms of Income, December was a regular month. My income was only my salary: 2600.82 EUR.

When it comes to Expenses, December became a bit more expensive than first planned. The main large expenses were:

4 dates: 115,45 EUR
Christmas sweater +1 regular: 45.89 EUR
1-year server: 160.54 EUR

Due to all the above-mentioned reasons, my total expenses ended up being 693.45 EUR.

November 2018

In terms of Income, November was another special month. This time because of a side hustle that brought in € 450.00. Additionally, I got a bit extra salary resulting in a total income for November of €3073.65.

When it comes to Expenses, November wasn’t too special aside from a bit more “luxury” expenses and getting gas twice. The luxury expenses were: multiple smaller gifts for friends, and paying for a simple restaurant lunch. Overall I spend €454.88 this month.