Savings Rates

November was a hectic month. Corona is back from having never left, working from home is the default again and our daughter turned 6 (months).

With October passed, we are well into the last part of the year. It means I’m getting closer to my trip abroad and thus the first flight with our daughter. Because it was calm and some nice extra income, our Savings Rate greatly recovered.

My September reached an extreme expense level. And it’s all due to one thing: plane tickets. I recently wrote about why we decided to buy plane tickets at arguably the most expensive period to fly, especially international. Because of this major purchase, my expenses skyrocketed and made me go negative for the first time since I started blogging. But, it’s not the only thing that pushed me over the edge.

With the end of August, we can almost say goodbye to summer. This year that’s not such a bad thing with a sluggish summer not giving many possibilities to go out and corona still around us. Luckily, this did positively affect the Savings Rate, which is well above 50% this month.

Wow, July really became an expensive month. I honestly never would have thought that July would net me 0 euros! It’s one of those months where many things happen and causes a significant shift in income and expenses.

Having a newborn in the house really makes it hard to find the time to write. Luckily I do still find it -albeit less for now- and I’m happy I can share another solid month of savings with you.

May was life-changing. Not in terms of income or expenses obviously, but because I became a dad! How did that impact May’s expenses? Not that much really. We did more grocery shopping to limit our trips in June (which it did!) but that was it. Most of the hospital bills arrived in June and the delivery itself is fully covered by my health insurance.

April was amazing! From both an income and expenses point of view, I achieved my best result in months. I continue the substantial savings I started in March in large part, thanks to my profit participation.

March turned out to be a good month for my Savings Rate.  While on the expenses side I spend a lot on the home and ownership part and again on food, I also received a nice extra on the income side thanks to evening deployments for work. I ended up doing a bit of work between 1 am and 3 am.

2021 really kicked into high gear this month. While we didn’t go on holiday due to Corona, we did make rather large expenses for something life-changing. I’m talking about the baby of course.

A new year, a new start of my monthly Savings Reports. Will this new start be a better one than last year or will it be barely positive like last year? time to dive into my January expenses and find out!

November was a regular month in terms of income and expenses. That doesn’t mean nothing happened though…

October came and went without any major events. The only real change was me being on-call for 3 weeks helping increase my income for the month by about 250 EUR net. Other than that, well…

September had some interesting events that are nicely reflected in my September expenses overview. Besides rent, and groceries that were normal this month, I had two other major expenses.

August was a bit more expensive than expected. Mainly because the summer sales got moved to this month. I tried my best not to fall for the tricks they try to apply every year and I think I succeeded very well. But even then, I did buy a few things I needed. One of which was pretty expensive. I also continued with the investment in my blog.

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. So how did I do? Have a look at my monthly review!

After a thrilling May, June was a lot less crazy. That is not to say nothing happened. 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. I received 4,674.86 EUR and spend less of it. What did I spend? Have a look at my monthly review!

May was a rollercoaster in terms of emotions. I had to process the loss of my grandma in the midst of a pandement. At the same time I felt my heart skip a beat as I received the benefit of her dedication to saving money and preparing ahead. She foresaw a life insurance for her grandchildren which resulted in receiving over 27,000 EUR. Thanks to this small windfall I was able to reach a record breaking Savings Rate of 93%.

April was a month full of adjustment and preparation for May. This resulted in another lesser month for my Savings Rate, at least compared to older ones. When it comes to expenses I had to make one big one that impacted my overall SR severely. The coronavirus crisis changed things but not drastically.

March was an excellent month from a Savings point of view. My Savings Rate skyrocketed thanks to a tax deduction of a solid 16,000 EUR. When it comes to expenses I was able to keep it relatively low. at least relative to the high income I received this month. This should allow me to keep my expenses low in April as well, though time will tell. The coronavirus crisis could change things. It already did when I invested a first 7.5k EUR at the beginning of March.

February was alright. The first week was my last week in my fiance’s home country which ended up costing me a bit more than expected. On the income side I only had my main job as I haven’t started my flexi-job yet. At least the end result isn’t as low as January.

2020 starts off with a bang. I came from Istanbul and on the 24th I visited my GF’s home-country. I did a lot of traveling in January so of course my SR is very low.

Thanks to a good income and expenses that are spread across two months (some expenses were made in February) I was able to stay in positive territory.

The third month of living together and things are settling down. Unfortunately I still had to swallow a big housing cost.

My income is was normal. Nothing new so I earned 2823 EUR.

My expenses were more stable besides some unforeseen expense related to housing, a 245 EUR unforeseen cost.

As you could have read in my most recent post about moving around and in into my rental apartment 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%.

My income is ok. Nothing new so I earned 2901.99 EUR.

On the expense side of things I kept it relatively decent but it’s still not close to 70%. As you can see in the overview, I lost 58 EUR on a traffic fine. Food cost a good 355.71 EUR and this is including the 50 EUR my girlfriend transferred for her part of the food (we agreed to 50/150). Under housing I have the rent but also still some extra’s for our home. This cost me 417.01 EUR.

Finally, I spend 293.37 EUR mainly on holidays. This is the hotel for our new years celebration in Turkey.

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).

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).