Happy Spring, you frugalistas, you ridinkuloids, you loveable cheapskates! How was your winter? Was it as all over-the-map as ours?
We put in an offer on another rental property at the beginning of January. I realize now that I never even wrote about that! Then we promptly left for Turks & Caicos for a week and a half. It wasn’t long after we returned that I left again, by myself, for Norway for four nights! More on that some other time, too. Immediately after that, we closed on said rental property.
Then we spent all of March getting it ready to rent out. Painting rooms, having hot water heaters replaced, electrical work done, replacing lighting fixtures and showerheads, etc. This quarter also had its incredibly dark times for reasons I will get into at another time. So despite the vacations, this quarter has been a tough one. How did we do financially?
Remember, these expenses do not include anything related to our rental properties. Those can be found on our rental income statements, like this! Below are just our personal expenses.
Total Expenses: $14,232.81
Avg Per Month: $4,744.25
Without Debt Payments Total Expenses: $10,949.07
Avg Per Month: $3,649.69
Savings Rate: 46%
Summary
| Quarterly Total | Monthly Average | |
| Serious Stuff | $6,172.07 | $2,057.33 |
| Food | $2,147.59 | $715.86 |
| Transportation | $528.25 | $176.08 |
| Utilities | $887.37 | $295.79 |
| Fun Stuff | $2,499.54 | $833.18 |
| Pets | $508.89 | $169.63 |
| Miscellaneous | $1,489.10 | $496.37 |
Overall, we did pretty well! We’ve been spending about $3,000 per month (not included debt payments) for the last three years. Compared to the first quarter of last year, with its usual home insurance and property tax payments, we came in about $400 less this time. Our savings rate is also up compared to this quarter last year.
Bryggen!
Details
Serious Stuff :
| Quarterly Total | Monthly Average | |
| Mortgage | $3,283.74 | $1,094.58 |
| Home Insurance | $1,000.00 | N/A |
| Property Taxes | $1,819.63 | N/A |
| Medical | $34.00 | $11.33 |
| Home Maintenance – DIY | $34.70 | $11.57 |
| Total Serious Stuff | $6,172.07 | $2,057.33 |
We made $1,200 in extra mortgage payments in January. Extra mortgage payments will probably end for a while now that we have another rental property and have to replenish our emergency savings. The home insurance bill covers the entire year, and the property taxes cover our city and county taxes for the year, but not our school taxes.
Norwegian snacks!
Food:
| Quarterly Total | Monthly Average | |
| Groceries | $1,385.57 | $461.86 |
| Wine & Beer | $191.00 | $63.67 |
| Dining Out | $402.45 | $134.15 |
| Takeout Food | $168.57 | $56.19 |
| Total Food | $2,147.59 | $715.86 |
We spent a pretty penny dining out this quarter, seeing as how we were in Turks & Caicos and eating out is what you do on vacation. We tried to keep our food expenses low by mostly cooking, but even grocery store prices were high (as reflected in our grocery bill)
In Bergen, I fell in love with some Norwegian food. All the cod! There’s a canned liver paste called Leverpostei I would make into sandwiches with blue cheese and dill on spelt bread. Pickled herring. Maybe I was meant to be Scandinavian. Hiking up a mountain and then eating all this stinky old man food is super appealing to me. And the Nugatti. Oh the Nugatti!
The Wine & Beer section includes bottles of wine brought to parties, but is actually mostly equipment for my homebrew set up. I have only made hard cider with it, and I will have to cover the costs of homebrewing at another time. And let’s not forget that March was my birthday month! As our birthday gift to each other, Marge and I get to request any cake no matter how complex. This year I asked for a ten layer Smith Island cake, and she delivered!
Transportation on Middle Caicos
Transportation:
| Quarterly Total | Month Average | |
| Auto Maintenance/Other | $145.50 | $48.50 |
| Gas | $277.75 | $92.58 |
| Parking | $5.00 | $1.67 |
| Bus Tickets | $100.00 | $33.33 |
| Total Transportation | $528.25 | $176.08 |
Pretty standard transportation cost this quarter. We always tend to spend a little less than $100 a month on gas, and about $35 a month on bus tickets. No car insurance payment this quarter, but there was my license renewal, AAA membership, and some tolls.
Utilities:
| Quarterly Total | Monthly Average | |
| Cable | $134.97 | $44.99 |
| Electric | $197.20 | $65.73 |
| Gas | $399.27 | $133.09 |
| Telephone | $68.99 | $23.00 |
| Water & Sewer | $86.94 | $28.98 |
| Total Utilities | $887.37 | $295.79 |
Another pretty standard quarter for utilities, too. Heating was up this quarter compared to winter 2017. We had that ridiculous cold spell in early January, so that is what I’m blaming it on!
Telephone costs were purely Marge’s annual bill for her Tracfone. $69 for another year of service! Speaking of phones, I have some very exciting news I will have to write about in its own post. Will I actually ever write these hypothetical posts??
Hiking near Bergen
Fun Stuff:
| Quarterly Total | Monthly Average | |
| Entertainment | $299.34 | $99.78 |
| Recreation | $345.66 | $115.22 |
| Travel | $1,854.54 | $618.18 |
| Total Fun Stuff | $2,499.54 | $833.18 |
In addition to our usual Hulu, Netflix, and New York Times subscriptions, our entertainment expenses included an Andrew Bird concert, a few movies in the theater (I, Tonya and The Disaster Artist), and the new Go Team album. As a birthday present to myself, I picked up a few records at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, including this Moog Christmas album!
For recreation, we made our annual camping reservation for the Thousand Islands. That will be Labor Day weekend in September. That sizable travel expense is mostly our rental on Cape Cod for Memorial Day, includes a $500 deposit, and we will be splitting it with another couple. It also includes all of our expensive transportation around Turks & Caicos (rental cars and taxis).
Pets:
| Quarterly Total | Monthly Average | |
| Boarding | $128.00 | $42.67 |
| Food | $148.84 | $49.61 |
| Medical | $185.01 | $61.67 |
| Other | $47.04 | $15.68 |
| Total Pet | $508.89 | $169.63 |
Surprisingly low pet expenses. We had already paid for Maeby’s boarding during our Turks trip in an earlier quarter. Medical includes a trip to the vet to check on Maeby’s leg because in her old age, she developed a limp, and we put her on arthritis medication.
Plovers on Providenciales
Miscellaneous:
| Quarterly Total | Monthly Average | |
| Cash | $90.00 | $30.00 |
| Charity | $160.00 | $53.33 |
| Clothing | $100.29 | $33.43 |
| Gifts Given | $807.68 | $269.23 |
| Home | $183.57 | $61.19 |
| Personal Care | $140.59 | $46.86 |
| Postage | $6.97 | $2.32 |
| Total Miscellaneous | $1,489.10 | $496.37 |
Another Christmas, another several hundreds of dollars spent on gifts. After last year’s frugal $408 clothing bill, we have still been keeping our closet pretty cheap.
For charitable giving through my paycheck, among other charities, this year I elected to give to Abbe-Freeland Animal Sanctuary. They take in wild animals and rehabilitate them in western New York. Blind beavers, injured bobcats, possums that have been attacked by dogs. You name it, they take care of it. Check their Facebook page out for adorable pictures of porcupines and foxes.
Our home expense includes almost $100 spent on a three year subscription to a VPN (virtual private network). This way, we can basically watch videos in other countries that are blocked in the USA. I need my Olympics and Eurovision Song Contest fixes every year, and this is really the only way to do it!
My Bergen abode
Goal Progress
Total 2018 Spending of $30,000:
- Spent so far: $10,949
- On track to spend: $43,796
As usual, on our way to spending way more than $30,000. We still need a number to shoot for!
Savings Rate of 65%:
Boo! Our method for calculating our savings rate is shown here.
Max Out 457 Plan and Roth IRAs
- Goals: $18,000 in 457 Plan / $5,500 in each Roth IRA
- Saved so far: $2,997 in 457 Plan / $210 in each Roth IRA
Because we spent all of our cash on the new rental property, I had to slow down retirement account funding and focus on rebuilding our emergency fund. It’s maybe not such a bad idea to quit investing in stocks for a bit during these days of very high equity prices. We should amp up our savings in the retirement funds by this summer and won’t have a problem maxing out this year.
Read 24 Books
Only had time to finish five books this quarter. The best (although also the most cheat-y since it was so short) was The Conch Book by Dee Carstarphen, which was just a book available at our vacation rental in North Caicos. It’s a charming book about the history and how-to of harvesting conch, with beautiful drawings and descriptions, and even recipes. Everything you need to know about conch. I also started a massive biography of Robert Oppenheimer. It’s fantastic, and after finishing 17% of it according to my Kindle, maybe one day I’ll actually finish it.
Years of Savings:
This magical calculation demonstrates how far we could get if we kept living every month like this ones listed above. We take our investable assets and divide them by our monthly expenses, without debt payments, above. The number to shoot for is 25, because at that level of savings, you could afford to live forever on your money stash. According to our monthly average expenses and our investable assets, we have…
7.5 years of savings
Retirement Location Possibility!
If we take that number of years of savings above, and divide by 25, we can figure out where in the world we could afford to retire right now by dividing another country’s cost of living price index by our own cost of living. I used Rochester, NY, for our own cost of living since it is the closest city to us on Expatistan’s index and is very comparable price-wise.
Our International Retirement Cost of Living Number is….
40
Once again, according to Expatistan’s index, that means we can retire nowhere!