Who’s been a bad blogger? Me! Me!
This is the first time my quarterly expense report has been late. I’ve always delivered on the first day following the end of the quarter, and here it is, weeks late. For that I am truly sorry and I shall commit personal finance seppuku to demonstrate my sorrow.
Total Expenses: $9,279.65
Avg Per Month: $3,093.22
Without Debt PaymentsTotal Expenses: $6,860.45
Avg Per Month: $2,286.82
Savings Rate: 62.8%
Summary
| Quarterly Total | Monthly Average | |
| Serious Stuff | $3,197.95 | $1,065.98 |
| Food | $2,227.65 | $742.55 |
| Transportation | $2,631.71 | $877.24 |
| Utilities | $535.33 | $178.44 |
| Fun Stuff | ($654.63) | ($218.21) |
| Pets | $167.16 | $55.72 |
| Miscellaneous | $1,174.48 | $391.49 |
Upon first glance, we had a great quarter! Since I started this blog, I think this counts as the second most frugal quarter on record.
But on closer inspection, you can see it’s a weird fluke. See, I had planned a 2019 trip to Bergen, Norway much like my 2018 trip. It was going to be in April, but since the plane I was taking kept crashing, they cancelled the flight. Instead of taking a much less convenient flight, I just got a refund, and I had to cancel and get refunds for my AirB&B accommodations. I also got a refund for the nights we had booked through HotelQuickly in Malaysia (HQ went out of business). So all the refunds hit this quarter, turning our “Fun Stuff” expense negative! So expenses seem a little low artificially.
Serious Stuff:
| Quarterly Total | Monthly Average | |
| Mortgage | $2,083.74 | $694.58 |
| Home Maintenance – DIY | $66.00 | $22.00 |
| Insurance | $1,048.21 | $349.40 |
Normal mortgage payments. Annual home insurance cost. The Home Maintenance expense is one of those numeric deadbolt locks I wanted to try out. We put it on the backdoor and it’s been super handy. No need to take the house keys anymore!
Cape Cod pizza
Food:
| Quarterly Total | Monthly Average | |
| Groceries | $1,390.30 | $463.43 |
| Wine & Beer | $52.87 | $17.62 |
| Dining Out | $577.63 | $192.54 |
| Takeout Food | $206.85 | $68.95 |
| Total Food | $2,227.65 | $742.55 |
Grocery expense was a bit more reasonable this quarter. But once again, dining out was way out of line. Oh well! We went to Philadelphia and I did get to have one of my all-time favorite meals: the hot pastrami sandwich at Famous 4th Street Deli. I did get to have fried seafood on Cape Cod. I did treat my mom out for her birthday. And I had some of my favorite Moroccan food. So whatever.
We biked down there anyway. Police didn’t catch us.
Transportation:
| Quarterly Expense | Monthly Average | |
| Auto Maintenance / Tolls/Registration | $1,025.39 | $341.80 |
| Gas | $289.18 | $96.39 |
| Insurance | $1,177.14 | $392.38 |
| Auto Loan | $335.46 | $111.82 |
| Bus Tickets | $140.00 | $46.67 |
| Total Transportation | $2,631.71 | $877.24 |
Did I mention I got a new car? My trusty old 2005 Honda Civic had been giving me more and more problems, so it was time to say goodbye. I donated it to our local PBS station through the usual auto donation process. I figured that should allay my guilt about watching PBS and never donating for a lifetime. The car sold for $600 at auction.
My “new” car is a 2016 Subaru Crosstrek. The expense hasn’t hit here yet. I (gasp) took out a loan. Did I really want to be out $19,000 immediately? Not really. I will pay it off soon. Compared to a compact sedan with crank windows and manual locks, any modern vehicle would seem like an upgrade, but this Crosstrek really is something else.
I wasn’t really pay attention when I bought it. I hate car shopping. I just knew what I wanted based on online research, took it for a test drive, and that was good enough. It wasn’t until I brought it home that I realized it has all these goodies: Sunroof, a 2 inch hitch on the back, tinted windows, heated seats, a roof rack… It seemed so luxurious that I had a touch of impostor syndrome driving it for the first few weeks, like it must belong to someone else. I take the bus to work, so it won’t get many miles on it, but should serve as a great “utility” vehicle.
Utilities:
| Quarterly Total | Monthly Average | |
| Cable | $99.98 | $33.33 |
| Electric | $132.73 | $44.24 |
| Gas | $194.22 | $64.74 |
| Cell Phones | $20.00 | $6.67 |
| Water & Sewer | $88.40 | $29.47 |
| Total Utilities | $535.33 | $178.44 |
All pretty par for the course on utilities. The only difference was back in January, we had a cable outtage in our neighborhood for a week, we went on vacation, and somehow our cable never got fixed. So that was a pain to deal with when we got back, but we got a month free for the trouble.
Fun Stuff:
| Quarterly Total | Monthly Average | |
| Entertainment | $198.78 | $66.26 |
| Recreation | $403.58 | $134.53 |
| Travel | ($1,256.99) | ($419.00) |
| Total Fun Stuff | ($654.63) | ($218.21) |
There are the aforementioned hotel and airfare refunds. Marge spent a lot on dance classes, and she is current choreographing her second dance. Entertainment includes things like Netflix, Hulu, the New York Times and New York Magazine digital subscriptions. Plus albums by Boards of Canada and Nathan Salsburg. I was looking for more instrumental music to read to.
This person was lying like this for a while, but was actually fine.
Pets:
| Quarterly Total | Monthly Average | |
| Boarding | $19.44 | $6.48 |
| Food | $104.84 | $34.95 |
| Other | $19.23 | $6.41 |
| Total Pet | $167.16 | $55.72 |
Boy, pet expense took a dive since Maeby died, but these two rabbits sure do eat a lot.
Miscellaneous:
| Quarterly Total | Monthly Average | |
| Cash (Untracked) | $40.00 | $13.33 |
| Charity | $202.16 | $67.39 |
| Clothing | $415.45 | $138.48 |
| Gifts | $35.83 | $11.94 |
| Home | $354.03 | $118.01 |
| Personal Care | $92.71 | $30.90 |
| Postage & Delivery | $34.30 | $11.43 |
| Total Miscellaneous | $1,174.48 | $391.49 |
As for clothing, Marge is having to buy a bridemaid’s dress for a wedding next year, in Ireland no less. And I fulfilled my dream of having a custom shirt that says “Adidums.” Whoever gets that reference gets a cookie.
Home weirdly includes about $100 in Amazon gift cards to myself (I had to meet a minimum spending requirement).
Goal Progress
Total 2019 Non-Debt Spending of $30,000:
- Spent so far this year: $18,001
- On track to spend: 36,002
On par for our usual spending, and exceeding that $30k goal as always, but it’s good to have something to shoot for!
Savings Rate of 65%:
- Savings Rate this quarter: 62.8%
- Savings Rate this year so far: 54.7%
Doing pretty good on the savings rate. We probably won’t make 65% in the end, but we never do. Again, something to shoot for!
Max Out 457 Plan and Roth IRAs
- Goals: $18,000 in 457 Plan / $6,000 in each Roth IRA
- Saved so far: $5,454 in 457 Plan / $6,000 in each Roth IRA
My mom was very generous for my birthday this year, and for my brother’s graduation as well. We both got a rather stunning check since my parents claim they are “all set” and don’t need so much money anymore, what with pensions and annuities. As part of the personal finance community, I know it’s good to know how much you need to live on, but still… Because of the gift, Marge and I were able to max out our Roth contributions for the year. At the same time, we are looking at repairing our front porch and/or buying a new home, so we dropped our 457 and 401(k) contributions to zero and are plowing everything into the money market mutual fund until further notice.
Contribute to Marge’s 401(k)
- Goal: $10,000
- Saved so far: $3,965
See above. Saving to porch/house means we are putting off further retirement contributions until later this year.
Some books this quarter
Read 24 Books
Made good progress on reading. I read some stupid books I’m not even going to tell you about. But Factfulness might be the most important book I read. (Seriously, everyone should read it, or at least take the quiz it’s based around) But the ones I’d really recommend are Kon-Tiki, the classic by Thor Heyerdahl about this trip across the Pacific Ocean on a balsa raft, and The Feather Thief, a bizarro true story about a dead bird heist.
Years of Savings
This calculation demonstrates how far we could get if we kept living every month like this ones listed above. The number to shoot for is 25, because at that level of savings, you could afford to live forever on your money stash. This quarter is a bit of an outlier because of all of those refunds, but according to our monthly average non-debt expenses and our investable assets, we have…
15.5 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 averaged Buffalo and Hartford for our own cost of living since those are the closest to us on Expatistan’s index.
Our International Retirement Cost of Living Number is….
96
According to Expatistan’s index, that means we can retire in…
Cape Town, South Africa
Again, this isn’t realistic since those refunds applied to expenses in other quarters, but I can still dream of maybe getting to see one of my favorite bands, John Wizards.