March 2017 Financial Update

Another month gone by, and so it’s time once again to check in on my financial goals for 2017.

#1 – Emergency Fund

Last month I must have jinxed myself by saying it was a good month if we didn’t use any of the emergency fund… So… This month we had to use some of the emergency fund to cover some things… So it’s a down month, but I know we will bounce back from this and move up.  The puppy got neutered this month, so his expenses were a little higher than normal.

Human Emergency Fund = $5200 (-$1100)

Pet Emergency Fund = $50 (-$50)

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My hoomans got me "fixed" yesterday… not sure that I was broken… but now I have to wear this stupid cone and I'm not allowed to run around. Boring… #coneofshame #neuteredpup #bernesemountaindog #berner #bernerpuppy #puppiesofinstagram

A post shared by Bentley The Berner (B-dawg) (@bentley_the_berner_pup) on Feb 24, 2017 at 5:11pm PST

#2 – Planned Spending

This is a bit misleading… See… We didn’t have quite enough saved in the travel fund to cover the rental car that we got, so some of that money from the emergency fund moved to the travel fund to cover that… But I guess because I have so much negative up in the emergency fund, I can count this as a positive here?

1. Travel #1: $850 / $3000
2. Income Tax: $0 / $400
3. More Home Renos: $0 / $35,000
4. Other Travel: $0 / $5000
5. Other Savings: $0 / $16,000

#3 – Net Worth

If you read my initial post about my financial goals for 2017, you know that the goal is to actually decrease our savings because we are spending a big chunk on our home renovations.  But… it appears our net worth went up this month… Thanks I think to our investments (RRSP, TFSA & taxable).  Our cash went down as we spent some on home renovation supplies… But that’s the direction we want to go!

#4 – Monthly Spending below $8000

Another nope this month… It’s actually kind of crazy how close we came to January’s spending number… February’s total was $9050.  Which is $1050 over the goal of $8000.

So, what were the big ones this month?  The big one was our annual home insurance renewal (that’s the orange category).  We increased the coverage a bit to take in to account our renovations, so the amount that we had saved in that category wasn’t quite enough to cover it (so we borrowed from the emergency fund).  We also had a pretty high electricity bill this quarter because of the strangely cold (for our area of the country) winter that we’ve had.  And then, as I’ve already mentioned, the pup got neutered, so we had some extra vet bills this month.  Oh, and we had a small plumbing issue that we had to call in a plumber to fix (my skills are not that good)… But I suppose that’s what an emergency fund is for… Right?

But, interestingly enough, most of the regular spending categories were about the same as for January.  If we continue to be consistent with those, I will hopefully be able to find some patterns and be able to decrease some spending categories… We will see…

I guess my plan for a motivation filled February didn’t quite come to fruition, maybe March will be better?

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