April 2018 – Financial Update

It has been over a month since baby arrived, and I’m slowly getting a handle on things… Attempting to get some sort of order and schedule to my days.  So, even though it’s nearing 3 weeks late, I’ll post my financial goals update for April.

Goal #1 – Emergency Fund

Human Emergency Fund: $0

Pet Emergency Fund: $4290 (+$125)

I’m sure that this doesn’t come as a surprise, but the human emergency fund didn’t get any increases this month… unfortunately, I sort of see that being a trend for the next few months.  I did contribute to the pet emergency fund a little, because I knew there would be pet expenses this month (vet appointments were scheduled), but hopefully we can save some pet expenses now that I am off work, since we don’t need to take the pooch to doggy daycare while we are at work anymore…

Goal #2 – Maternity Leave Fund

Another thing that will likely not come as a surprise is that rather than adding to this fund, we actually took from it for various baby related expenses this month… And since I’m on maternity leave now, we won’t be adding to this fund any more either… So… This goal is no more… and it was definitely not a success.  Ah well, we will survive somehow, and I’ll just go back to work when we need it.

Goal #3 – Monthly Spending

This was a two part goal… the first was to review 2 budget categories each month to see how we could decrease our spending… the second was to keep each month below the average of the same month the 2 years previous…

1. I once again did not review any budget categories in March… Was a little side-tracked… But I still want to do this, so it will be on the list for the future… Though to be honest, I don’t think I’ll get to it in April either…
2. March spending has been low for the past couple years because March seems to be the month we go on extended vacations (one year was our honeymoon, the other was spring break in Hawaii), and travel spending comes out of our planned spending categories, rather than the regular spending categories.
   March 2016 total spending was about $5600.
   March 2017 total spending was about $6800.
   The average of those two would give me $6200.
   So what was March 2018’s total spending?  About $6220.
   Crazy, eh?!?  It was totally bang on!  And we didn’t even go anywhere on vacation!  Of course, some of the big expenses were made from the baby fund, and we were gifted lots of food when baby arrived, so we probably did better because of that.

Goal #4 – Save for California Road Trip

So the budget is set for this trip at $5400.  I haven’t actually made up a plan for saving that money yet, but we did have to fork out about $750 already for our accommodation at the wedding location.  And that’s for only 3 nights… Yikes!  That leaves us with $1350 for the remaining 11 nights.  I’m happy that I put that category a little higher than required for exclusively campsite accommodations.

So, with that part paid for already, we only have $4650 left to save in the next 5 months.  $930 per month.  Not sure where that will come from… I guess I better get to work on the first part of goal #3 and see where I can squeeze out some money.

Goal #5 – Maintain Net Worth

By some magical fluke, our net worth has gone up slightly since last month… I won’t go in to too much detail, because the only difference is an increase in cash savings, everything else is pretty much the same…

How did your finances fair in March?