June 2018 – Financial Update

Well… that month just flew by… And now it’s time for another update on my financial goals:

Goal #1 – Emergency Fund

Human Emergency Fund: $0

Pet Emergency Fund: $1570 (- $2720)

Big decrease in the pet emergency fund this month… Some of it was used to get a lump removed from Bentley’s paw, and regular pet expenses… But then a large portion of it was borrowed to fund other expenses, like upgrading some of my husband’s work equipment.  Those expenses I have put under our “planned spending” account that is labeled “husband’s education fund”… So they don’t fall in to our regular monthly expenses… 

Goal #2 – Maternity Leave Fund

As I mentioned back in April, this goal did not get completed, but I’m on maternity leave now, so the deadline has come and gone.  No point updating you on this goal anymore.

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. This part of the goal has been sadly neglected… But… I have a draft post started where I just sit down and go over all the categories at once… So hopefully I can get that finished up and published pretty quick here… Then I can call this part of the goal completed…
2. As I mentioned already, a couple of our bigger expenses fell under the “planned spending” categories, which I don’t include in this analysis, so we might be cheating, but it’s my goal, so I can play by my own rules… Let’s take a look at the last couple years:
   May 2016 total spending was about $7400.
   May 2017 total spending was about $8900.
   The average of those two would give me $8150.
   So what was May 2018’s total spending?  Just under $8000.  We did it!  Of course… That’s really just because last year’s May spending was so high, but I’ll take the success!

Goal #4 – Save for California Road Trip

The total budget for our California road trip is set at $5400.  We have already spent $750 on some accommodation.  In April, we allocated $150 for this trip, but since then we have spent some money on other travels, so we had to take from the travel fund…  But… We allocated $200 more for the travel fund… So we are headed back in the right direction, but we still have $4450 left to save…

Goal #5 – Maintain Net Worth

Surprisingly, we managed to maintain the same net worth as last month, but with our tax returns coming in last month, I feel like that was the only saving grace… I feel like we will see more decreases in the next few months…

How did your finances fair in May?

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