August 2017 – Financial Update

I’ve been neglecting the blogging world lately, but since my financial update posts are always the easiest to write, I figure I can pop in today and do this update, even if I haven’t got any other content going at the moment… so here we go… another quick update on my financial goals for 2017.

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July 2017 Financial Update

Happy Canada Day to my Canadian friends, and Happy Independence Day to my American neighbours.  Canada Day always indicated the beginning of summer to me growing up, and while I don’t have summers off anymore, I do feel like it’s the start of all the fun summer activities, like camping and swimming in the lake.  And in terms of the blog here, it means that another month has passed and it is once again time to do a quick update on my financial goals for 2017.

June Financial Update

One of the amazing views from a recent work trip.

Another month has passed again… So it is once again time to do a quick update on my financial goals for 2017.  I will admit now that I didn’t actually do this exactly at month end, so my values might be a little off… No big deal.

#1 – Emergency Fund

A good month for the emergency funds…  The first stage of the human fund is done, so now to concentrate on the pet fund a bit, before trying for the second stage of the human fund…

Human Emergency Fund = $10,000 (+$3260)

Pet Emergency Fund = $2230 (+$905)

April & May 2017 Financial Update

I’m still working on catching up on life… But I figured I couldn’t go two months without doing an update on my financial goals for 2017…

(Want to know a random fact? Last year I missed my April financial update too! Crazy, eh?)

So… Let’s get started…

#1 – Emergency Fund

If I’d done this update at the beginning of April, instead of the beginning of May, I’m sure the status of these funds would be a different story, but because I worked loads of overtime in April, we had a big extra to add to our savings goals, so both of my emergency funds are on the way up.  If I’m being completely honest, my “pet emergency fund” is also where I take money for buying pet food and routine vet visits, so there is a possibility that it will go down before the month is up, but hopefully we will keep up the months where we contribute more than we take out…

Human Emergency Fund = $6740 (+$1540)

Pet Emergency Fund = $1325 (+$1275)

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)

February 2017 Financial Update

I set some pretty challenging financial goals for 2017, and it’s time to do the 1 month check-in.  This will be really short and sweet because I don’t really have much to report…

#1 – Emergency Fund

Not much progress on this one, but if we don’t use any of the emergency fund money, that’s sort of a win in itself, right?

Human Emergency Fund = $6300 (+$100)

Pet Emergency Fund = $100 (+$100)

2016 in Review: Financial Goals

At the beginning of 2016 I laid out 4 financial goals for 2016:
(I will label them 1 to 4 here, but they were actually goals 3 to 6 for 2016.  You can see a review of the rest of my goals for 2016 here and here…)

1. Emergency Fund at $10,000
2. Save for Planned Spending
3. Net Worth & Retirement Savings
4. Mortgage Renewal & Account Consolidation

And, though I didn’t give if an official goal, I also had the goal of keeping our monthly spending under the monthly average of 2015.  So, for the purpose of this review, we will give that the number 5.

5. Keep Monthly Spending Under $7700

I’ve reviewed them often enough throughout the year in my monthly financial updates, but here’s the year-end final review.

December 2016 Financial Update

Here it is, the last month of 2016.  I can’t believe how fast time flies by… Does that make me sound old?  I feel old.  Ha ha ha!  In any case, it is time to do the last financial update before the new year.  This is the last month for me to get all my financial goals completed… Fingers crossed, right?

November Spending

The goal is to be below the average from last year of $7700, but November came in at $8800… We are over again… But all hope is not lost… Because of the low spending months at the beginning of the year, if we keep December spending under $5700 we could average about the same over the year… Of course, everyone knows that December is the spendy-est month of the year, so I’m not exactly expecting success on this front.  Anyway…  This total includes our mortgage, utilities and normal monthly costs, but doesn’t count special spending that we saved up for (planned spending as I call it).

We once again had some extra mortgage expenses that I wasn’t totally expecting because I didn’t really take a good look at the dates…  We took both the dog and one of the cats to the vet this month, so that was a bit of a bigger expense, and we also got life insurance on both myself and my husband now, so we started the monthly payments on that this month.  (Hmmm… Should I do a post about our life insurance?)  And another reason for the higher expenses is that we started buying Christmas gifts and we sent some gifts to family overseas.

Last year, November was another very frugal month for us (lowest month in 2015!).  We came in just over $6000.  But as I mentioned in the last update, I was away for work for a lot of October and November last year, so I am not sure that it is truly representative of our lifestyle or just a fluke…

And now for a quick recap of my finance-related goals for 2016:

November 2016 Financial Update

October was a crazy month… Lots going on and so it flew by while I struggled to keep up with life… As such, the blog fell to the side and I only published a few posts.  But, here we are in a new month, so time for another financial update.

October Spending

After successfully bringing our spending down in September, we have come back up again for October.  The goal is to be below the average from last year of $7700, but October came in at $8300… This total includes our mortgage, utilities and normal monthly costs, but didn’t count special spending that we saved up for (planned spending as I call it).

Because of the mortgage renewal process that we are finishing up right now, we had some one time expenses related to the mortgage, so that category is up a bit from normal… That of course will level out again for another 5 years of consistent payments after this month.  The other category that was crazy high was our food & drink spending.  Lots of eating out… Bad us!  Hopefully we can bring November down because you know December is always an expensive month.

October 2016 Financial Update

So… Have you missed me?  I can’t believe that it has been a full three weeks since my last post.  Sorry about that!  I had a bunch of drafts started to post while I went away to my friend’s wedding, but then prep for that got busy, and so all the blog plans went out the window… And of course, the moment we got home from that, both my husband and I came down with what we are nicknaming the “death cold”.  Today is the first day that I have even attempted to be human (not just a lump on the couch).  So, it’s a bit late, but here’s my financial update for the beginning of October.

September Spending

With all the wedding travel expenses coming out of our planned spending accounts, September managed to be a better month in terms of regular spending.  We came in just under the goal of $7700 (the average of last year).  This includes our mortgage, utilities and normal monthly costs, but didn’t count special spending that we saved up for (planned spending as I call it).