April was not up to standard. I was only able to save 68% of my after tax paycheck income for all income combined. This is below my BHAG goal of being in the low 70's. Not bad when you consider I had some extraneous expenses like a big chunk for an umbrella policy that will last a year. I also had a to pay taxes. That wretched bitch that comes around not just each week, but also every April 15th! Now that I have a mortgage again where I should be able to itemize my deductions and write off my mortgage interest expense, I want to actually get money back last year. I figured that I actually paid more in sales, property, and federal taxes last year than I did for all of my basic necessities: utilities, clothes, transportation, housing, food, insurance, and phone. It gets better. Not only did I pay more, but I also paid 45% more than those costs! That's fucking crazy! So I paid 45% more to protect the stuff than that stuff actually costs.
Anyway that's enough of me ranting. Here are the numbers...
Income
Salary: 62.12%
Investments: 1.8%
Real Estate: 36.08%
Expenses
Food: 2.81%
Transportation: 7.1%
Charity: 6.97%
Entertainment: 1.94%
Insurance: 10.43%
Home: 7.64%
Mortgage: 35.2%
Gas: 6.36%
Personal: 0.82%
Eating out: 3.77%
TV/Internet: 3.73%
Phone: 3.02%
Utilities: 4.48%
Dog: 1.27%
Travel: 4.48%
As you can see insurance is unusually high because of the umbrella policy that I bought. I was however, able to lower my phone bill by $20 a month which after a year should equate to about 2 months worth of utilities saved. I'd like to reduce it by another $20 soon by changing carriers. Not to sound like a broken record, but as always my mortgage is an extreme part of my monthly expenses. Not because I have too much house (although you could certainly make that argument), but rather that my other expenses are so low. It sticks out like a sore thumb.
May should be a good month unless something bad happens. I get paid 5 times instead of 4 and I should also hopefully be able to pay off another mortgage. I've been working tirelessly to get this one done. It's become an obsession! The next one however won't be paid off for another 4 years and that's if everything goes as planned.
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