Editor: Crass Cash
Well I screwed the pooch this month. I was only able to save 63% of my after tax income. :-(
While saving 63% of your after tax income is normally extraordinary, it doesn't hold up to my BHAG of saving at least 70% and preferably 75% each month. If you don't think this is a big deal, then by me only saving 63% versus say 73% a person would have to work an extra 7 years to make up the difference! That's way too much of a trade off!
Here's the income and expense breakdown for March...
Income
Real Estate: 33.38%
Salary related: 61.02%
Investments: 5.59%
Expenses
Food: 5.44%
Transportation: 5.04%
Charity: 3.52%
Tv/Internet: 3%
Dog: 8.17%
Insurance: 8.87%
Home: 6.74%
Clothes: 0.56%
Mortgage: 23.95%
Gas: 7.06%
Personal: 0.36%
Eating out: 3.23%
General Exp.: 1.45%
Phone: 3.12%
Utilities: 4.05%
Medical: 2.11%
Travel: 13.32%
Income for the month of March was quite normal. But my expenses were definitely too high. Some abnormal things happened. My dog for one had to do his 6 month check up, along with over $100 Trifexus medication, so that's why the category is so high. I also added a new account for travel because I'm going to be going to Omaha in May for the Berkshire annual meeting. I also renewed and upgraded my insurance to include an umbrella policy for the rentals and my personal home. This got co-mingled into my car insurance which also renewed the middle of this month.
The mortgage is still something that jumps out at me EVERY FUCKING MONTH! If my mortgage was paid off and I didn't have to work, I think I could live for at least $10,000 less per year than what I currently do. Of course this still doesn't explain the difference between last month and this one. Those costs are fairly constant. When you spend very little money, small differences can have a dramatic effect on your expense ratios.
For March, the BHAG was blown simply because of the vet bill and the plane ticket. If it weren't for those two things I would have made my numbers. If I didn't have my mortgage, the vet bill, and the plane ticket I could have saved at least 80% of after tax income. This is quite an incredible number! I would be reaching into the frugal ranks of bloggers like Jacob Fisker and Mr. Money Mustache. But in the end this didn't happen, so sigh...
I'm still not sure how to conquer the mortgage problem. On the one hand I'd love to pay it off, but on the other there's other areas where I know I could make a higher return with that money. Until I come up with a Newtonian thought revolution I have no choice, but to just keep plugging away at it. If I pay it down by only another $89k, then I get absolutely no tax benefit. If I threw everything at it, plus the kitchen sink, I could probably get it paid off in 4-5 years. But it's not really prudent to do until it gets below say $144,000 at which point the tax benefit is moot. If anybody has any suggestions please let me know. Until next month!
While saving 63% of your after tax income is normally extraordinary, it doesn't hold up to my BHAG of saving at least 70% and preferably 75% each month. If you don't think this is a big deal, then by me only saving 63% versus say 73% a person would have to work an extra 7 years to make up the difference! That's way too much of a trade off!
Here's the income and expense breakdown for March...
Income
Real Estate: 33.38%
Salary related: 61.02%
Investments: 5.59%
Expenses
Food: 5.44%
Transportation: 5.04%
Charity: 3.52%
Tv/Internet: 3%
Dog: 8.17%
Insurance: 8.87%
Home: 6.74%
Clothes: 0.56%
Mortgage: 23.95%
Gas: 7.06%
Personal: 0.36%
Eating out: 3.23%
General Exp.: 1.45%
Phone: 3.12%
Utilities: 4.05%
Medical: 2.11%
Travel: 13.32%
Income for the month of March was quite normal. But my expenses were definitely too high. Some abnormal things happened. My dog for one had to do his 6 month check up, along with over $100 Trifexus medication, so that's why the category is so high. I also added a new account for travel because I'm going to be going to Omaha in May for the Berkshire annual meeting. I also renewed and upgraded my insurance to include an umbrella policy for the rentals and my personal home. This got co-mingled into my car insurance which also renewed the middle of this month.
The mortgage is still something that jumps out at me EVERY FUCKING MONTH! If my mortgage was paid off and I didn't have to work, I think I could live for at least $10,000 less per year than what I currently do. Of course this still doesn't explain the difference between last month and this one. Those costs are fairly constant. When you spend very little money, small differences can have a dramatic effect on your expense ratios.
For March, the BHAG was blown simply because of the vet bill and the plane ticket. If it weren't for those two things I would have made my numbers. If I didn't have my mortgage, the vet bill, and the plane ticket I could have saved at least 80% of after tax income. This is quite an incredible number! I would be reaching into the frugal ranks of bloggers like Jacob Fisker and Mr. Money Mustache. But in the end this didn't happen, so sigh...
I'm still not sure how to conquer the mortgage problem. On the one hand I'd love to pay it off, but on the other there's other areas where I know I could make a higher return with that money. Until I come up with a Newtonian thought revolution I have no choice, but to just keep plugging away at it. If I pay it down by only another $89k, then I get absolutely no tax benefit. If I threw everything at it, plus the kitchen sink, I could probably get it paid off in 4-5 years. But it's not really prudent to do until it gets below say $144,000 at which point the tax benefit is moot. If anybody has any suggestions please let me know. Until next month!
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