With my monthly income somewhere around 2.5K and my fixed charges (rent, utilities, insurance) being less than 600 euro’s monthly my savings rate is extraordinary since the beginning of this month. Including some money for groceries, fuel and even a fun thing here and there I’m up and running 60%. Whooha!
Did I mention I didn’t even include my vacation allowance and end-year bonus within this net income? So truly, vacations and other stuff aren’t even influencing my SR here.
Pretty neat, but the challenge for now truly is not spending more. As you’ve read, my spending while moving was quite a lot. Of course this made my living place cozy and neat, but for now I’ll have to stay put for at least a year before even breaking even here.
For now, my options in saving more are pretty much exhausted. There are a couple of options:
* Sell all my music stuff (saves space and frees up about 3 to 4K in cash but will end my hobby as well). Not quite worth it for now. Maybe if I’d ever go into a real Tiny House. For now it won’t save me anything monthly so as far as I’m concerned this is a no-go.
* Sell my car (saves around 130 or another 5% net monthly). As I’ve calculated before, I’d be spending more money and a lot more time on and in public transportation which will reduce these savings by almost 100% to zero. With my significant other living in a place hard to get to by public transportation and me still in need of transport when I’m making music I doubt this is going to be a go anytime soon.
* Be sharp on insurance. I’ve still got a funeral insurance policy for 160 euro yearly. As soon as I reach a personal safe net worth somewhere at (funeral insurance x 2) I’ll let it go. Meanwhile I’ll be looking around to get a cheaper option there, life insurance would be an option. Some first calculations there revealed that I could insure myself for 137 years (?) for the same amount of money I would need to keep paying the funeral policy (it’s free after age 65). I know there are “free” options here too (the state paying my funeral), but my gut feeling tells me my relatives would pay for it then since a state funeral comes as it is without any choice there. I definitely don’t want my relatives paying for my funeral due to my financial choices I made while still alive. Other insurances are more or less as cheap/best-for-the-money as far as I’m into them. I must say it’s a burden to sort these things out but it could always save a couple of euro’s here and there.
* Spend less on eating out and groceries. Ok, confession here, I’m not really keeping my budget here this year. We don’t eat out that much (most of the diners out where some kind of social thing this year which I didn’t want to miss). I was pretty cost-concerned with my groceries when still paying of my loan but since then this kind of slipped away again. I’m considering going with the rice-and-beans-and-lentil-soup menu for a month and see what this would do. Truth is, I think going to the A-brand supermarket (Appie! Should buy Ahold stocks I guess!) means spending more than going to a cheaper supermarket. Also, I’m more or less going to the supermarket whenever I need to cook. When I went on my own, at first I went grocery shopping once a week, but that meant spending more or less as much as I’m spending now and I’d have to make up what I was going to eat for the rest of the week. That meant having to throw away stuff pretty often and not being into my menu when the day came I had to eat something. I don’t know, maybe it’s just laziness there.
* No more home improvement. Ok, done for now, but it truly was quite costly.
* No more miscellaneous spending on fun things. I guess this is the part where I’m a bit too spend-hørny. I’ve bought some studio gear and microphones since I’m planning on recording a bit more with friends. It didn’t really happen yet since I’ve moved, but I do have a bit more room to use as a studio so I’m curious where this will end. On the other hand, if there won’t be a lot of recording in the end and I’m going to get rid of all the stuff, it will be worth somewhere around the euro’s I’ve paid for it (since it’s all second-handed and in mint condition). Anyway. I do have to be a bit more considerate here.
* Gifts. I tend to spend twice my budget on gifts last two years. Of course, both my brothers getting married and becoming lucky parents do have their influence here and to be honest, with me having a pretty nice balance sheet shouldn’t make me a misery Scrooge.
The thing I do notice is that I’m shoving money around various accounts (two bank accounts and a credit card) to find an optimum between a reserve and interest rates. The trouble here is by being able to access these funds, I’m also being able to spend it. With money invested, though, I’m not touching it but just leave it where it is (whilst still having the idea I did “spend it wisely”). I think the solution is to just keep dumping lump sums of the 60% SR directly into my investment account and buying stocks and hope my money will work a bit for me.
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