Since I didn’t post a for December (not a great month, financially-speaking), I’m getting back on the bandwagon of monthly recaps in my efforts to achieve FIRE! Here are the stats for January 2019 FIRE – Month 4. Eventually I want to get to a point where I can accurately predict when I can be FI. That said, until I get expenses completely under control, Hubs on board, and a clear, shared direction for the future, I don’t feel comfortable saying I can be FI in X number of years. That will be a goal for end of 2019.
Stats for January
Here are some fun stats!
Saved: $560. Not much, but will go up in February. We decided to hit the debt hard and savings are suffering because of it.
Extra Income from Side Hustles: $35 from sales of stuff from my de-cluttering mission. Womp, womp. Kinda sad. A priority to increase this for February.
Debt Repayment: We paid $1992 towards debt. Best month yet in terms of debt repayment! February will be even better since we got a rebate cheque back from our home heating upgrades (heat pumps + attic insulation). The cheque alone is $1945!!!
Expense report for January
Total January Spending: $6352!! About $600 more than November. Which makes me sad. BUT there were good reasons like “car repair mania”, and “required furniture for my sanity”, and vacation down payments. Sigh. Ok gotta up the income/lower the expenses for February…Here’s the breakdown for those of you interested in costs related to living in a small Canadian city:
- Mortgage+Property Tax: $1408
- Home Insurance: STILL $185…I need to challenge this soon. My renewal isn’t until August.
- Power: $256. My equalized billing payment went up by $6 a month in December. 🙁 I think it’s because Canada is becoming a perma-polar vortex from October-March…
- Water+Sewer: $221. This is a lot more than I used to pay in the nearby city…that said we live in an awesome suburb and I feel like it’s worth it. Still could look at ways to reduce our water usage.
- TV, Home Phone, Internet: $212. This will go down to below $150 in February/March. WOOHOO!
- Furniture: $244. In my basement there have been several boxes of CDs sitting in an ugly fashion since I moved in two years ago. Hubs is a big-time collector. We finally bought shelving to house the remaining CDs. Unfortunately they are from IKEA and STILL need to be assembled…some day, my basement won’t look junky!
- Home Supplies: $5. Storage boxes for under the sink. Did this in a de-cluttering frenzy.
- 2 Mobile Phones: $95
- Transportation: $1326. So it was a really bad month for car stuff. Registration was due – $108. Repairs on both vehicles: $611. Fuel budget got out of hand: $394. Bad month all around. I’ve tried to get Hubs to cut parking costs as it went up to $115/month. Still working on him.
- Child Care: $390
- Groceries: $859. Not our best work, but better than pre-FIRE insanity.
- Hair: $169. That’s just for me. I realize this is insane. I only do it 3 x per year. Does that make it ok? Sigh. Someday, I might get up the guts to stop.
- Interest & Fees: $21
- Gifts: $22. Kid’s birthday party.
- Clothing: $55. Not in Budget. But Hubs needed some stuff that I didn’t know about.
- Medical: $7. I’ve decided not to include what we pay to Hub’s employer for medical Insurance. It is taken out of his pay, so we don’t budget for it. Soooo just keep in mind we pay for insurance for anything not covered by Medicare in Canada. It’s something like $100-200 a month.
- Life insurance: $157. Something else I need to shop around on. We have a lot of coverage so it’s high for that reason, but could possibly be cheaper elsewhere.
- Vacation: $253. Down payment on a summer beach trip!
- Netflix: $10.99. They told me my rate is going up to $13.99, but it hasn’t happened yet?? Anyway, I still feel like it’s a deal.
- Fun Money: $456. Includes allowances, Lotto tickets, dining out, family entertainment, alcohol. Over budget, but apparently we’re supposed to get reimbursed for some of the spending according to Hubs. Gotta follow up on that…
There you have it. I’m looking forward to cutting this down for February. We do have another vacation down payment to make, but hoping that other savings will still have us coming in under $6k. Bye for now!
How old is your child? I haven’t yet been invited to kids birthday parties yet but am dreading the gift giving and purchasing! Is around $20 the average that you spend on a kid’s bday party gift?
He is 5. It’s ridiculous. Last year we did strive for $20-30. But it was too much! We didn’t realize how many parties there would be, especially once kindergarten started. This year we are going to try for under $20 but also be more selective about which parties we attend to lower costs. Best of luck!!