Welcome to the Month 9 FIRE Report!
G’day blog readers. 9 months. Takes that long to make a human. And apparently to make a slightly better financial outlook. Here’s the deets on Month 9 of attempting FIRE!
Stats for Month 9
Saved: $290. This needs to increase dramatically soon. It’s MONTH 9 FFS! GET ON IT, T! Can’t FIRE with this kind of slacky-ness.
Extra Income from Side Hustles: $40. Womp womp. Again. Time to get serious.
Debt Repayment: $1608. Not as high because of high expenses and the fact that I paid off my RRSP loan early and owed a bit less on my last payment! Woohoo!
Expenses
| Item | Amount | Relevant Notes of Notey-ness |
| Mortgage & Property Tax | 1368 | Something I want to improve, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen anytime soon. Hubs said he is interested in living in an RV during retirement! Just gotta figure out when retirement is going to happen. 😀 |
| Interest & Bank Fees | 43 | WHY MUST I PAY THESE EVIL THINGS |
| Child Care | 360 | |
| Parking | 115 | Still trying to talk Hubs into cheaper parking (i.e. more hardship on his part involving walking and/or snow falling on vehicle). |
| Auto Insurance | 95 | |
| Electric | 256 | |
| TV, Home Phone, Internet | 158 | Need to challenge this expense, again, soon. |
| Life Insurance | 156 | Need to challenge this expense soon. |
| Netflix | 14 | |
| Mobile Phones | 95 | I found out this week that Public Mobile came to my town. Rumour has it they are the cheapest providers in Canada. I need to check into this option, STAT! |
| Home Insurance | 1818 | Paid for the year at my new provider up front in order to get credit card cash back. Thank you, Dejardins! |
| Groceries & Home Supplies | 857 | Better than expected. Normally summer + a vacation = buy and eat ALL THE THINGS. But really, not a bad month! |
| Fuel | 313 | |
| Medical, Eye care, Dental | 23 | |
| Auto repair/maintenance/registration | 340 | Another pretty decent month considering the ancient-ness of my vehicles. Hubs says one needs tires…gonna need to start jammin’ up that sinking fund. Also includes a $150 car seat we scored on sale. |
| Vacation | 486 | Took a short trip (3 nights) to the beach on Canada Day weekend. It rained. It was cold and windy. But we managed to squeeze out a few hours of fun on the beach. Mainly we just ate a lot. Slightly over budget, but not bad at all. |
| Hair Appointments | 65 | |
| Home Improvement, Maintenance | 98 | Got neighbourhood kid to mow the lawn. Then needed lawn mower fixin’ to avoid giving all of our money to neighbourhood kid. Plus some plants for the house, and decor items for the veranda. Yes, I have veranda. It was surprisingly barren but I tried to use what I had to spruce it up, plus a couple of new items. |
| Education | 10 | Educational game for M. |
| Health & Fitness, Sports | 32 | Healthy Eating program dues, which we’re not actually following right now. Sigh. |
| Gifts & Holiday Expenses | 128 | Father’s Day. Teachers Gifts. Canada Day stuff for the kids. I really need to cut back… |
| Clothing | 236 | Sooo bit of a rough month here. Hubs really needed dress shirts because his pointy elbows like to poke holes in the existing shirt arms…I’ve tried my hand at sewing them but it turns out like something reminiscent of Frankenstein’s monster elbow. There’s also a few other things in here that we probably didn’t need. |
| Charitable Donations | 20 | |
| UNKNOWN EXPENSE | 157 | Second month in a row. Not good. I can tell I’m getting lazy about categorizing expenses that are not spent by me. |
| Fun Money! (Includes allowances) | 413 | Best month everrrrr. Much of my allowance went into savings, and it was our best month so far in terms of eating out. |
| Total Expenses | 7656 |
Summary of Thoughts
Although this month came out to be WAY HIGHER than my goal of under 6k a month in expenses, I paid $1818 for my home insurance for the year which was unexpected. That said, it’s good to acknowledge the fact that some months will not meet expectations due to larger, one-time expenses. Same thing will happen in the fall when I need to buy tires, or in August when I go on a 1 week vacation. Perhaps I can get expenses even lower in the other months to compensate. I’m still figuring out how our expenses ebb and flow 9 months into the journey. More thinking/analysis is required.
If you’ve made it this far, you get the prize of seeing my photo from our Canada Day Weekend Vacation, when we had approx 5 minutes of sun on the beach before it dipped into the ocean and rained for days!
Priorities for July
- KEEP ATTACKING EXPENSES! June sucked for this frankly. There is more work to be done. Meal planning and prepping, cutting unnecessary insurance, challenging expenses where I haven’t yet, don’t get lazy and buy veranda decorations, even if they’re from the dollar store. Make sure all expenses are categorized!
- Now that over half of my debt is paid, I must continue to focus on that but also increase my savings rate. Even 1% better for July would be helpful and motivating.
- Family Budget meeting is sorely overdue.
- Get rid of excess stuff (STILL AN ISSUE). Sell items where possible.
- Educate, Educate, Educate! Myself, Hubs, and M.
- Have some inexpensive fun. Summer is my favourite season!
Gimmie your feedback on the monthly reports in the comments, along with your tips to help me improve my expenses and all that! Please & thank you! I’m no Canadian if I’m not polite, eh?