By: Revanche

Net Worth & Life Report: September 2016

October 3, 2016

Money and Life Report: September 2016 ON MONEY

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Our normal spending covers the living expenses for two households.Β 

Spending

FinCon happened: to the tune of $1685. It sure was fun but ouch!

Home maintenance: we fixed that thing and it cost $1250. That bill comes due in October and our property taxes are coming due in November for another whopping $2500. This means digging into savings, precious, and we don’t want to! Hissss!

A few days after FinCon, I went shopping in the worst possible way: angry, hungry, and tired. Brought our week’s worth of groceries, and 3 cakes, in under $40. It could have been so much worse but lugging that many pounds of food in was plenty.

Saving

Future saving by way of reducing interest: My master plan of paying the same amount that we were paying into our mortgage before, now that the monthly payment has been reduced by half, was thwarted by a crop of large expenses. And also increasing our actual savings rate by $400 per month. Undaunted, though, I have decided to push another $500 to principal per month and just make that work. It’ll mean more belt tightening, and some creative tapdancing each month, but this way the savings to principal will happen, period. If I can’t make our goal one way, I find another. If we look to be running short, I’ll just steal a little from savings.

Related: I haven’t decided if I want to pour on the steam and prioritize paying off the mortgage entirely because I might prefer to hoard and grow our cash stash for future investments or another property. There are only so many parts to the pie unless I can fix on the right strategy to make our dollars work twice, or thrice, as hard.

Question: Is it really spending if you’re moving money from a savings account to a different savings vehicle? I opened JuggerBaby’s 529 account, funded it with a chunk of zir savings, and Mint called that spending. It’s future spending, sure, but right NOW it’s saving and investing.

Our net worth: increased 2.3% from last month, and 58.7% 29% from January.

Note: Edit: Oops, I just spotted an error in my spreadsheet! Drat. Somehow I keep doubling our value on paper through purely clerical errors. That 10% real estate March – April bump was updating the assessed value of our home.

Β 09-16: allocation of our assets by category

ON LIFE

  1. On Fitness: FinCon caused a major spike in my steps. I averaged 3.5 miles a day! In other news, I may not walk again for two weeks. Don’t be alarmed if I become a permanent fixture in the rocking chair.
  2. On food: I have been AMAZING at putting a hot fresh dinner on the table nearly every night. *self congratulations* I’m still working full time, blogging, taking care of Seamus, etc, so this is a big deal. How, you ask? I’m glad you asked! Β I’m not strict about it but I borrowed Cloud’s method of repeating recipe types from week to week, and I vary it according to what we have in the pantry. My cooking rules: no more than 3-5 ingredients unless I want to add them, use fresh ingredients where possible and easy, simple recipes only. There’s no time for gourmet cooking with sauces and all that. We love one pot meals, and I aim to make balanced meals.Check it out: Monday, turkey and ricotta enchiladas (homemade enchilada sauce); Tuesday, turkey and veggie pasta with red sauce; Wednesday, shepherd’s pie with bok choy, carrots, onions, green beans, corn and turkey (yes, there is a trend here); Thursday, leftovers; Friday, zucchini and tomato omelette, hash browns, French toast, orange slices and apple slices. It’s not restaurant food, in a good way – it’s healthy, filling, and my family loves it. And since they’re so easygoing, I enjoy cooking for them. Sidebar: I’ve been told that this here blog is too random to be a regular read because readers like to know what they’re going to get. That’s fair. But good and easy food is such an important part of our lives, I can’t fathom not talking about it. I’ve been toying with the idea of sharing recipes one day a week, would anyone be interested? On the one hand, I love sharing what works for me. On the other hand, actual food bloggers already do that food and recipe blogging thing. But they’re fancy. Let me know in the comments.
  3. On work and computers being frustrating: All of the sudden, my computer refused to open DOCX files. It was working fine one day, and the next started giving me lip: “You are trying to use Office but don’t have Office.” LIES. I thought it was because I didn’t have Office 365, which is true, but it’s not because Word 2010 wasn’t working anymore. It’s because Microsoft was being sneaky sneaks and trying to force me to upgrade unnecessarily. It turns out even though I’m trying to use Word, they’re calling it Word in Office 365 just “Office” so the message implies that my entire Office Suite is no longer working. The solution: Right click on the file and select “choose another app”, select regular Word, and click the box that says “always use this”. That fixed the problem immediately. Well, immediately plus the whole day I spent trying to troubleshoot it because I didn’t Google the right key phrase.

:: What was fun, exciting, or expensive about your September?

32 Responses to “Net Worth & Life Report: September 2016”

  1. Mint and Personal Capital both tend to be bad at categorizing my transfers to savings/investments as spending. You’d think that would be like the first thing they would figure out.

    Those dinners sound delicious! I would love to read your recipes (I generally adore gawking at pics + descriptions of yummy food). You could also share your meal planning process in more detail into compiled weekly lists. I feel like that might be useful to some readers trying to simplify their cooking process.

    • Revanche says:

      You’d think! But none of them ever understand it.

      Oh I totally suck at meal planning. I come up with dinner on the fly almost every day. I should also note that I’ve never taken ablog worthy food pic, but that could be worked on πŸ™‚

  2. 529s are at least as much savings as retirement. But, that’s why we use a spreadsheet to track…no misunderstandings of how to categorize (unless it’s mine.)

    I totally get the conflict between paying down the mortgage faster and bulking up cash and investments. Right now we’re tilting toward cash rather than paying off the mortgages faster, but part of me would love to get the mortgages down instead.
    Emily @ JohnJaneDoe recently posted…Get Ready for Cold Weather with Jon’s “Winterize your Home” ChecklistMy Profile

    • Revanche says:

      Yes, it seems like no tracking software ever beats the accuracy of a spreadsheet! I feel like it’s one of my PF Holy Grails.

      I’m no expert at reading the market, so it feels foolish to say that it seems like a dip should be coming, but it seems like it’s a natural expectation at this rate. So, again, hoarding cash.

  3. Money Beagle says:

    Always nice to see the net worth moving in the right direction. That’s a lot to shell out for FinCon. I’ve never been and the cost is one of those barriers for me.
    Money Beagle recently posted…Does Being Too Close To Money Make People Turn Evil?My Profile

    • Revanche says:

      Yes, it is, even though I can only take real credit for a small part of it – the active savings part. It was definitely a lot of money paid out, though the $500 prize money was a fantastic help, and only truly possible because it was also partly a family trip. Would you consider going if it’s in your neck of the woods?

  4. Sally says:

    Who the heck told you that you’re too random to be a regular read? I like reading about other people’s lives. The focused topic people, like food bloggers or finance bloggers, I may look at when I’m thinking about that particular topic, but you I come to every day. Because you seem like an interesting person with an interesting life, and I like thinking about the stuff you talk about. From childcare, to health, to finance, to family, to everything.

    “Too random,” bah. I’m offended on your behalf.

    • Revanche says:

      That’s kind of you, Sally πŸ™‚ The comment was well-intentioned and pointing out why I haven’t built a large solid audience in comparison to the focused topic bloggers because their audiences want to come to them for a specific thing and they get that thing regularly. As you say, I range all over the place and I think that’s only attractive to readers who aren’t looking for advice.

  5. I love to see a list of “our best go-to meals” in one place. Start a blogger series?! Or share once a week. It’s YOUR BLOG. Don’t be pigeon-holed!

  6. Joe says:

    Wow, 59% net worth increase. That’s pretty crazy. Great job!
    FinCon wasn’t that expensive for me because I only stayed 2 nights and spent just $4 on food. I smooched off the sponsors for the rest of the meals.:)
    Joe recently posted…September 2016 Goals and Financial UpdatesMy Profile

    • Revanche says:

      I can’t take credit for the 10% bump in our real estate – that was just because I hadn’t updated our real estate assessments in a couple years. But I will take credit for managing the rest of the increases πŸ™‚

  7. I don’t understand why your blog is too random. You have a general pattern/schedule of posting types, and you include different aspects of your life. That seems to me to be (a) organized and (b) varied enough to be interesting.
    Tragic Sandwich recently posted…Summer RecapMy Profile

  8. Linda says:

    Please don’t change your blog! Whoever gave you that feedback was off their rocker.

    I’d be interested in hearing more about your meal prep and cooking. You have a very different angle than a typical food blogger.
    Linda recently posted…Revisiting the budgetMy Profile

  9. Kristen P says:

    Don’t change a thing. Your blog is definitely a regular read for me. I enjoy the different topics and updates on life mixed in with financial information. I love the idea of posting recipes. The turkey and ricotta enchiladas sound delicious.

  10. Mint calls our $1000/mo into the 529 income(!) Mint doesn’t see it being subtracted from our credit union account, only added to the investment account.

    “I’ve been told that this here blog is too random to be a regular read” if this was us, that wasn’t what we meant at all! The question was from someone specifically wanting personal finance blogs and you’re not just a personal finance blog. (If that wasn’t us, then just ignore this comment… now that I look back at that post, it probably wasn’t us though because we put you under the “regular reads” section of the question answer.)

    I guess it does make sense if you’re trying to build a lot of readership to have a brand and focus on something specific etc. Depends on what the purpose of your blog is. If it’s to make money, that’s going to be different than if it is to build a community. (Even if people say community first and the money will follow, that’s not necessarily true.)
    nicoleandmaggie recently posted…Are you registered to vote (in the US)?My Profile

    • Revanche says:

      I wonder why all the software seems to share that problem.

      Definitely not you – I’m a personal finance PLUS blogger, but for some people in the PF arena, that’s too much other stuff. That’s ok, I am more here for the community and intelligence. I’d like for this hobby to pay for itself, at least, or also the dog, but not at the expense of why I started writing in the first place.

      And it’s true. Some communities have money sprout up when it’s been built, some don’t.

  11. Glad you were at FinCon to be there for Abby. <3 Hope you enjoyed the event otherwise.

    Wait, what… Damage to the Domicile caused by a guest came to $1250? Am I understanding that right? OMG. I'd probably throttle the person(s). And you STILL managed to score a week's worth of groceries (plus!) for under $40? That is awe-inspiring.

    And…what? Your property tax is almost the same as mine, and I (alas) do NOT live in San Francisco. Is that a whole year's bill, or do they let you pay in installments?

    "Is it really spending if you’re moving money from a savings account to a different savings vehicle?" Seems to me you could think of a 529 as deferred spending. But it's not the same kind of spending as, say, buying a car or even clothes or some such. a) It's altruistic spending, something you do to keep your kid(s) in the middle class, and b) if your 529 is invested so as to earn dividends, it amounts to buying $100,000+(in tomorrow's dollars) worth of college education in today's dollars.

    Item 3: work & computer frustration: Yup. That's why I'm resisting having to subscribe to Microsoft products in the cloud with all my strength. Good for you, figuring out how to get around that scam. Am seriously considering Pages…but don't know how I could do the editorial work without Wyrd.
    Funny about Money recently posted…Moving on…My Profile

    • Revanche says:

      Unfortunately, throttling wasn’t allowed. Ah well.

      No, property taxes come in two parts so in total it’ll be at least $5000. Yayyy….

      I’m starting to think all savings is just deferred spending. But I don’t LIKE thinking of it that way!

  12. Sense says:

    YES! to simple, healthy, Revanche+family-tested recipes! If I don’t meal plan starting on Thursdays, grocery shop on Saturdays, and take 2-3 hours to cook for the week on Sundays, I don’t eat anything out of a can/takeaway box for the whole week. I’m terrible except when I plan (which I’ve done since July-ish, hurrah!), so I’d LOVE new easy things to try out.

    (I don’t know if my eyesight is getting bad or what, but is the font on your blog smaller than normal lately? I keep squinting and then using Ctrl+swipe to embiggen it to read it…)

  13. Cassie says:

    Too random to be a regular read? Say what? You’re a regular read of mine, and the randomness doesn’t bother me at all. It’s like reading Save Spend Splurge, I don’t read it for scheduled topics, I read it because it’s interesting.

    I’m all for reading some Revanche approved recipes! I could definitely use some easy to whip up suggestions. I’m thinking tonight may be breakfast for dinner on our end. It’s only 9am and I know I don’t have the ambition to do anything fancy.
    Cassie recently posted…Coffee TimeMy Profile

    • Revanche says:

      Thanks for sticking with me πŸ™‚ Brinner is 100% an acceptable option at least one night a week around here!

  14. I’m jealous of your FinCon experience — although I just bought tickets for next year! And congrats on the steady net worth advancement — 29% YTD is amazing. Keep it up and I look forward to seeing your financial success continue to soar!
    Rob @ Money Nomad recently posted…How to Help Haiti: Advertise on Money Nomad #AdForAidMy Profile

  15. I vote that you do include a recipe per week. I love your approach to cooking:”no more than 3-5 ingredients unless I want to add them, use fresh ingredients where possible and easy, simple recipes only. There’s no time for gourmet cooking with sauces and all that. We love one pot meals…” I would like to head in that direction myself, and would appreciate some ideas – one per week will be just fine : ) I hope that October will a more encouraging month for you financially. The thing is, you are well set up to absorb a less-than-highly-profitable month, much to your credit.
    Fruclassity (Ruth) recently posted…Middle-Aged & Too Much Debt? It’s Not Too Late!!My Profile

    • Revanche says:

      Thanks for weighing in! I’ll start putting some thoughts / recipes together.

      We can absorb this month, but we carry on being mindful of the fact it’s been an expensive year!

  16. Congrats on the positive net worth month. Our net worth barely ticked up but that’s ok. We spent some money on a dream vacation to the New England area with our son. We’re trying to balance FIRE with creating memories along the way. If it causes us to work a year or two extra to acquire these memories it’ll definitely be worth it.
    Mustard Seed Money recently posted…Diamonds Are Not Forever…My Profile

    • Revanche says:

      Thanks! Agreed that balance is important because we may plan for FIRE but life may have other plans.

      Quite honestly, while I track on paper from month to month, I’m paying more attention to whole year achievements because we’re always going to have fluctuations each month, whether it’s up or down.

      I’m not going to sacrifice living every month just so I can see the net worth tick up, but if there’s a consistent downward trend then that’s something to bear in mind.

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