An Expensive July: A Month in my Finances

The Month of July

June was rough. I barely saved $100 over the month, so we will see how this goes. It is July 16th, and most of my heavy hitters are done, but I also have two different credit cards to search through. Which is a crazy amount to me as a person who just entered the credit card points world. I was more in tune with the no credit card train for a long while, but now I opened the door. It is so odd that I could get into almost $20,000 in debt by tomorrow if I wanted to. It makes it easy, too: pay by credit card by clicking the side button on your phone twice; it’s like the money didn’t even exist. 

It looks like it’s going to be a rough month. $95 yearly credit card fee, $50 529 savings plan, and I bought two video games for $150. I probably shouldn’t have done that. I won’t be counting the money I found in my sock drawer one night while cleaning but that was a nice paycheck. 

Currently, I’m running at a $480 deficit but projected to be in the clear.

Using a fancy formula of $2814.49 projected income subtracting my goal of $700 I can reverse engineer what my spending cap needs to be $2114.49. Leaving me with $229.35 to achieve my goal. Like I said, not great. I have a few more expenses coming my way, like filling up the car, toll charges, and also some more entertainment. I need to be smart. $229.35 isn’t a good amount for 15 days. Also, I would love to increase my income, a $300 bank bonus was received this month, which was nice. I didn’t add it to income, but I probably should have. I’m trying to save those for a nice trip I take later. 

The goal was to spend $229.35 did it happen? 

Looks like I went over. Let’s check more. 

$561.56. Well, I missed my goal again and it’s pretty easy to see what I should not have gotten. The video games were $150. Which would have put me above the line. I failed. My savings rate was 22% of my post-tax income, with a 6% pre-tax contribution to my 401(k). So, if you combine that post-tax and pre-tax savings, you would probably get somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of pre-tax income going to the future. I wanted more; it’s still good that I can live on this smaller income but I am trying so hard to hit my goals, that it stinks when I fall short. I forgot to add my 529 savings plan into this, so it probably hits to 23% pre-tax income. Let me do some actual math. 22.3% pre-tax savings rate with all of my savings. Including my 401(k) contributions. Pretty good. If I continue to do this when I get a larger income, I should have an incredible life all throughout. Because I am able to go on vacation, fix my car, save for the future, and pay my tuition. It feels good. I need to realize that I am nailing it. 

But there are items to work on. The income is low, and I could save more for the future with a bigger one. My housing has increased by $100 a month, that I unfortunately must add to the budget. Rent increases and one of the most disgusting apartment schemes I’ve seen has been made popular. Paying an amenity fee as well as the electricity, water, sewer, trash for the amenities. On top of the amenity fee. I’m paying $130 a month for a pool and a gym. My groceries were pretty good. $400 for two people. My entertainment was the worst. $430 on entertainment at my income is craziness. $100 for clothes and blankets, but still too much. I need to remember to stay within a $250 limit. Three paycheck month is coming soon!