End of January 2018 Report


Well, this is embarrassing.

For my first monthly update, I have by far the worse savings performance since I began this last August. Sigh. It was a tough month both for income and spending. So, instead of meeting my goal of saving 35-40% of income, we actually spent 8% more than we brought in. Ugh! (I don’t factor in retirement savings, if I factor that in then we did save 9% of our income this month). Here’s what went wrong:

Income: We are not salaried employees. We get paid for the work we do, and not usually immediately; it may be a week to months for us to be paid for the services. This was a slow income month for a couple reasons. For one, we took time off around Christmas, and since we get no paid time off, this was reflected in paychecks this month. Second, January is a notoriously slow time for reimbursements in our field- hopefully as this catches up, we’ll see some good paychecks in the near future.

Spending: We had a few budget busters in here. For one, our propane tank needed filling, for a cool $800. We also spent $900 for our son’s math class and supplies. These are twice a year or so expenses only. Also, my son had a nasty bout of the flu and pneumonia, which required numerous doctor’s appointments, a number of different medications, and two ER visits. We haven’t gotten the bill for the ER visits yet and I’m not looking forward to them. But the costs of the other necessities related to the illness definitely added up. I did pay an extra $500 towards one student loan, which I did not factor in to the spending total.

So, currently our student debt load is $233,085.00, a reduction from last month of….. 0.006%. Wow, that’s pathetic. In better news, our current net worth is now -$8,361, a significant increase from               -$12,811.

This month’s results are pretty discouraging, but I’m keeping in mind that January is not a great income month generally anyway, so there should be better savings down the road. I do think we also just got a little sloppy with our spending this month, so it’s time to tighten the reins for February. Here we go!

How was your January?

Comments

  1. Double Debt Single WomanFebruary 17, 2018 at 2:41 PM

    Hey, you guys are almost net worth $0! Don't forget to celebrate the milestones wherever you can find them.

    0.006% debt reduction? Well, it's better than zero. I've made PLENTY of extra payments on my debt over the years that individually didn't 'move the needle' even one percent on my payoff meter, but it's something. At least it's not increasing due to interest.

    Have you tried the Dave Ramsey plan for couples with irregular income?

    I've also heard about a technique where you live off of last months income instead of trying to estimate what this months income is going to be. I haven't managed to try it myself, but that may be another option for you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jill-PowerMarch 18, 2018 at 12:44 PM

      Sorry for the very late reply, I got very sidetracked! February was even worse, and I couldn't get myself to even post. Ugh. I haven't heard about the DR plan for irregular income, but have heard about living off last's month income. The problem is that some months income is so low that it would likely not cover the next month. We've had very low income months recently, and we have to do something about it because it is making us move in the opposite direction!
      Thanks for your comments and suggestions!

      Delete

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