Wow – May was a tough month with spending. Our net worth has decreased for the first time this year. After writing about how tight the budget would be, things just exploded due to no other reason than sloth. We still spent normally. Like a mouse in a cookie factory…, well you know the rest. Looks like June might be a ‘no spend month.’
We did have one big hit of note, $1,180 in an advanced payment of closing costs for our house purchase. On the plus side we did have our investments go up quite a bit, and earned the most money with alternative income so far this year!
So where do things stand?
Investment Performance (+5.55% for May, up +6.45% YTD)
Alternative Income ($565.62 for May, $2,103.94 YTD)
Original spreadsheets:
- Alternative Income Breakdown: up to date with all the stuff we have done so far. We were able to add over $560 this month, a new record for the year. After April’s dismal performance we really stepped it up and tried to do as many mystery shops and surveys as possible – we also found a lot of stuff to sell online as we started packing to move to the new house.
- Where did the money go? May 2009 edition. This is the detailed breakdown of all our spending for the month. You can see exactly where the money went.
- Full Net Worth breakdown.
How are the goals coming?
- Goal#1: $10k Emergency Fund: Complete and hovering around $10,000. Still full and interest growing. We will use a portion of this as down payment for our house since we will be getting it back with an amended tax return thanks to Obama, the stimulus package, and the new first time home buyer’s credit. After we move in we will recalculate our monthly expenses and update the total needed for a full 6-9 months of zero income living.
- Goal#3: High Interest Student Loans: $21,931. We have still been paying off the loans, but our intensity has been shifted towards the house fund and getting enough for a sizable down payment. This will resume after our emergency fund is refilled to its newly calculated level.
- Goal #2: Save for a down payment on a house: Done! We bought a house and have enough for an 8% down payment when we factor in the Obama Cash. Now we just need to move in and start paying NY taxes.
*Update: Here are templates of the spreadsheets we use for you to download and use for your own budgets. These are blank so you can add your own values and categories, but the formulas should be correct. Click on the link to download an Excel version of each sheet:
- Where did the money go? A spread sheet we use to track individual expenses, both fixed and variable. Each purchase we make is added. We normally use credit cards so we can update this at the end of the month with all purchases, but if we pay cash for something it is added the same day. You can see the 5% Fun Fund in use here – we budget 5% of all income towards fun purchases.
- Monthly dashboard A spreadsheet that shows how our net worth has changed from month to month. It is also used to record the value of all assets (liquid and illiquid) as well as expenses and the current net worth.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I'd love to grab a copy of your spread sheets to do tracking with my own budget numbers, are they open source by y'all?
Hi Mike,
I've added links to let you download Excel versions of the spreadsheets to the bottom of the post. Let me know if there are any problems with the sheets or if you have questions on how we use them.
Thanks for the download!