Lot of things are currently happening at work and at home that I couldn’t keep up with my yearly goal of publishing at least one blogpost a week lately.
I knew keeping a blog alive is a hard job but so far I managed to create myself routines to ensure that the flow wouldn’t be broken.
The issue with my super-duper-planning is that I didn’t think about what would happen when my daily routines would be cancelled because I have to manage extra work duties as well as extraordinary events at home. Both in parallel…
Priorities had to be set and routines had to be dropped during -two- three weeks. I’ll consider this as the exception vs. the rule and won’t try to find a B plan to my routines right now.
Back to business: how did we do it in May on the financial side?
What about expenses?
Compared to previous months, we were quite calm/stable on the expenses side.
Groceries were slightly below budgeted values. Yeah!
This was perfect as it allowed us to balance our “Eating out” YNAB category which was higher than planned due to a very nice evening with friends in a restaurant that we are used to go to.
Some medical check for our child weren’t planned but the expenses were rather low and our emergency fund is still full so no issue!
On the transportation side, we had quite a busy month as two week-ends were spent at various family places which were quite far, hence quite some gas needed. That plus the presents for our hosts.
All in all, it was a great month full of meetups that we like a lot. As I keep reminding you on this blog, money is important, but close relationships are much more valuable and spending cash for it is for me a good reason!
One not really planned expense was new furniture for one of our kid bedroom in order that he have more space to play, and a better organized room. Thanks IKEA!
Finally, the last variable which are children daycare fees was higher than expected due to some unexpected fees but nothing dramatic.
One yearly expense we had to pay is Billag. This “service” is here to ensure you pay fees for national radios and TV channels. We are a bit angry about this bill as we almost never watch their TV shows nor listen to their radio. But as soon as you have an Internet connection, you must pay it…
CHF 462.40, almost the same price than our Prius insurance…
May 2015 savings rate
We got small bunch of additional incomes all along the month like this user testing session I participated to, our cash back from our Migros Cumulus free credit card, or also my brand new 4G LTE router that I sold to a friend who can enjoy (him!) an Internet as fast as light for the cheapest price out there in Switzerland!
This resulted in a very decent 37% of savings rate for the month of May. I will stick one more month to the “Badass Savers Bronze” category on the #BSRI 2015 - but I’m confident to go up to the next level in June with the numbers I’ve seen on my YNAB the last days! Stay tuned!
What about you? Did you have a great month in May?
