It’s been a while since I did a personal finance update on my own finances, and wanted to share some updates with you. I hope you’ll find this post helpful, as I open the curtains a bit and give you a peek into what it’s like in the personal financial world of Young Money Finance himself. My own situation might look very similar to yours, or not similar at all. The point of this article is to show you that regardless of where you are, there’s always work to be done, it certainly doesn’t get any easier to stay financially responsible but that as long as you’re making progress that you should feel good about yourself!

INCOME

I’ve been at my current company for about 2.5 years now, and have enjoyed a nice 3% raise each anniversary that I’ve been there. So, I enjoyed another 3% raise this past February and am still enjoying the newness of the extra cash. I’m currently saving 15% for my retirement, so the 3% ended up flowing into my budget, where I did

put some of it to fun, but also tried to increase my savings. It feels pretty good being at a point where I’m both financially comfortable but a 3% raise is always a nice boost. If I was able to make it last year, I feel confident I can on 3% more. I ended up spending probably 50% of my bonus this year on travel, and ended up saving about the other half of it. I actually stopped my part-time side-hustle in December of last year, which actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The extra $100-$200/month was requiring more and more of my time, to the point where it wasn’t worthwhile. I am still invested in Lending Club, although the 9% I wrote about around this time last year has fallen to 4%. I guess still better than nothing, but I have been pulling the money out slowly.

EXPENSES

Thankfully I’ve felt like my wife and I have gotten a good grasp on our expenses. We’ve really tried to focus on spending our money on more experiences, as we’ve been realizing that material things don’t last and that experiences; whether vacations, eating out or social events last much longer. That being said, it does seem that we’ve increased our overall expenditures, but thankfully not more than 3% ha! I don’t feel bad about our increased expenditures, whether it’s buying something slightly higher quality or ‘nicer’, or going out to eat another time each week (2x/week on average for YMF and the family), as the raise that I got was split between saving and expenses. That being said, there are certainly some months that are more expensive than others (I don’t think we saved much at all in March), and I’ve learned to give myself a break and not be too hard on myself. Obtaining financial freedom is a journey and there will be good months and not so good months!

SAVING/INVESTING

In my last post of financially updating you, one of the readers essentially called me out for not investing as much with my money. It really caught me off guard and I thought long and hard about my saving/investing strategy. At the time, I was investing a fair amount but then putting extra money into either a savings account or extra towards my mortgage. It dawned on me that extra money into the house might not be the best use of my money. One of my big mantras is making my money work as hard as it can for me, and at 3.5% interest on the mortgage, there was a good chance that I could do better with it, invested in a mutual fund. I went back and forth on playing it safe (i.e. getting a 3.5% return) or taking more of a risk (putting it in an index fund). Ultimately, I decided not to totally stop paying extra to the mortgage, but to pay less, and invest more. I’m at a point right now on my path towards financial freedom where a lot of the base requirements have been met: I save 15% for retirement +1.5% vested match (my wife saves 12%), and then I put another 8% to the employee stock purchase program (I get company stock at a 15% discount). On top of that, we also invest a little separately into index funds and then save. We’re continually building up our car fund (we pay cash for our cars…which is a bit shocking to many folks). We’ve actually stopped putting money into our house fund, which was used for repairs/remodeling, as we feel it’s currently in a good spot. I will say it’s taken me about 8 years of working professionally and saving diligently to get to this spot financially, and instead of slowing down, we’re trying to keep it going! Seeing that our savings is at a much better than it was last year, we’re focusing more of our money on investing in index funds.

As seen in a previous post, I also put aside a decent portion of my money to give to charity. I think it’s important to give back and as I’ve been blessed, I would like to pass that back to others less fortunate than me. I personally give a good amount to my local church, in addition to some other charities as well. It feels good being in a spot where I can afford to do so, and I enjoy being a blessing financially to others in need.

KEEPING TRACK

One other thing I’ve been doing as of late is keeping a spreadsheet of my net worth. I’ve seen a few other bloggers do this, and thought I’d give it a try. I’ve done it a few months now, and at about the middle of each month I’ll come in, check the balances of my accounts and record where they stand. It really motivates me and helps me keep an eye on the bigger picture of achieving financial freedom by seeing my progress each month. Sometimes when I’m in the daily grind it feels like I’m just spending what I have, and so it’s nice to remember that I have long-term goals and that I’m actually making progress towards them. One other benefit is that it allows me to worry less – I used to worry and frequently check my balances, even daily sometimes. This way, I purposefully and habitually check and can feel confident about my progress!

To wrap up, I’ll say that I’m so blessed with a good wife and a good job. It hasn’t been easy putting aside so much of my paycheck each month into savings, saying “no” to going out to eat when it’s not in the budget, or not taking as big of vacations, but I’ve stayed focus and it’s not to reflect on my progress! The journey is certainly far from over and I’ll keep at it!