Ah, another quarter has come and gone and it’s time for my quarterly Personal Finance Update. Firstly, I cannot believe we’re already in October of 2021. I’m not sure about you, but 2021 started off with so much hope and excitement, and the spring/early summer was pretty great but then the delta variant really seemed to do a number on us all and it almost feels like we’re back to where we were this time last year. On the other hand, it almost feels like this is just our world now, and life continues to go on despite all of the COVID cases. I guess you just operate as safely as you feel comfortable doing so, and keep living your lives.

This past quarter, our family definitely kept on living ours! We had some exciting updates professionally and financially to share. We’ve overall kept to our financial investing/saving strategy and although we don’t do the best job of it, try to keep our expenses in check!

Income

The big news this quarter was that Mrs. Money started and is rolling along with her new job. I think I mentioned this in the Summer update, but things have settled down and we’ve adjusted the budget accordingly. With a new job there’s always a bit of a figuring it out period when it comes to paychecks, and after her employer pulled out $0 for federal taxes which is obviously not accurate, we had to go back and increase her withholdings. Don’t want to owe during tax time! The bummer with her new job is that it doesn’t come with a 401(k), so I’ve increased my contribution amount at work in an attempt to keep us on track for our retirement savings.

Our other big news is that we successfully sold our rental house, and were pleased with the price we got for it! We did this for tax purposes – it had been a primary residence and so as long as we sold within 3 years of moving out, we were able to avoid capital gains tax on the profits, which our real estate market probably like yours has been hot so it wasn’t a bad thing to take money off the table and not pay taxes on it. So, our income will be slowing down in the interim as we’re no longer getting those rent checks each month.

Finally, Mrs. Money does have her side hustle, which is going decently well. I mentioned last time that her new role is only 4 days/week, which was done on purpose to allow for more family time and to give her a bit of breathing room with all that is going on in our family of four. She did start a part-time gig still in education and works as a coach about 2 hours per week. So it’s a nice little income supplement for us!

Expenses

I’m not sure what it is but I feel like our expenses are worse than in previous quarters. This is troubling as I know that the fourth quarter of each year is always an expensive one with the holidays and all that comes with it. I guess having a larger family and all the expenses that come along with that (two kids in daycare, swim lessons, soccer, all the food, contributing to college funds) will increase expenses for sure. Whenever I get a bit overwhelmed with our spending (typically weekly when we grocery shop), I try to take a step back and remind myself that I am saving a fair amount; through my Employer Stock Purchase Program (ESPP) and my retirement. Of course I’d like to do better in controlling my expenses, but sometimes I feel it’s an uphill battle!

Saving/Investing

As mentioned previously, Mrs. Money lost her ability to contribute to a 401(k) when she changed jobs, and so in an effort to keep saving, I’ve increased my 401(k) contribution amount. I think that this might be the first year I actually max out my 401(k), which is $19,500. I’ve always had other financial priorities and although I was saving 15%, I wasn’t maxing it out. I’ve come around and understand that the tax benefits are very worthwhile and have cut back on traditional ‘saving’ and focused more on maximizing tax-preferred accounts.

The stock market continues to do well, up nearly 20% year to date or so. Of course there’s always talk about an impending crash but I try my best to tune out the noise and stick to the fundamentals of continually investing in low-cost index funds.

My crypto experience continues to be a roller coaster ride but it’s definitely been a fun one. Long-term I’m a believer in the space, mostly in bitcoin but honestly who knows! I’m slowly contributing a bit each month into bitcoin and plan to continue to do so.  

Giving

Giving continues to remain a priority for Mrs. Money and I. No real change here, we still give to our local church and a few other local charities that we believe are making a positive change. The one interesting thing that I need to look more into is the donation of stocks or mutual funds to charities. A few friends have turned me onto it and although I probably won’t seriously get around to it in 2021, I’ll try to look more into it in 2022. The thinking is that you can save on taxes by donating stock instead of cash to the charities of your choice. When you donate, you get to deduct the market value of the stock, but don’t have to pay taxes on the gains that you’ve received from holding it. It’s pretty interesting to me and something that I should look more into.

Blog

I’ve admitted in the past and the same holds true, the blog kind of feels a bit on autopilot now. It’s not necessarily growing, but it’s not declining. I keep a steady stream of articles coming and thankfully still get a few sponsored posts each months. That little extra cash from this side hustle provides a fun outlet here and there in the form of takeout or a little extra bitcoin for us. I’m honestly ok with the autopilot nature of it, being a full-time professional, father of 2, husband and friend is a lot and so sometimes priorities change and that’s ok! The top posts from the quarter were: So many subscriptions in life, where I chatted through how everything in life seems to be a subscription and why it’s so hard to break them, and Reflections on Main St, where I talked through how we sold our first house turned rental property.

Overall

This has been a challenging few months in some ways, but also a great few months in others. Being a Dad of 2 is a lot of work but also a lot of fun! We made some big changes (new job, selling house) over the past few months and also kept our financial footing and continued our pace of slow and steady growth!