I know I say this basically every time I do one of these quarterly Financial Updates but wow time is flying by. I can’t believe we’re over halfway through the summer and halfway through 2022! I think it’s good once a quarter to pause and do some reflecting on my progress. This allows me to hopefully feel better about my forward progress and also express gratitude for what I have. Here’s how my finances have fared over the past quarter!

Income

I continue to be happily employed at my larger employer and have been finding success in my personal and professional development. I’m happy to relay that as of this week I’ve received a promotion and a raise! I’m beyond thankful for both and appreciate the recognition from my employer. I try to both work hard and smart and it’s been great to see my hard work pay off. I’m so thankful to have a job and also one where I can grow!

In other news, Mrs. Money is back to work at the school! As I’ve mentioned on the blog, Mrs. Money has started her own business; working as a postpartum life coach for Moms! Starting a new business of course will have lots of ups and downs and is often slow going for the first few months or even year! Mrs. Money’s endeavor is no different which is why we’re thankful for the opportunity for her to go back to her school job half time. Last spring before school let out she let her bosses know she wouldn’t be returning to pursue this new venture full-time. Her bosses then made her an offer to come back 50% instead of 0% and that seemed like a good offer to cushion the transition into being a full support coach for Moms. August will be the first month of her new salary meaning she’ll only get paid 50% of what she was paid last year. Thankfully we’ve be saving up for this day to sustain her until her new business is generating enough revenues!

Aside from that the other big news is that we are landlords again! After 8 months of searching for the right house, 1.5 months of getting it ready, we have done it! This has been a goal of ours for a while and I’m so glad we were able to achieve it! Of course there will still be work as a landlord but it’s work we don’t mind doing and I’m thankful for an investment that should pay dividends in the long run!

Expenses

Probably a bit of a sore subject now but inflation is absolutely terrible. What seemed to be a temporary supply chain issue leading to rising prices has now tumbled into everything being more expensive. Hundreds of dollars at the grocery store, gas around $4/gallon, eating out and pretty much everything else being crazy expensive. It’s starting to force us to rethink some of our spending habits. While at first we were just thankful to be out and about post-COVID and happy to be able to spend money, now it’s to the point where we have to say ‘no’ to more things, readjust our budget, and honestly compare prices and shop around more often!

Saving/Investing

The stock market has had an abysmal year so far and most of my stock investments (mostly index funds) I’m in the red for the year. Thankfully, I’m not retiring anytime soon and don’t necessarily need my non-retirement investments in cash anytime soon. I’m a big believer in not trying to time the market, and instead keeping my focus in continuing to put money in the market (dollar cost averaging), believing that the market will come back and in the long run my strategy will work! However I feel like with inflation eating more of our budget and Mrs. Money building up her new business, I don’t have much non-retirement investments happening right now. I am still doing 15% to my 401(k) and 15% to my ESPP (employee stock purchase program) but outside of that not much else extra cash to invest!

It’s probably worth calling out that crypto has performed especially poorly. For most of 2021 I was on a big crypto kick but never had more than $1,000 in (which is now worth like $400). I’m still a long-term believer in Bitcoin (less on the other coins) and like my investments; I continue to put a small amount into Bitcoin each month!

Outside of that I’ve not done much more investing, I’ve tried to limit the amount of new accounts or new investments that I get into these days. I feel like my money is a bit all over the place so I’m trying to get better at being organized!

Giving

Giving back of my money to worthy causes has been important and has remained important to me. Whether it’s my local church or other social-economic related charities, I try to give to charities that are making a difference. I’ve also tried to do a better job with my time. At my current employer we get 56 hours of volunteer time off each year and historically I’ve not used that many of them. I’ve been trying to commit to doing a half day volunteer event once a quarter! So far I’ve volunteered at a food bank and also with a group helping underprivileged young professionals break into the tech industry. I hope to do more in the future!

Overall

I love coming to this part of the blog post because I can really just be thankful and express gratitude. Overall we’ve got a great family, we’re healthy, we’ve got a nice house in a nice neighborhood and we have jobs that pay the bills some some extra money to spare! Of course I’m setting goals and working to grow what we have but that’s just icing on the cake!

Blog

In terms of best hits on the blog this quarter, unfortunately they’ve been more focused on this current state of affairs with inflation, a tightening economy and uncertainty. The Sky is falling Part 2 was a big hit, along with my battle with lifestyle inflation. Probably my favorite post of the quarter came from a reader question and although I don’t think it’s the best written article, it did cause me to think deeply about how I manage my own money!

Thanks for reading my update and I hope all is well with you!