I love the ability to slow down once a quarter and to reflect on my progress and growth, and to also celebrate the successes and learn from my failures. Every few months I take a break from my normal financial topic posts and do a post on my how things are going. Here is my fall of 2022 personal financial update!

Income

When I last did one of these updates I had just gotten a promotion and raise and have been super thankful for both! I’ve fully incorporated that raise into my budget and it’s been great to have a bit more breathing room (stuff is expensive!) for our month to month. Mrs. Money’s up and coming Mom coaching business has had a handful of clients and although we’re not bringing that into our budget yet (re-investing into growing the business), it’s nice to have some hope that the business will one day be bringing in money! Our life as landlord continues and we enjoy that little surplus of rent payment that is left after we pay the mortgage! Finally the blog continues to bring in enough money for the occasional takeout meal, a treat here and there and to keep the ‘lights on’ and pay those hosting fees!

One interesting source of income was a PTO payout. Prior to August I accrued PTO and then post promotion I switched to unlimited PTO. I apparently had done a bad job of taking PTO (I blame a global pandemic for not travelling or feeling like I shouldn’t be around too many family/friends) and cashed out something like 200 hours of PTO. It ended up being a pretty nice ‘bonus’ although taxes will always take a bite of out of! I remember seeing that money come through and wonder if it was worth it. Money can be fleeting but memories are forever. Not saying I’m sad about the cash but trying to commit to taking more PTO moving forward!  

Expenses

Even though headlines might talk of inflation ‘slowing down’, everything still feels super expensive! Groceries, gas, diapers, food, restaurants, healthcare…everything! The real gut punch this quarter was the note we got from daycare explaining that tuition was increasing $50/kid/week. So that’s an extra $400 we now need to budget for each month. We weren’t expecting or planning for that and now will have to figure out how to make it happen! Our income didn’t increase $400/month so we’ll have to find a place to cut back in terms of spending or investing!

One thing I did over the quarter is attempt to re-balance the budget a bit, taking into account my raise but also how much money we’ve been spending on stuff. This is totally way more info than you are probably looking for but I had a bad habit of not having an accurate budget in the sense that I wouldn’t put in all my income nor have my expense levels accurate and so each month I would go ‘negative’ in some categories only to come in at the end of the month and ‘save’ the budget with the surplus income from my paycheck that I knew was coming in. I think I did this because I was overly hopeful and tried to hold out hope each month that somehow we would be able to spend less and save more (even though we never could). So, after too much unnecessary stress, I updated the budget by decreasing saving goals and increasing spending limits!

Saving/Investing

Well the stock market continues to struggle with plenty of ups and downs but more downs it seems. I’ve continued to take a long-term view of the market and have not sold any of my holdings. I view my money as short-term, medium-term, and long-term and all money in the stock market is either medium-term or long-term (i.e. my retirement account). I try to zoom out and reflect that still on average the stock market has returned 8% year over year for the last 100 years so I shouldn’t fret too much the ups or downs. I have gotten over my initial shock and frequent worrying about losing money and have slowly started buying more into index funds (dollar cost averaging!). I just try to remind myself that I’m buying the stocks ‘on sale’ as I try to feel better about the chance of losing money (hopefully just in the short-term).

With savings, I have done a bit better of a job thanks to some bonuses (my quarterly bonus and PTO payout) and have stocked our car fund (we always like paying cash), our daycare fund (remember the price bump we got?) and our house fund (would love to remodel our bathroom one day). Finally we have done a better job saving for the winter holidays in the fall! This has historically been a struggle for us and we limp our way into January. Mrs. Money had the chance to pick up a few extra shifts for a colleague that was out and we put all that extra money to saving for Christmas!

Giving

I’ve talked a lot on this blog about how I view giving to charitable organizations as being important to me and I’ve continued to give! We primarily give to our local church as well as a local organization for social and economic justice that seeks to empower and enrich those less fortunate than us. I did actually increase some of our giving this quarter as I try to give a percentage not a dollar amount and thanks to a raise I felt it was important I continue giving!

Overall

Life can be hard, life can be expensive but life is also good! I’ve been reflecting on a mantra of ‘choosing joy’ in my everyday life in an attempt to not let the little things drag me down and to have a positive attitude everyday. I’m thankful that we’re better prepared for the holiday season, which always proves expensive, I’m thankful we’re able to take time away from work to spend as a family and am thankful that Mrs. Money has the time and the space to build her business. Starting a business can take time and money and we’re fortunate that she has both right now! Overall I’m trying to remain focused on slow and steady growth!

Blog

I’m so thankful for the opportunity to continue to run this blog! I’m thankful it provides a little income to pay for the expenses (so not just a hobby!) but also provide a little ‘mad money’ for us in our monthly budget. In terms of popular posts this quarter – Mrs. Money’s post on starting her own business was a huge hit, as was my one year experience with Fundrise (and why it’s nice but not maybe as nice as is worth the effort of having a separate account), as was my one year experience with the Amex Platinum and how I justify a $695/year annual fee credit card. The post that has had me thinking the most about was my post on Treasury Bonds and how maybe I should seriously consider investing in them!

Finally, thanks to all for the support of the blog! Special shout-out to Mrs. Money for her posts and support, JT, FA, JP, and DC! Finally I appreciate you, the reader of this article and blog!