I enjoy the periodic pause in my normal blogging cadence of personal finance topics to do a quarterly “Financial Update” on the blog. It’s a great chance for me to pause, slow down, and reflect on how things are going. Sometimes I feel our lives are moving so fast and our heads are so down and focused on the daily grind of trying to earn more money, save more money and spend an appropriate amount. I have learned about myself that I am a person very motivated by progress – no matter how large or small the progress may be – as long as it’s forward progress – that’s what keeps me going. So, for a brief pause and reflection, here is how things are going for me in 2023!

Income

I always feel inclined in this current economic environment to call out that both Mrs. Money and I are gainfully employed. Mrs. Money being in the education space means she’s a bit more isolated from layoffs (for now!). I am in the tech space and my company has been one of the ones that has done layoffs – and a fair amount of them. I put down some of my thoughts in this post where I concluded that it would not be the end of the world if I did get laid off, but I decided it is something I would prefer to avoid if possible. A good number of my friends and colleagues that have been laid off have landed good, if not better jobs in and around the industry, so I’m excited for them and grateful to see that there are plenty of companies still hiring.

Since I last posted this series in the winter of 2022, I have had two nice monetary things happen at work – firstly I got a better than expected raise at work. Granted it’s nothing too major but honestly it’s a) a raise and b) a slightly bigger raise then I thought I would get – both of those in this economy are things I was not counting on. Secondly, and I just recently found out – I was granted RSUs – or restricted stock units. I’m still diving into the details but I believe it’s a 4-year stock grant with a 1 year cliff. So that means this time next year I’ll get 25% of the stock, then it’ll vest quarterly so every quarter I’ll get 3/36 of the stock. It’s not life changing but still a very nice icing on the cake.

Mrs. Money’s side hustle business is still slow going – she’s actually decided to go back to her main job ‘full-time’ instead of just ‘half-time’. That’ll be a nice extra paycheck in our budget each month and as you’ll read in the next paragraph – something we’ll be quite thankful for.

Finally, our rental property still brings in monthly rent to cover the mortgage (and a bit more!), which we’re thankful for. The current lease is up at the end of June, and we’re not sure what the tenants will decide to do so we’ll wait and see! Oh, also this blog continues to bring in a slightly steady stream of ‘mad money’ for us to have a the occasional splurge with!

Expenses

Haha, I feel like every quarter I use this section to complain about how expensive everything is and how it’s hard to control spending. I feel like we go in a habit of more spending during covid – pre-inflation getting crazy and back when there was not as much to do besides online shop, get lattes and takeout. It’s been hard reigning these habits in – but I will say especially this year we’ve tried to wrangle our spending in. It’s easier said than done but our budget just feels to get tighter and tighter each month. We’re also looking this summer to upgrade the family vehicle which although car prices are not as crazy as they were in 2020-2022, they are still pretty high, so that’ll be a fun expense to plan for. This summer will also get more expensive with some travel and more kids activities in the mix. Thankfully in July/August Mrs. Money will be back to ‘full-time’ (and I’m using quotations – she’ll work 9-3 instead of 9-12 as she did this year) which means she’ll be doubling her pay which will be oh so great.

Photo by Sergey Shmidt on Unsplash

Saving/Investing

I continue my habit of contributing 15% to my company’s employee stock purchase program (ESPP) and 15% to retirement. Outside of that we’ve been able to do very little it feels – I do have a category each month for some investing, but that seems to quickly get spent on groceries and other expenses. I recently did my monthly net worth check and did have to remind myself that as much of a grind and battle it feels each month trying to tame the budget – we are making progress – 30% of my income each month.

In other news – which will be a fun blog post later on – we did invest a decent amount of our cash in a local food & beverage business. We’ve been loyal patrons for many years and have always known that investing might be an option and the opportunity finally presented itself in a time that made sense to us. We ended up selling a decent portion of stocks to make this happen and although of course it’s scary investing in any business that is still in growth mode, it felt good. We know the founders personally and trust their ability to grow. I also just wanted to get some cash out of the stock market – to me I get worried about how my money can be tied up in something that’ll rise/fall based on a dumb tweet, based on unfounded fears or rumors and based on macro trends that may or may not actually have an impact on the stock market. Obviously I’m not turning my back on stocks – this was just a chance to diversify.

Giving

We are continuing the practice of giving to charities in our community – both our local church and other nonprofits. I will say it’s gotten a bit more painful to do so seeing how ‘tight’ our budget feels, but giving back is something Mrs. Money and I value and so we’re continuing to prioritize it. I look at it as a percentage of our income – so if our income falls, so would our giving, but vice-versa we could increase it too.

I’ve also gotten involved in donating my time – something I’ve been thinking more about doing vs. just giving money and am helping a non-profit through an opportunity I found through work. This non-profit purchased my company’s software and a few of us are offering our time pro-bono to help them get it implemented! Pretty cool to be a part of!

Overall

It’s at this point in the blog post where I normally have done enough reflecting and write up in a semi-sappy sounding, “I’m just thankful for it all and no matter the ups and downs of the quarter I’m thankful for my family, our health and our ability to pursue a livelihood that we enjoy”. And yes, I’ll wrap this blog post up with the same sentiment

Blog

Last but not least – I always love a little reflection on the blog! The top article of the quarter was “Managing your Money in 2023” – which was a fun post – I basically took an older post from 10 years ago that I had written and reflected on things that have changed vs. not changed in how I manage my money. I also am really proud of the 10 year anniversary post – pretty cool to have been doing this for 10 years! My back-to-the-basics on Income = Expenses + Saving was a fun one too. I appreciate you the reader and all of my support system – thanks for the continued support of me and the blog!