June 2018 Financial Progress Report -

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Welcome to our fifth Personal Financial Progress Report. Another month on our journey to Financial Freedom has come and went. It is now time to look back on June and see the progress that we have made in our financial lives.

In our Financial Progress reports, you can expect to see an outline of our debt, savings, expenses, and income. We will also include a small snippet of what we did or what we need to do to improve each area. As time goes on, you can expect these progress reports to evolve and improve as we learn more about taking control and cultivating our money.

Budget Update

In June, we continued to use Dave Ramsey’s Everydollar website as our main budgeting tool. We have continued to use the categories that were broken down back in April. Now that we have been using these categories for three months now, we can see more of an overall trend in our spending habits.

In addition to using the Everydollar website for budgeting, we also use manual processes of list making. Each month we write out two lists. One list is composed of all our bills with due dates and the second list breaks down our bills and their due dates by the week. This allows us to stay on track with our bills being paid on time and making sure that we use the correct paycheck for each billing period. Now that we have provided you with a more in-depth idea of how we maintain our budget, let’s take a look at our progress!

Debt

May Total Debt: $128,774.36

June Total Debt: $128,546.29

Credit Card Debt: $18,600.87

Car Loan: $199.10

Student Loans: $109,746.32

At the beginning of June, we had entered the month with $18,607.94 in credit card debt and $420.10 in a car loan. We were able to use the debt snowball method and a portion of the money I earned through extra income to pay off a portion of our next smallest credit card balance. However, we had a minor set back as we ended up charging one of our credit cards. We plan to pay off that amount used and will reflect in our July Financial Progress Report.

By the end of June, we were able to pay off a total of $228.07 in Debt. This amount is definitely not as close to our progress in May. However, we are one more payment away from having our Car Loan paid off. As we mentioned in our May report, we were expecting the arrival of our second daughter in June. This meant that I started my maternity leave which decreased our Earned Income temporarily. We do not expect me to return back to work until mid-August which means that July and August will also be slower months with our debt snowball progress. Nonetheless, small progress is still progress and we are glad we are still staying motivated during this debt free journey.

Savings

May Total Savings: $4,388.81

June Total Savings: $5,375.40

Emergency Fund: $2020.01

Maternity Leave: $2,500

C’s Retirement Fund: $855.39

In the month of June, we continued to automate our savings. We love seeing our savings account grow even if the interest is still only pennies. I began my maternity leave in June and will expect to see that fund decrease as bills become due throughout July. We are hoping that our debt snowball progress will allow us to use less of our maternity leave fund. While I have more time at home with the kids, I am looking into side hustles to help supplement my lack of Income. Overall, June was a positive month for increasing our all-around savings and hope to see that trend continue into July even if it will be a smaller amount.

Expenses

Total Expenses: Largest Spending Categories

Debt: 20%

Food: 15%

Utilities: 6%

Housing: 6%

Our Debt continues to be our largest spending category with food still coming in second. We have been working on decreasing our food budget the last few months to at least 16%. In June we were able to successfully get it down to 15%! Our Food budget in June was actually larger, however, our income was higher which decreased the percentage. We saw an overall decrease in percentages for all our spending categories, but this is definitely due to us having a three paycheck month in June.

It will be interesting to see what our percentages will be in July as I will not be receiving an actual paycheck but using our Maternity Leave fund sparingly. Overall, we should see a decrease in specific categories such as gas and food. We predict that we will see a slight increase in our utilities due to me being home all day with the kids which I am utilizing the electric and central air far more. However, this can all change depending on the unpredictability of Michigan’s weather!

Income

May Total Extra Income: $250.35

June Total Extra Income: $527.03

We had even more of an increase in earning additional income in the month of June. This was mainly due to receiving an unexpected check in the mail that was from an overpayment in 2017. With me going on maternity leave at the end of the money, this unexpected check was put into savings right away until we decided how to best use it. I was also able to earn a small portion of income by completing a couple User Testing gigs and the rest through Ibotta and Swagbucks.

My earnings through Ibotta increased slightly but was still difficult to reach the earning potential in previous months. We were still not able to match up as many rebates or meet the bonuses in time. We are hopeful that July will be a better month for earning cash back with Ibotta! I still firmly believe in Ibotta and invite you to join my team here. Join today and you can earn $10 within your first month.

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Ibotta: $11.07

Mystery Shopping: $0.00

User testing: $20.00

Online Surveys: $2.96

Misc: $493.00

Overall, our progress towards Financial Freedom in June was still amazing even with a few small setbacks. While our family still has a long journey towards Financial Freedom, we are becoming more confident that we will reach our goals eventually. We expect to continue to see slow progress in July due to my maternity leave. While there is still some unpredictability with certain expenses, we are reassured that it will all work out how it should. We look forward to continued progress.

Previous Financial Progress Reports:

How was your Debt free journey in June? Please share your progress below. We are all in this together!