October 2018 Financial Progress Report -

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Welcome to our monthly Financial Progress report series. Ever since we became more serious about our journey to Financial Freedom in February 2018 we have been reporting on our personal financial progress. This has allowed us to document our journey and hold ourselves more accountable. We are amazed to see the progress that can be made by finding different ways to decrease our debt, make more money and save more.

Each month after we have received all our financial statements and updated all our financial data, we then compose our financial progress report for the previous month.

In our Financial Progress reports, you can expect to see an outline of our debt, savings, expenses, and income. Also, we will 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

We have 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. The trends in our spending habits have become more prominent as we have excelled at utilizing our new category system. A couple months ago we shared our new budget category system with our readers. This will always be included in each Financial Progress Report moving forward. Let us know how you have your budget categories set up!

Recently, we have been discussing changing the way we view our budget. We are considering fine-tuning our budget to mimic either the budget category percentages suggested by Dave Ramsey or through the 50/30/20 rule. We are currently learning more about these budget types and deciding which seems most feasible for our life at the moment. We would love to hear feedback from anyone who uses these budgeting techniques or others!

As we mentioned back in our June Report we are continuing to use manual methods that aid in tracking our budget and spending. Each month we use the art of list making. There are two different prominent lists that we use. 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. These are just extra steps we take to provide checks and balances and give us peace of mind.

Now that we have provided you with an update on our budget, let’s take a look at our progress!

Debt

September Total Debt: $127,693.16

October Total Debt: $127,473.03

Credit Card Debt: $17726.71

Car Loan: $0.00

Student Loans: $109,746.32

After overcoming a tough month in September, we were able to see a bit more progress in October. However, the progress made was just as small as it was in September. We continued to use the debt snowball method this month but we were still unable to maximize our payments. While we made an extra payment, we were not able to pay off the smallest credit card balance that we had again. However, we have remained positive that we will accomplish this pay off in November. Overall, we are excited to keep see our credit card debt decline closer to the 16K threshold.

The next couple of months we expect to see a slower progress with our debt payoffs. This expectation is due to the upcoming Holidays and my SO’s income decreasing due to work layoffs. We are also approaching credit cards with balances over $1,000. With these high balances, we anticipate that it is going to take longer to pay off as our debt snowball payment is still below half that amount. Even with these odds against us, our hope still remains to diligent work on increasing our income and finding ways to cut expenses to help speed up this debt repayment process.

By the end of October, we were able to pay off a total of $232.36 in debt. This amount is has decreased compared to the previous months’ debt payment. However, we are becoming that much closer to paying off the next smallest debt. We continue to look forward to making more progress toward our debt as we get creative with extra income and saving more.

Savings

September Total Savings: $4799.47

October Total Savings: $5709.57

Emergency Fund: $3635.73

Christmas Sinking Fund: $500.00

C’s Retirement Fund: $1573.84

As we mentioned back in our August Financial Progress report we saw a decrease in our savings but overall ended with a surplus in our maternity leave. That surplus in the maternity leave sinking fund was moved back to our emergency fund in September. While we did not get around to setting up our sinking funds in September, we did get to one sinking fund account in October.

We finally were able to set up our Christmas Sinking Fund. We are super excited as this is the first year in our 8 year relationship that we will be cash flowing Christmas. Every year before this one, we have relied on credit cards to purchase anything we need for Secret Santas, Holiday Party Dishes, Santa Gifts and much more. We have set aside $100 for each person in our household. Additionally, we have budgeted $100 to use for work and family secret Santa activities and holiday dishes to pass. Do you have a Christmas Sinking Fund? What is the lowest budget you have been able to manage in cash flowing Christmas?

Overall, you may have noticed that our Savings has grown in October. We are excited to see this growth and even with our Christmas Sinking Fund, we are still on track to continue growing our savings.

Expenses

Total Expenses: Largest Spending Categories

Debt: 17%

Housing and Utilities: 17%

Food: 14%

Transportation: 10%

October served to be an interesting month in our category percentages. We had some expense categories shift due to changes in our spending needs. If you haven’t noticed, we are reporting on our housing and utilities together again. We decided that this was necessary as they are both needs for our home. With this change, we see our food spending drop to third place and a new fourth place expense is our transportation.

As we had predicted, we expected our food budget decrease as our oldest daughter eats most of her meals at school for free which has helped us pay more in debt and a save a bit more. Both of our vehicles were due for registration and tag renewal which increased our transportation. My vehicle was also due for its quarterly oil change. This combination increased our transportation cost in October, which we will expect to decrease back to normal in November. Overall, I believe we agetting betterter at budgeting within our set categories and learning how to prepare for expenses ahead of time. Stay tuned to see our expenses changes for November in our next financial progress report!

Income

September Total Extra Income: $752.88

October Total Extra Income: $484.97

While we saw a decrease in our total extra income for the month of October. Much of this extra income was due to me receiving income from a small short-term disability insurance policy claim. I was super glad that my employer provided this insurance and was the cherry on top of not having to utilize all of our maternity leave funds. Along with this insurance, our savings from using Ibotta mainly contributed to our increase in extra income made in October.

My earnings through Ibotta decreased slightly in October but still was higher than my lowest earning month! Ibotta has been a great way for our family to receive cash back on our everyday grocery shopping. We have already earned over a $150 since we started using Ibotta a few months ago. Are you interested in learning how you can maximize your Ibotta’s earning potential? If you decide to start taking advantage of cash back through Ibotta, we invite you to join our team here. By joining our team and redeeming one offer within the first month, you will earn $10.00!

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Ibotta: $13.10

Mystery Shopping: $10.00

User testing: $0.00

Online Surveys: $0.16

Misc: $461.71

Monthly Goals

Back in July, we started sharing our monthly goals. This was done to create a visual of our goals as well as to hold ourselves accountable. We try to aim for at least 5 different goals that range within financial, personal, physical and life goals. Currently, we have been posting these goals to our Instagram. In August, we began highlighting our monthly goals and their end results in each financial progress report.

We decided to do this because many of the goals are small actionable goals that are contributing to our bigger goals of financial freedom. In our monthly goal visual, you will find a green checkmark on those we completed 100% and red cross marks on those we did not complete below 99%.

In October, we failed to complete three out of the five goals we had originally set out to achieve for the month. We managed to pay a small portion to D’s Citi Credit Card but were not able to pay it off completely. There was also progress made in writing new blog posts as we published two and started drafts of two others. I was able to successfully spend 30 minutes each day working on self-development such as reading my current book or reading emails and articles on blogging. Lastly, we finally got that Christmas Sinking Fund set up just before it will be spent in the upcoming Holiday season!

We love the focus and motivation that setting goals have given us. We are a bit disappointed to see a bit more red xs then expected. However, we are still making progress and that is what truly matters no matter how small of progress.

We have really enjoyed using this process to commit to monthly goals. It aids in keeping us on track and allows us to break down those big dreams into smaller achievable ones. We look forward to continuing to do this each month. Check out our Instagram feed if you’re interested to see where our focus is going in November!

Recap

October was a good month in all areas of our financial progress. We still decreased our debt, improved our savings, lowered our spending percentages and earned more than normal extra income. We contribute much of this success to our diligence in planning ahead in the previous months. Due to us planning ahead in August, we were able to overcome financial setbacks in September and move forward in October. While our progress was still smaller than earlier months, we still are moving forward in the right direction.

Previous Financial Progress Reports:

Overall, our progress towards Financial Freedom in October ended in a positive light. We contribute much of our success to the support we gain from the debt-free community and having these reports for accountability. This has really allowed us to remain determined and confident in our abilities to keep meeting goals. We are intrigued to see how far we can go in November with the upcoming Holidays and layoff changes expected. Altogether, we look forward to our continued progress towards Financial Freedom.

How was your progress towards financial freedom in October? Did you have any unexpected setbacks that made it hard to reach your financial goals? Comment below to share your responses. We are a judge-free zone!