July 2018 Financial Progress Report

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

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 Update

n July, 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. Trends in our spending habits are becoming more prominent as we continue to use this category system. Have you wondered exactly what our current budget categories are that we use? We realized that we never did share what our budget categories are. See below the current budget categories that we use!

Recently, we have been discussing changing the way we view our budget again. 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 would love to hear feedback from anyone who uses these budgeting techniques or others!

As we mentioned in our June Report we are still using a couple manual methods to keep track of our budget and spending. 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 an update on our budget, let’s take a look at our progress!

Debt

June Total Debt: $128,546.29

July Total Debt: $128,288.54

Credit Card Debt: $18,542.22

Car Loan: $0.00

Student Loans: $109,746.32

At the beginning of July, we had entered the month with $18,600.87 in credit card debt and $199.10 in a car loan. We continued to use the debt snowball method. A portion of the money I earned through extra income was used to put towards paying off our smallest credit card balance quicker. Due to our setback in June, our debt repayment was a bit slower in July.  However, we have officially paid off our car loan! We can now apply that payment amount to our debt snowball each month. We are excited for the little victories this month and look forward to really seeing our debt decrease in the next few months!

By the end of July, we were able to pay off a total of $257.75 in Debt. This amount is small but still fierce considering we are a one-income household while I am on maternity leave. I will be returning back to work mid-August and will start seeing my income increase again. Overall, we are happy with the small progress we have made and are continuing to stay motivated with our progress towards a debt free life.

Savings

June Total Savings: $5,375.40

July Total Savings: $5,595.08

Emergency Fund: $2110.15

Maternity Leave: $2,500

C’s Retirement Fund: $984.93

In the month of July, we continued to automate our savings. We have fallen in love with seeing our savings account grow even with the baby steps. In July, I was in my full blown maternity leave mode which meant that I would not receive any paychecks. No worry as this is exactly what we had planned for.

The amazing thing that occurred this month is that our debt snowball progress along with my side hustles prevented us from having to dip into our maternity leave fund! This was a pleasant and surprising victory in the world of savings as we work towards our journey to Financial Freedom. Overall, July was a positive month for our savings and we hope to see this trend continue into August as I return back to work.

Expenses

Total Expenses: Largest Spending Categories

Debt: 27%

       Food: 20%

       Utilities: 10%

Housing: 8%

Our Debt continues to be our largest spending category with food still coming in second. Our food budget goal for July took a step backward as we added an extra 5% to our spending. We already understand that this was due to us not meal prepping properly and adjusting still as a family of four. As we move forward into August, we expect to see the percentage in this category decrease again. We may also see drastic changes if we use a different budgeting approach as we mentioned in our Budget Update section above.

In our June Report, we had predicted that our utility bills would increase slightly. With the additional use of electricity and central air being used throughout the day, our bills increased by 4%. The increase was a bit larger than expected but was still manageable. Surprisingly, we also saw a $10/month increase in our Lot Rent due to adding another member to our household.  We couldn’t believe our landlord was so quick to increase our rent once we brought our new baby home. Does anyone else have to pay a higher rent rate due to their family size?

Income

June Total Extra Income: $527.03

July Total Extra Income: $249.59

As you may be able to see, we saw a decrease in earning additional income in the month of July. Due to me still adjusting to having two daughters at home, I did not have much time to complete side hustle tasks. Luckily, the universe was looking out for us as my SO got an unexpected bonus at work for all his hard work! This allowed us to avoid dipping into our maternity leave fund. I continued to work on taking surveys and maximizing our grocery shopping savings with Ibotta.

My earnings through Ibotta increased slightly this month. We had hoped in June that they would and indeed they did! Ibotta has been a great way for our family to receive cash back on our everyday grocery shopping. We have already earned over a $100 since we started using Ibotta a few months ago. What could you do with an extra $100? We firmly believe in Ibotta and invite you to join our team here. If you join today and you can earn $10 within your first month!

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Ibotta: $20.50

Mystery Shopping: $0.00

User testing: $0.00

Online Surveys: $4.09

Misc: $225.00

Overall, our progress towards Financial Freedom in July was still amazing even with us being a one-income household temporarily. 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 see progress gain momentum in August as we go back to a two-income household. This is perfect timing as we prepare for our oldest to go back to school. We look forward to our continued progress towards Financial Freedom.

Previous Financial Progress Reports:

• June 2018 Financial Progress Report
• May 2018 Financial Progress Report
• April 2018 Financial Progress Report

How was your journey to Financial Freedom in July? Did you encounter any unexpected expenses? Please share your experience with us!