March 2018 Financial Progress Report

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Welcome to our second Personal Finance Report. We are encountering another month for a chance to improve our Financial Freedom! As another month has come and went, it is time to take a look back.

Last month I had written a blog that highlighted our debt snowball progress thus far. Another post was written to highlight where we stood with credit card debt at the beginning of March and what our goals were for the month. We have decided to combine these type of posts into one unified post that will highlight our overall Financial Progress towards Financial Freedom.

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 of our money.

For the last two years, we have been using Dave Ramsey’s Everydollar website to budget our monthly expenses. We love how simple the website allows us to build our zero-dollar budget, but it is not providing us with everything we need.  After reviewing a few other blogs and conducting my own research, we have decided to change the budgeting tool that we use. While we are still deciding between Mint and Personal Capital, we will have this decided by this weekend and will begin reporting using this software in our next Financial Progress Report.

Debt

Total Debt: $129,933.97

Credit Card Debt: $19,325.45

Car Loan: $862.20

Student Loans: $109,746.32

You may notice that this number has more than tripled. Well at first I only wanted to focus on my consumer credit card debt and car loans. However, I am nearing Graduation with my Masters’ and will be expected to begin making payments back on my student loan debt. This is a really huge thing for me to talk about, as I have never talked about exactly how much student loan debt I have. This is for over 10 years of schooling and being dumb in the first couple of years of school. Those couple of years of being dumb resulted in prolonging my degree completion and more student loan debt than I would like to admit.

I am not going to be ashamed of these numbers. The whole idea around this blog is to depict that we can achieve the goal of Financial Freedom even as a family who is below what is considered middle-class America.  There are so many blogs out there of individuals who are already past the point of paying off debt and they bring great advice to us with debt. However, what about the blogger’s who are still battling debt? I am hoping that with our journey, however long it takes us that we can help build up confidence and motivation to tackle these areas of our lives no matter how far off the deep end we are!

At the beginning of March, we had entered the month with $20, 476.71 in credit card debt and $1020.37 in a car loan. We were able to use a portion of our Tax Refund and what I had earned through Extra Income to pay off our next smallest credit card debt of $231.47. In addition to this small balance we also had another credit card paid off for a total of $636.27 through a debt protection plan that we purchased.

We have a few cards with these additional plans even though they cost extra each month. They have been a tremendous help in battling our credit card debt turning times of hardship in our life. Recently it was due to my SO being laid off and due to the length of his lay off, one plan paid off the remaining balance of his credit card.  By the end of March, we were able to pay off a total of $1,151.26 in Credit Card Debt. For us, this is big progress towards our consumer debt. Our car loan balance also decreased just by making the regular monthly payment.  We are excited to see these small wins each month.

Savings

Total Savings: $3,839.45

Emergency Fund: $1,031.53

Maternity Leave: $2,500

C’s Retirement Fund: $307.92

Our savings did not increase much for the month of March. Most of our focus was on paying down debt. We will be working more this month to automate a small amount of our paycheck to savings each month. My retirement fund is small as I just started contributing to it last year when I went full time. Due to us trying to dig out of debt, I only contribute a small portion to the 403 (b) each paycheck. After I return from maternity leave, I intend to increase this contribution. Compared to where we were a year ago, our total savings is a great improvement. We are celebrating the small steps to Financial Freedom.

Expenses

Total Expenses: Largest Spending Categories

Debt: 35%

Housing: 22%

Food: 18%

LIfestyle; 13%

Last month we recognized that our food budget was high and we wanted to work on cutting the expenses down. Well, that goal was a fail for March. With me working overtime and my SO picking up with work we just failed to plan. Our goal is to get our Food budget to 15% or below for the month of April. This is doable as we just need to cut out how much we eat out unexpectedly. My SO’s monthly income will begin to double in April. With this increase, we will be able to throw more money towards debt and savings. However, we really have to evaluate our food and lifestyle spending.

Income

Total Extra Income: $83.30

Last month I had reported that I started some new alternative ways to bring in an extra month. The total amount of $83.30 depicts what I earned and what I also received. My biggest surprise of the month was my cash back earnings from Ibotta. I was able to earn $39.30 just by spending the same amount on our grocery bill as previous months. However, I was more strategic with what I bought and researched the bonuses in order to double up on rewards. This was all earned from cash back on receipts. I have learned too that the bigger your team is on Ibotta, the greater chance you have of meeting the teamwork bonuses. Want to earn $10 this month? Join my team here and we both win!

Ibotta: $39.30

Mystery Shopping: $14.00

User testing: $10.00

Online Surveys: $10.00

Misc: $10.00

Overall, I am excited about the prospects in improving our Financial Freedom. However, it is going to be a long journey unless we are able to drastically increase our monthly salary and cut our expenses. With us welcoming another child in a few months, it is not ideal for me to change jobs right now.  Not to mention that my current employer has childcare provided onsite and this is a huge expense we are able to save each month. This also allows me to work full-time. At this time, we have to look at ways to cut our spending and make extra money outside of the traditional workforce. I believe this is highly doable and I am in good spirits on where this journey is taking us.

How has your family progressed in their finances in the last month? I would love to hear about everyone else’s journey to financial freedom!