Monthly Financial Progress Report Series: April 2019 -

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Welcome to our monthly Financial Progress report series. We started this journey of recording our progress towards Financial Freedom in February 2018. It was important for us to find a way to document our journey and hold ourselves accountable for our goals. Our Financial Progress Reports were created from this moment. We have been 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 once we receive all our financial statements we then review and update our financial data. From this financial data, we then compose our financial progress report for the previous month. This typically falls within the middle of the month as some bills fall on the 1^st of the month and many others towards the last days of the 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 currently use Dave Ramsey’s Everydollar website as our main budgeting tool. Below you will be able to see the main categories that we have broken our budget up into. There are additional sub-categories within these main categories. The last time we updated our main categories was in April of 2018. Since then these categories have served us well in the ability to see trends in our spending habits. As we move through our journey to Financial Freedom we will adjust our budget categories. When was the last time that you reviewed your budget categories?

In our June 2018 Financial Progress Report, we provided a small snippet of the methods behind our monthly budgeting and tracking. Each month we review our previous month’s expenses and evaluate where we need to adjust the amount we budget for. To keep track of our monthly bills so that they are inputted in our budget correctly, we keep a list of all our fixed bills, their amounts, and their due dates. We make sure that our bills are listed in order from the earliest due date to the last due date in the month. Then, as we pay each bill, we will check off by dating each item paid.

Right now. mine and my SO’s earned income is on a bi-weekly pay period. This provides us the need to stay organize and continue keeping track of every bill and expense that needs to be paid between pay periods. Doing this ensures that we are paying bills on time or sooner which also saves us money by avoiding late fees and unnecessary interest.

To keep track of every bill in between pay periods, we make another list that breaks down our bills by their due dates into a weekly duelist. Even though my SO and I are both paid bi-weekly, our employers are on different pay cycles. What this means is that each week we are getting a direct deposit from either company. This does help us tremendously in how efficiently we are able to manage our money. Keeping track of our spending on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis gives us so much knowledge and insight into our spending habits and staying accountable to our money goals.

Now that you have some background knowledge on how we budget, let’s take look at our overall month progress towards Financial Freedom!

Debt

March 2019 Total Debt: $125,435.42

April 2019 Total Debt: $124,950.46

Credit Card Debt: $15,204.14

Student Loans: $109,746.32

We started April with a total of $15,689.10 in credit card debt and had a goal of paying off $800 worth of debt. Due to the delay in an expected refunded, we fell short of our goal. Even though we didn’t meet our original goal, we still managed to pay off a total of $484.96 in debt. Not only did we contribute 60% of our goal to debt but this amount was exactly enough to pay off my Amazon credit card. By next month we expect to meet our goal 100% and see our overall credit card debt drop in the 14Ks!

Guys, this is a big deal to us. We started our journey with over 20K in credit card debt plus a personal home loan and car loan. I am still amazed at the progress that we have made since we started getting serious and holding ourselves accountable in our financial goals. While we still have a long journey ahead of us, these reports help remind us what we can achieve when we transform our money mindset.

This journey to financial freedom has taught us how to continually learn and adapt to different solutions for our money woes. Every few months we like to evaluate our current debt repayment strategy. We are currently still finding results by utilizing the debt snowball method. However, as we approach our credit cards with similar balances it is important to us that we continue to evaluate our debt repayment method. We are total believers of the debt snowball method, but we also understand there are different methods available that could potentially save us time and money.

When it comes time for us to review our current debt repayment strategy we head straight over to undebt.it. We love using their FREE debt snowball calculator to track our journey! You only need to have a list of each of your debts, their current total balance, your monthly minimum payment, and your current interest rate. After you provide that information, the calculator will do the rest. You can determine which method will get you closer to debt freedom faster. It is hard to say where we would be on our finance journey if we had not stumbled upon undebt.it. They have helped us gain more focus and clarity when it comes to our debt free journey.

Needless to say, we are excited about the progress we are seeing in 2019 so far. We are finding ourselves making better decisions and getting creative on how to pay down our debt faster. Based on our calculations we will be credit card debt free within the next 20 months. After we have successfully paid off all consumer debt, we will start aggressively tackling my student loans. When did you start feeling the momentum of your debt free journey?

Savings

March 2019 Total Savings: $8829.78

April 2019 Total Savings: $9360.97

Emergency Fund: $5986.85

C’s Retirement Fund: $3374.12

At the end of April, we are seeing steady growth with our savings goals. The more debt we pay off, the more we have to contribute to savings. We feel more secure by contributing to both debt and savings at the same time. There was a time when we had very little savings and we contributed to as much debt as we could. However, unexpected expenses kept popping up that caused us to either charge it or deplete whatever little savings we had. We never seemed to make real progress in either. Over time the desire to be truly debt free and financially independent helped guide us to learn more and change our money habits. This way we stopped using the credit cards and started saving for unexpected expenses because we all know life brings them.

Currently, our emergency fund includes our sinking funds as well. While we have narrowed down the different sinking funds we need for the next year, we are still not quite ready to get them separated into their own accounts. We are in the process of reviewing a few online savings account options. Eventually, we would like to move some of our long term savings and sinking funds into one of these accounts.

The last couple of months we have also been discussing how to automate our savings more. We are considering the best methods such as setting up direct deposits through payroll or setting up automatic transfers through our bank. We would love to hear what others are doing to automate their savings!

Overall, we are excited about the possibilities that continue to develop as we work to increase our savings contributions.

Expenses

Total Expenses: Largest Spending Categories

Food: 18%

Health & Fitness: 18%

Debt: 16%

SO’s Lifestyle 8%

Our Food and Health & Fitness categories dominated a good portion of our monthly income in April. Having our Health & Fitness spending category account for 18% of our monthly expenses is actually a milestone for us. This may sound crazy, but what this 18% represents is the fact that we were able to cash flow the continuous Dental care I have needed this year. Never in the last 12 years would I have been able to do this without charging some credit card and then making minimum payments on it for years to come!

It is moments like this that make me realize how far we really have come. This journey to financial freedom has helped us grow in more areas than just our finances. We have seen an improvement in our time management, our outlook on life, and the other little habits we make every day towards a better life.

Some of the little habits we do weekly is tracking our expenses manually. This process has humbled us and forces us to be self-reflective on how and where we are spending our money. We have expressed the desire to automate the process of keeping track of our spending to gain more energy and time. However, we wonder if by automating this process we will lose valuable insight on how to improve our spending habits. What is your favorite way to track your spending habits?

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Income

March 2019 Total Extra Income: $21.02

April 2019 Total Extra Income: $896.23

April proved to be another month where we found ourselves with not much time to focus on earning extra income. My SO returned back to full-time work in April which has changed the family dynamic again. While we know this will happen every April, there is still always a transition period. Again, while we put little effort into earning extra income this month we still manage to bring in some income and meet goals in other areas of our lives. After reviewing our extra income earnings, we were reminded of how effortless Ibotta and Swagbucks can be during our hectic months.

Ibotta has always been consistent in allowing us to earn extra income each month. We love that our family receives cash back on our everyday grocery shopping trips. Since we started using Ibotta over a year ago we have earned just over $250. 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!

Swagbucks has also been a great way for us to earn money especially through their online shopping feature and their product recommendations. My earning and saving potential increased greatly after I added the Swagbucks button to my browser. Any website I would visit, there Swagbucks would be telling me what coupons and cashback offers were available. Try it out!

Ibotta: $8.50

Mystery Shopping: $0.00

User testing: $0.00

Online Surveys: $18.64

Quora: $1.05

Misc: $868.00

Monthly Goals

Every year we set out to reach certain milestones. We learned in 2018 that if we really want to reach our long term goals, we must start setting monthly goals that reflect our long term goals.

Every month, we try to break down the 5 biggest areas that are priorities for us for the year into smaller and measurable goals. Many of these areas for this year are financial, personal development, health & fitness, family and career. Each month we intend to share our results of the goals that we set for additional accountability. Below after we post the results of our past month’s goals, you can expect to read a snippet of our successes and our setbacks during that month.

In April we set out to decrease our debt, spend time as a family more, continuing reading my current books, create new pieces of art and continue with my exercise routine. As you can see from our Goal List above we completed 4 out of the 5 goals we originally set. However, we made 60% progress towards the one goal that we did not meet completely. We would have completed this goal a 100% had a refund we were waiting for not get delayed. Regardless, we made great progress towards all our goals this past month and look forward to the next month.

We have really enjoyed using this process to commit and stay accountable to our monthly goals. This process helps us stay on track and helps to break our large goals down 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 May!

Recap

April ended with much growth for us. We are seeing our total debt amounts dropping, our savings balance increase and our spending categories aligning with our larger goals. This month has really provided us with the motivation we needed to continue moving forward. Month to month we are continuously learning to new ways to adapt our finances to our life’s needs. We feel that we are making progress in the right direction.

Previous Financial Progress Reports:

With every new month that goes by we are so thankful for the support that we have gained from the debt-free community. Additionally, we have improved our accountability by reporting on our progress. This has really allowed us to remain determined and confident in our abilities to keep meeting goals. Moving in forward into the month of May, we plan to have very similar goals. While they are similar these goals will still help us make progress towards our journey to Financial Freedom.

What actions are you taking to reach your monthly goals? Are these monthly goals helping you to achieve your annual goals? Share Below!