I had two weeks of holiday in August, and I managed to Spend them actually fairly cheap:

• I got to stay at a chalet in the ardennes for free of someone I know. I went their for just 3 days but I loved it there, I spend most of my time out in nature with my mountainbike. I got a flat tire in the middle of the forest, but managed to replace it on the spot! I might use this place more often (if possible), when I have another holiday.
• The rest I spend at the sea, since its only one hour drive by (company) car, I didn’t feel the need to rent anything there

I would really want to go to Thailand in winter (January / February), which I know is less cheap, but right now there is still a travel ban for Thailand and its impossible to say how things will develop.

Expenses

Lets start with the Expenses and compare July and August

The highlights

• Housing costs have increased to 1384, as I had my quarterly payment this month for the syndic of my apartment. In my yearly overview page you can see I currently have three loans onthere, the first will expire in May, so only three more payments there!
• Hobbys dropped slightly but remain steady, I had to purchase some extra triathlon gear (about 200 EUR), and I spend 60 EUR on Tennis, and 80 EUR on fitness (will be 60 EUR from next month).
• Groceries have dropped. I had a whole month of cooked gear last month and this allowed me to drop my grocery expenses. However I noticed that its really hard to cook every day, so I decided to mix Microwave food with cooked food. In order to keep my expenses down I will be shopping only in the Aldi in September. Let’s see how this will affect my expenses!
• Shopping for clothes remains low, no new gear needed so far (unless you would count the sport gear I bought). I don’t expect anything new needed for September either
• Restaurant costs are at about 115 EUR, so I am happy I manage to keep it low, although ideally I want to keep it bellow 100 EUR

Expenses overview for 2020

Total Expenses for July= 1909 EUR

Total Expenses for August = 2289 EUR

2020 average = 2152 EUR

Income

Nothing special on the income side, I got my usual monthly wage.

Saving Rate

Given the circumstances a Saving Rate of 11% is not terrible. Of course its much lower then last year, but last year I did get a travel bonus as well. What is mainly suffering due to the lower income I have since travels stopped is extra investments in my financial independence. But that’s ok for now we just carry on, I do have some options to change that in the future if need be.

2019 saving rate: 45.8%

2020 average (so far): 41.09%

Whats next

• I will try to shop 1 month at the Aldi and see what affect it has on my monthly expenses, otherwise I actually expect September to be a less expensive month
• I have a few repairs that need to be done in the home, I have no idea yet how expensive they will be but in the worst case I will need to buy a few new devices
• I currently pay 300 EUR per year for wordpress, but I am considering to step down a notch to 100 EUR subscription. I will be losing plugins then, but I am not sure its worth it right now to spend so much if I can’t blog as much as I would like to

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