With 2020 coming to an end its time to calculate my savings Rate for the last month of the year. December finished at a 69.46% savings rate, meaning I was able to save a huge amount of my income. Of course its also thanks to the semi-lockdown in Belgium and the end of year bonus I got this month

Expenses

Lets go over the different expenses for this month

The highlights

• Housing: my housing costs remains the biggest with with 760 EUR, with the biggest part being the loan. Additionally I bought some new furniture that costed me 120 EUR. At some point you might think your home is finished. Well let me tell you something, your home is NEVER finished, you will always think of something that can be better, and once you went all around the home to improve everything you can start back from the first item you improved.
• Hobbys on the second place at 273 EUR: this was mainly bicycle maintenance for both bikes. Together they costed me about 215 EUR in Maintenance. For my racebike I expect this will be rather rare, for my mountainbike that I use heavily I am considering to take a course so I can do more myself. At least basic maintenance like putting in a new chain is something I will try myself next time. The material is cheap, just the man hours are expensive.
• Groceries at 217 EUR: a 30 EUR drop from last month, I suppose its partly because I went to eat Christmas dinner out of the home. Within the Corona rules of course. I also decided to eat more bread going forward, as opposed to eating cooked meals twice a day
• Shopping 84 EUR: mostly small things but one thing I purchased was Tile. Tile lets you easily find your items when you lost them, by showing its last known position and they also have the ability to ring. It costs me 70 EUR but I figured losing my wallet or keys would cost me more..
• Costs 63 EUR: this is mainly my insurance that costs me about 61 EUR to renew
• Smaller expenses: gifts (47 EUR – it was Christmas..), Holidays (26 EUR – down payment for spring) and restaurants (20 EUR takeaway + treated a friend).

Expenses overview for 2020

Total Expenses for December = 1494 EUR, my lowest of all of 2020! Paying attention to what you spend helps! My current top expense on record is January 2019 at 1426 EUR so I came very close to breaking it!

Income

My income rose to about 4890 EUR this month, mainly because I got my end of year bonus, which almost doubles my regular wage. Taxes on these bonuses are huge unfortunately.

Saving Rate

So thanks to this boost on income I was able to report 69.46% saving rate this month!

2019 saving rate: 45.8%

2020 average: to be announced in my overview post

What’s next

• I will blog about my conclusion for 2020, and more importantly I will use all my 2020 data to take a realistic look at my spending, and make a realistic budget for 2021!
• Expenses planned Q1 2021: tools & toolbox for bike repairs (so I can do more myself) – 70 EUR, yearly membership sailing club – 180 EUR, safety leash kiting – 70 EUR, I will try to spread these out over multiple months..

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