I love shopping….on the stockmarket! I love reading about the stockmarket, talking about it, buying on the stockmarket and watching my stocks work for me. I get more enjoyment from buying a stock and watching it work for me then from going to Starbucks for a coffee. Is that weird?

There is only one way you can afford to buy stocks, and that is not to spend any money on other things. That is why I try to keep my spendings under control somewhat. I am happy I was able to kick off the year with a 59% Saving rate!

Overview

Lets go over the different expenses for this month

Income

Thanks to a lot of overtime in December, I managed to get a higher income then usual, as it rose to 3100 EUR. Pretty much all of this is wage.

Expenses

• Housing: with 642 EUR on housing costs this is not unexpected. Its mainly paying off my loan (550 EUR per month), Internet, Netflix, Prime, Gas & Electricity. I’ve never had cable as I thought it was to expensive compared to the Netflix (7 EUR) / Prime (3 EUR) combi.
• Groceries at 240 EUR: This was a bit surprising as I thought this should have actually been dropping. I tried one month of cooking less and eating more bread instead. Food prices have gone up the most of 2020, so one explanation could be the food stores slightly increased their prices in January..
• Hobbys on the third place at 174 EUR: again some maintenance on the bicycle, but also purchased some gear I can use for kiting when the summer is there. My biggest expenses was my subscription for a triathlon this summer (68 EUR). I can’t wait to join this sport event! I inscribed for a 1/4th triathlon, so thats 1,5km of swimming, 40km of cycling and 10km of running. I also bought a 60 EUR repair box for my bicycle, so I will be able to repair more things myself. If I manage to repair even one thing this will already pay itself back!
• Shopping 89 EUR: my main cost here was that I got two of my pair of shoes repaired. This cost me 65 EUR, but I purchased them for 300 EUR each, they are of a good brand, and look brand new again. I fully believe in repairing shoes when its possible.. This repair will have set me ok for work-shoes for at least a few years.
• Costs 56 EUR: this includes a 53 EUR speeding ticket. I usually pay a lot of attention to how much I drive, and try not to go over the limit, so I must have not seen a sign somewhere..
• Smaller expenses: holidays (44 EUR – weekend away), restaurant (11 EUR – fries x2)

Investments

Whatever I did not spend I invested. I actually invested even more this month. In total 45.000 EUR, but this would look pretty bad on the chart, so I kept it at 1800 EUR. Basically I invested everything that came in this month, plus even more.

Find all the details on where I invested 45000 EUR in, in my monthly portfolio update!

Budget review for 2021

Total Expenses for January = a RECORD BREAKING 1258. I could not have done this without Corona of course!

Apart from my grocery bill, I am also on track of the Budget I set for myself for 2021.

Saving Rate

So thanks to this boost on income I was able to report 59.45% saving rate this month!

2019 saving rate: 45.8%

2020 saving rate: 42.86%

What’s next

• I plan to buy a new Mountainbike, this will set me back 1000 EUR. Its expensive and will KILL my saving rate but keep in mind I have been cycling almost every weekend for 3 hours the last 2 years…
• I will refresh my sailing club membership before April: 180 EUR. Again something I plan to use a lot during summer

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