I did expect a large amount of expenses in Q1. Of course there is my quarterly syndic payment that is taking up a large chunk out of my budget, but I also have purchased a new mountainbike that I will need to pay for next month. As a consequence I will have two months that I will need to watch out a lot not to fall into the negative.

Overview

Lets go over the different expenses for this month

Income

I didn’t got to do much overtime in January, probably this will not pick up until march. So my income stayed at a stable 2501 EUR.

I do hope travel will be allowed again from Autumn so I have a chance to boost my income a bit there.

Expenses

Housing: with 1188 EUR on housing costs this is not unexpected. Its mainly paying off my loan (550 EUR per month), Internet, Netflix, Prime, Gas & Electricity. Gas and Electricity has gone up since I have been working from home, and of course this month was my quarterly payment for the syndic. After 2 more quarterly payments this amount should drop again as we will have paid off a loan we took for a new roof.

Shopping 240 EUR: I had two main purchases that came a bit unexpected. Firstly because I decided to purchase some Crypto last month I bought a “Ledger” to store Crypto on, which is like a external hard disk specifically to safely store crypto currency.

Secondly I bought a YubiKey that will provide extra security when using exchanges to buy Crypto. Its kind of another way to do 2-factor authentication. It can be used on Crypte exchanges, but you can also use it for your gmail account.

The last items I bought were Smartplugs. As my power consumption has skyrocketed I decided smart plugs will help me a bit. I programmed them to turn off all electricity (apart from Wifi and my Phillips hue home) after 1 AM, this way I am sure not to use any electricity that I shouldn’t be. I believe especially my TV (that has no off-button), and my PS3 in standby might be using a lot when not used.

If you can see all three above were in a way investments, but I still put them under shopping because while I hope all will earn me money (or avoid losing money), I might have gotten by without them to.

Groceries at 230 EUR: I managed to drop it to 230, its still bellow my target price of 220 EUR per month, but I believe food prices have gone up a bit this year and that just makes it harder to make this goal.

Hobby’s on the fourth place at 195 EUR: on the one hand some items from the Decathlon for cycling, and on the other hand I also did a down payment of 100 EUR to a 950 EUR bicycle I purchased. I will need to pay the other 850 EUR in march when its delivered. I really felt a new bicycle was long overdue and this is an investment in my health. With 950 EUR I didn’t go for the high ends yet, but this should be more then enough to do long distances at a good pace.

The mountainbike I bought is the Big Nine 400. With 29 inch wheels and single blade it follows the latest standards, but what really catched my eye is the weight of only 12.42 KG!

Restaurants 37 EUR: this was all take – away food, and I am honestly a little bit surprised how quickly it stacked up. Especially because 12 EUR of that was take away that I just ate by myself. That’s just such a waste..

Costs: 17 EUR – mostly parking fees

Investments

Whatever I did not spend I invested. I actually invested even more this month. In total around 29.000 EUR, but this would look pretty bad on the chart, so I kept it at 593 EUR. Basically I invested everything that came in this month, plus even more.

Find all the details on where I invested 29000 EUR in, in my monthly portfolio update!

Budget review for 2021

Total Expenses for January = 1908.

Apart from my grocery bill, I am also on track of the Budget I set for myself for 2021 and I ended this month just under this budget.

Saving Rate

So thanks to this boost on income I was able to report 23.70% saving rate this month!

2019 saving rate: 45.8%

2020 saving rate: 42.86%

2021 saving rate (so far): 41.58%

What’s next

• In march I need to pay the rest of the Mountainbike I ordered, so thats another 850 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 need to refresh my sailing club membership before April: 180 EUR. Again something I plan to use a lot during summer, but its a pretty big expense in a month I already have a lot of expenses, so I am not looking forward at this at all.
• Our Syndicus of our apartment building has ordered a – well needed – new garage gate. I am not sure when this expense will come but it should set me back another 200 EUR.
• Of course taking all the above into account I will do my very best not to purchase anything additionally in march.

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