Something really cool happened in July.

I was nervous to check our Net Worth this month because we spent quite a bit of $$ in July, and of course, didn’t have any income.
Fortunately, I had a nice surprise.

We spent almost $8,000 in July – I know, that’s gross. While we didn’t have any real income, I did count our ~$2k in rewards we received from Chase as “income” for the month because I didn’t want our expenses to look lower than they really were.

So our cash-flow for July was just over NEGATIVE $5,000. Yuck.

So what happened to our Net Worth?

It dropped by $517…

Yep, that’s it.

This was really really cool to see.

Our retirement accounts went up by over $5K in the month of July.

While I’m aware that that’s what happens with investments (not all the time of course), I’d never really seen it in front of me until now, because I’d never tracked our Net Worth to this extent before.

It also made me realize that this FIRE thing can really work. And, that we need to get more invested asap – oh and get jobs. 🙂

So here are July’s numbers:

Where did our cash go?

Our big purchases this month were:

Professional Dues – $997.50. These suck. My employer has paid this every year. Being unemployed I had to pay this myself this year. It sucked.

Bikes! – $390. We bought two used bikes. This was our biggest moving/didn’t pack regret. We sold our bikes before we moved and like everything else in Canada – turns out they’re WAY more expensive here. Oops.

Vehicle Import – ~$500. Another moving expense. We finally imported my car into Canada and with that comes all sorts of fees. We still have to have it inspected which means… more fees.

Furnishings/Home Expenses – ~$1,000. We bought a bunch of miscellaneous stuff this month (dresser, rug, plant, curtains, light bulbs, lamps). Good news is I think we’re done.

Condo Expenses – ~$600. This was one of those months where a 3rd mortgage payment for our rental unit snuck in on the 31st.

My goal for August is to get our grocery bill down. We spent over $700 in July (this includes paper towels, toilet paper etc). When we lived in the States it was pretty consistently around $400-$500 and we consume almost no meat so it’s very frustrating to me that it’s still so high. But… Canada. This place is expensive!