So I haven’t posted in nearly 5 months. A lot has happened, and also nothing has really happened. As mentioned in the last blog post, we bought a house at the very end of May. Houses take a lot of time, work, and money. That is one reason for my absence. The other – is that we found out in early July that I was pregnant. Unfortunately the first trimester was the SHITS. I spent most of July & August in bed. Literally. The husband brought just about every meal to bed. I’d never been so tired in my life, nor so perpetually nauseous. Even though I work remotely, I had to inform my boss very early on that I was pregnant as I was so so sick I could barely function. I was also getting migraines that would last 2-3 days that also helped to keep me bedridden. I was calling in sick so much, taking Zoom calls from bed, that eventually I just took 2 weeks off and went on short-term disability.
If I was to do it again, I’d probably go on disability even earlier. It’s a pay cut, but I was losing my mind trying to stay on top of work while never leaving my bed. I truly feel for those who experience a first trimester like this and still have to make it into an office every day, or don’t have disability benefits available to them, or just can’t afford to miss work. I was very very fortunate. I went back to work at the very end of August.

June through October, or basically just life since moving into our home, has been hectic and a bit life-changing, and I hate that I’ve neglected this blog. Unfortunately I think a lot of that has to do with the pregnancy and not being up for much for a couple months, which takes you out of your habits and routine and it can be hard to get back into it. I was also reminded of how much work can be soul-sucking. I don’t necessarily hate my job, but it does drain me and I find it doesn’t leave me much mental capacity to do other things – which is so so depressing to me and one of the main reasons people choose to pursue FIRE.

I wanted to catch up on my Net Worth posts but because I have FIVE months to cover I’ve decided to break it up into two posts. This one and one for September and October. Looking at our Finances over this five month period does not reflect a couple pursuing FIRE. A lot of our expenses are related to moving into our home, furnishings etc, but also we went a bit apeshit on food. Pregnancy is wild folks. I was an awful human in that first trimester. It wasn’t so much that I had weird cravings, it was that 95% of food I couldn’t fathom eating, and instead I would crave one particular meal and that was the only thing I could fathom eating for dinner that day… and my angel husband would go find it for me. Let’s just say we’ve fallen off the bandwagon financially.

What Happened This Month…Quarter?

June was a nasty month for spending. We purchased our house at the end of May and moved in the first weekend in June. Our first major home expense in June was to replace all the plumbing. This was an expense we were aware of and we were able to negotiate $10K off of our original offer in order to pay for the plumbing. Other than that, we also made a number of big purchases like a lawn mower, freezer, bedding, tools, bar stools etc etc etc.

July was somewhat more reasonable – it probably helped that we experienced a major heatwave, along with me being sick which pretty much kept us inside and not doing much for the entire month. Our savings rate in July was 47%.

I’m not sure what the hell happened in August but apparently we went nuts on take-out. Okay that was probably my fault and the pregnancy demands.

Expenses Breakdown:

Yuck.

Rental Property: As a reminder, we took equity out of our rental property in order to help with the down payment on our home. This kept our cash free to invest. This number is higher than it used to be but I think of half of it or so as our principal residence mortgage.

Food: Like I said, we went nuts in the Summer. We’ve created really bad habits from it and it needs to change. For each of the months approximately half of the food cost is groceries and half is restaurants.

Transportation: The big increase in August is due to our annual vehicle insurance payment. We pay for this up front for the year.

Home Expenses: This includes our mortgage payment, as well as anything else home-related. I may end up splitting this out eventually for more detail, probably for 2022. Right now this includes a giant mixed bag of purchases – Faucet, Utilities, Couch, Patio Furniture, Fire Table, Routers, Plumbing, Ladder, Nest, Tools, etc etc etc.

Gym: Yeah we quit that…

As absolutely depressing as our spending was, it’s nice to see our Net Worth and FIRE Assets increase each month.