We Bought A House! I actually won’t talk about it again here, as I already talked about it here. But it is my big update for March and very exciting. That said there isn’t an impact to our Net Worth yet as the closing date isn’t until end of May. Though it has actually already impacted our spending.
March Net Worth
What Happened This Month?
Our savings rate was just over 50%. Phewf, our spending was actually up this month but thankfully was offset by the husband’s raise and my measly $500 bonus. Our spending was just under $6,500 (compared to $5,600 last month). As you can see from the breakdown above, our cash is finally dipping as we dumped some money into our RRSPs. We’ll continue to do this as we don’t need as much cash on hand as planned for our home purchase.
Expenses Breakdown:
Rental Condo: $1,550. YTD the rental condo is still out-costing (I think I made up a word) our rent even though our rent is almost $800 more than our mortgage. Our rental income covered our cost for this month (not every month), but I still find it interesting.
Food: $1,176. I hate when our food costs are this much. This includes almost $100 spent on alcohol, $25 spent at coffee shops, $815 on groceries and $240 at restaurants. In total we got take out 10 times in March. Oops.
Home Expenses: $954. This includes utilities, cell phones and internet (we don’t pay for any TV services). AND, this month it includes our first home ownership expense – the home inspection cost which was $500. I can’t believe people put subject-free offers on homes and forego inspections. Our inspector was excellent and we actually found what looked like a leak (but not quite a leak) and we were able to negotiate $10K off of our initial offer price making the $500 well worth it. We’re also hiring movers to help us move in June so I had to pay a $50 deposit.
Transportation: $237. This is made up of $178 in fuel. This is the most we’ve paid in probably a year but we had to drive a couple of long distances and just from all the driving around looking at homes. We also spent $25 on car washes. It’s amazing how badly you need car washes when you live in a non-rainy environment – and don’t have a driveway to wash your own car. The remaining $34 was for a tire pump purchase.
Cash-Back: This month we earned $60 towards groceries with our PC Financial Mastercard. We got this card last year and I haven’t really been tracking how much cash back we’re earning but I’m going to start because I think we’re averaging $40-$50 a month in free groceries. This is also a free card so the return is pretty amazing. It’s well worth it if you shop at Superstore which is where we do a large amount of our grocery shopping.
That’s it for March, we’re hoping to keep expenses down for the next two months before we take possession of our home and they sky-rocket. 🙂
