May 2024 – A nice yet expensive month
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May was another rather expensive month, but it was nice with a good balance of time for us and time with family and friends.
We had quite a few small expenses piling up. And we also had to pay extra taxes for 2022. With some extra income, we still managed to save a significant portion of our income.
May 2024
In May, we had plenty of events, including a wedding and multiple other events to attend. After a quiet month of April, this was good, but we are looking forward again to a month with slightly fewer events or more balance.
Our son started sleeping better again. It is still not great, but we had a few nights without any wake-ups and it feels great. This also helped reduce the number of tantrums that we got.
My back situation did not improve, but at least it did not get worse.
Overall, it was a pretty expensive month. We do not have any considerable expenses this month, but we had plenty of small expenses piling up to a significant amount.
Fortunately, our income this month was also higher than average. I had three different sets of shares vesting in May 2024. So, we still managed to save slightly more than half of our income, which is a great result.
On another note, my wife started looking again for detached houses this month. And we realized that the price of these properties had gone insane in our village. I do not think we will be able to afford them, and it is probably more reasonable to ditch that idea, even though a detached house is something we both think about.
Expenses
Here are the details of our expenses in May 2024:
| Category | Total | Status | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insurances | 776 | Expected | Health insurance only |
| Transportation | 665 | Semi-unexpected | Bus, gas, and a change of tires |
| Communications | 20 | Expected | One phone plan |
| Personal | 2501 | Higher than expected | Many small expenses |
| Food | 808 | Slightly higher than expected | A few lunches out and snacks and regular groceries |
| Housing | 945 | Higher then expected | Usual bills plus water filter maintenance |
| Taxes | 7271 | Expected | Normal cantonal taxes plus extra municipality taxes |
In total, we spent 12990 CHF during this month. Without taxes, this amounts to 5719 CHF. This is significantly above what we are trying to spend per month.
We had quite a few extraordinary expenses this month. We had to change the tires of our car, which cost us 500 CHF. Since it has been years since the last time, this is an expected expense. Furthermore, we had to service our water filtration system and this cost us the insane amount of 475 CHF, for a simple service.
We also went to a nice wedding and gave our friends a wedding gift. We stayed the night in a hotel as well. And I also fixed an old wall clock that my grandmother gave me, for 250 CHF. Finally, Mrs. The Poor Swiss had to make new glasses.
Many of these expenses could not have been avoided. But there are other small expenses that weigh on the balance. We have to be more mindful of buying stuff.
We are back to paying high taxes again. Indeed, we had to pay extra taxes to the municipality for 2022. And then, we paid the standard taxes for the canton. We are still waiting for the federal taxes bill, but we should be back to a standard level of taxes. Our taxes this year will be significantly higher than last year.
Just like last month, there are no massive expenses, but they all add up to a significant amount. We bought a full pig again and received the meat this month. We will likely receive the bill next month with the remainder of the smoked meat.
Overall, we still have to be careful about all these expenses that pile up.
2024 Goals
Here is the status of our goals by the end of May 2024:
Overall, our goals are doing relatively well. Our monthly expenses have increased again this month, with relatively large expenses. We are still below the level of last year, but we have to be careful about not continuing this trend.
Our other financial goals are doing well. Both our income and savings rate goals are above our target. We still have to optimize two bills this year. I still have no clue what I will optimize next. Our recurring bills are mostly optimized.
My daily steps went through the roof this month. I have been walking almost every day on my under-desk treadmill. This bumps up my average much higher than it used to be. On the weekend, it barely makes a difference because I do not have much time. I still have not found a good balance on the treadmill, with sometimes excellent results and sometimes only a few sessions in between meetings.
On the workouts side, I missed two days. I was sick one day, and then I missed another day because it was a holiday. But the quality of each workout is still well above what it was last year, and I plan to improve it further.
While it is not tracked on my goals, I was aiming to do two cardio trainings per week. Unfortunately, with my back, I cannot do that on my indoor bike any more. If I do not fix my back soon, I will need to find an alternative.
Our energy consumption is slightly down this month again. We have no strong plans to optimize this further, but just want to be careful in general with our power consumption.
Overall, our goals are doing rather well.
FI Ratio
Here is the progress of our FI Ratio as of May 2024:
Overall, our FI ratio went up slightly this month, by 1%.
Our net worth went up significantly this month. We had some nice savings, but the main part of the increase is because of the stock market. Our investments have reached new all-time highs. Furthermore, the blog got a significantly quarterly invoice paid, which helps as well.
On the other hand, our average expenses are still going up. The gap between our fixed FI ratio and our current FI ratio keeps increasing. The good news is that we are still progressing towards our goal and that we are still on track to reach FI before I am 50.
Overall, I am pleased with our progress towards FI this month.
The Blog
Once again, not much happened on the blog this month. I kept up with articles, comments, and emails.
I am still writing an e-book on investing. The writing is almost done, and it is in the reviewing phase now. I hope to release it in the coming months.
As for the forum, it has been almost dormant. There have been few new threads and several of them were from me. At this point, this experiment starts to appear like a failure, but I will conduct it to the end of the year. Then, I will see if I drop it entirely or host it myself to cut the high costs.
Next Month – June 2024
Next month, we have a few events with our family, including a full weekend together. It is good because we did not do much with our family in May 2024. And we have quite a few free days as well, which is nice.
Financially, I do not expect much. We received a full pig again and will likely pay it next month. And we may have to pay extra for the federal taxes as well.
What about you? How was May 2024?
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How on earth is your monthly housing expense less than 1000 CHF???
Hi Jack
We have a very cheap mortgage at 0.64%. This will more or less triple next year once we renew the mortgage.
Hi,
I am a regular reader of your blog.
How do you keep track of budget ? Any Apps or way you could suggest ?
Also any interest to update the GameStop previous blog entry.
Hi Minnic
I have written my own app to track it: I use budgetwarrior for my budget and net worth
I’d rather not delve too much into Gamestop. The story is the same as last time, and the best way to invest is to ignore all these events.
do you ever do a post revealing all your investments and your actual networth?
just wondering about your numbers
Hi,
I used to reveal all the numbers. But since I have revealed by real name, I decided not to reveal income and net worth directly. That being said, what I share is enough to estimate both :)