Monthly Update – September 2017 (+$2,109.50, +1%)
September has been a really fun month for us. We’ve both have been contemplating starting some sort of side business for a long time. This month, I finally pulled the trigger on starting this blog and my wife started her wine business. I love talking about personal finances and love to help others with money, so sharing this information with everyone seemed like a great idea, even if it really creates a layer of vulnerability by being so transparent.
This month, we sat down and found a fun way to celebrate our journey along the way with milestones! Because we’ll get to earn rewards along the way, we’re hoping that this provides additional motivation to cut costs and maximize income.
Our first reward will most likely be a delicious trip to The Melting Pot (Net Worth – $325,000). Although, we could hit one (or many) of the side income rewards first. It’s hard to tell which will come first with our net worth growing at a nice pace each month thanks to this ongoing bull market.
Net Worth Overview:
Our net worth increased by $2,109.50. Compared to last month’s increase of $11,366.50, this month isn’t nearly as exciting, but any growth is always a positive!
A couple key points:
- My 401(k) increased by about $3,000. Total contributions were $1,366.66, so the other ~$1,600 was growth in the account.
- Our home’s estimated market value dropped by $2,588, which was the main driving factor for a low growth month.
- We made $259.87 from our side businesses this month!
- Our spending is still high, but about $700 less than last month. Let’s break this section down further below.
Spending overview:
Food & Dining – $777.52 (up $246.96 from last month).
- $286.18 – Aldi (our main groceries each month).
- $227.27 – Walmart (the rest of our groceries each month).
- $40.10 – Chick-Fil-A – This was actually a low month of Chick-Fil-A spending for us!
- $46.98 – Chipotle – I love Chipotle. I’ve always had a slight obsession with their burritos. There were times back in college that I would drive 5 hours to get some ‘potle, so when they offer queso for the first time, I naturally had to go here a few times.
Shopping – $292.57 (down $626.19 from last month). Shopping on Amazon has been a huge issue for us and something that we’re trying to focus on reducing. For September, we only had one purchase of $26.97 from Amazon (which I’m pretty sure were diapers). The rest of our shopping was at Wal-Mart for random things and a couple trips to Half-Price Books to find my wife some extra reading motivation for her wine business.
Business Services – $421.88 – These expenses were investments we’ve made in to our businesses. Some of these costs was a logo for the website, drop boxes to promote wine, etc. I expect this category to be much lower in future months.
Not sure if there’s much else to add with the smaller categories so I’ll wrap up with our one-year old pretending to be a dog (sorry for the potato-quality picture).
So, what do you think about how we did this month? How are you guys doing on your journey to financial freedom?
