Savings rate March 2020: drop to 32%!

Like I mentioned in my blog about Corona my initial expectation during the lockdown is an increase in expenses on some levels and a drop on others. I would expect groceries and shopping to go up, and restaurants to go down. At least for my specific case, and this mainly in the first month.

Expenses

Lets compare February with March and see what moved exactly:

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Its a bit like what I predicted. Restaurant costs have plummeted, groceries and shopping expenses went up.

The highlights

• Living costs were not so bad and stayed at 772EUR this month, even though they are my biggest expense, 772 EUR is really fine as it includes a 550 EUR / month payment of my loan
• Restaurants costs dropped from 500 EUR to 99 EUR and a further drop is expected in April as all restaurants are closed! Good news for my wallet!
• Grocery Shopping increased to 400 EUR which is 200 EUR more then usual but its expected when I don’t go out eating. However I am paying more attention now to the things I buy in the supermarkt so I am hoping it will drop next month
• I spend 532 EUR on a Virtual Reality Glasses (Oculus Quest) that I classified under shopping, any games I bought I classified under hobby’s. I bought 4 games in total costing me about 100 EUR. It was a really good purchase in the end as it is helping me to go trough lockdown.
• Otherwise no abnormal spendings, just a regular month

Income

I also had a drop in income as I get bonuses when I travel for work, and I was able to travel much less for work. So while my expenses remained about the same I have a drop in saving rate. I plan to spend a bit less next month to compensate better. I could still travel the first 9 days of March, so the drop is still limited, but I expect it to be even larger next month.

But there is also good news. My company noticed that in march all projects can continue as its business as usually. The next 3 months will be hard to sign new contracts but also to recruit new people. End of march is usually when we get to hear if there will be a raise or not. I was really afraid it would be 0% this year, but I am happy to say I did got a raise that I am happy and grateful with given the circumstances. This will most likely help me to improve my saving rate on the long run!

Saving Rate

All in all I can’t complain. I’m healthy and so is my family, I still have my job and am able to work from home. So even if my saving rate dropped to 32% I’m still happy. I hope that you and your family are also in good health and you are able to keep your income stable.

The moment you have all been waiting for 😉 The graph with my savings rate. Compared to last year its not looking so good, but I am happy where I am so far and I will try to keep my shopping in check 🙂

I have a competition with myself that I need to do 5% better then last year. Its not looking good, but I feel April could turn things around! I went in a trip in May Last year and Paid some items in April. And guess what I am not able to do this year? Yes Travel! So let’s see how this will give me a chance to turn things around!

Whats next

I will continue to do sports (running / cycling is almost free), watch my grocery expenses and try not to shop to much in April!

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