I had two weeks of holiday in August, and I managed to spend them actually fairly cheap:
- I got to stay at a chalet in the ardennes for free of someone I know. I went their for just 3 days but I loved it there, I spend most of my time out in nature with my mountainbike. I got a flat tire in the middle of the forest, but managed to replace it on the spot! I might use this place more often (if possible), when I have another holiday.
- The rest I spend at the sea, since its only one hour drive by (company) car, I didn’t feel the need to rent anything there
I would really want to go to Thailand in winter (January / February), which I know is less cheap, but right now there is still a travel ban for Thailand and its impossible to say how things will develop.
Expenses
Lets start with the expenses and compare July and August
[visualizer id=”3178″ lazy=”no” class=””]
[visualizer id=”3032″ lazy=”no” class=””]
The highlights
- Housing costs have increased to 1384, as I had my quarterly payment this month for the syndic of my apartment. In my yearly overview page you can see I currently have three loans onthere, the first will expire in May, so only three more payments there!
- Hobbys dropped slightly but remain steady, I had to purchase some extra triathlon gear (about 200 EUR), and I spend 60 EUR on Tennis, and 80 EUR on fitness (will be 60 EUR from next month).
- Groceries have dropped. I had a whole month of cooked gear last month and this allowed me to drop my grocery expenses. However I noticed that its really hard to cook every day, so I decided to mix Microwave food with cooked food. In order to keep my expenses down I will be shopping only in the Aldi in September. Let’s see how this will affect my expenses!
- Shopping for clothes remains low, no new gear needed so far (unless you would count the sport gear I bought). I don’t expect anything new needed for September either
- Restaurant costs are at about 115 EUR, so I am happy I manage to keep it low, although ideally I want to keep it bellow 100 EUR
Expenses overview for 2020
Total Expenses for July= 1909 EUR
Total Expenses for August = 2289 EUR
2020 average = 2152 EUR
Income
Nothing special on the income side, I got my usual monthly wage.
Saving Rate
Given the circumstances a saving rate of 11% is not terrible. Of course its much lower then last year, but last year I did get a travel bonus as well. What is mainly suffering due to the lower income I have since travels stopped is extra investments in my financial independence. But that’s ok for now we just carry on, I do have some options to change that in the future if need be.
2019 saving rate: 45.8%
2020 average (so far): 41.09%
Whats next
- I will try to shop 1 month at the Aldi and see what affect it has on my monthly expenses, otherwise I actually expect September to be a less expensive month
- I have a few repairs that need to be done in the home, I have no idea yet how expensive they will be but in the worst case I will need to buy a few new devices
- I currently pay 300 EUR per year for wordpress, but I am considering to step down a notch to 100 EUR subscription. I will be losing plugins then, but I am not sure its worth it right now to spend so much if I can’t blog as much as I would like to
Interested to follow me? Then subscribe and join me on my Roadtrip to Financial independence!
Roadtrip to FIRE 
Hey at least your Savings Rate is still possible after the extra expenses this month! I try to cook most of the time at home as well but I feel you, sometimes you just don’t feel like it. Going out for dinner or ordering something is a nice break then. I’m really curious how 1 month at Aldi will impact your grocery expenses though 😀
LikeLike