June 2018 Expenses & Financial Update

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This is a new series I started a few months ago, sharing a report of our monthly expenses. At the end of the year I shared a recap of our 2017 spending, which showed graphs and percentages that we spent in each category. I decided to take the transparency up a notch and start sharing some monthly numbers. You can check out last month’s expenses here.

Sharing our expenses involves vulnerability, but after contemplating it for quite some time it seemed important. The goal with these expense reports will be to keep ourselves accountable as we continue on the road of being mindful with our spending. It’s also my hope that it will help spark conversations and encourage others to examine their own budgets.

We use Mint to budget and track our expenses. You can check out my writeup about how we use Mint for our budgeting here.

Without further ado, here’s where we spent our money this month:

June 2018 Expenses

• Dividend Income: $232.05
• Interest Income: $21.82
• Side Hustle Income: $479.92

These past few years on our financial journey we’ve challenged everything and trimmed down our expenses, but our spending is still a work in progress.

Overall, we continued a positive trend and kept our expenses remained in line with what we typically spend.

Some highlights this month included our trip to Denver. We had an amazing time exploring a new place that we had never visited before. Travel continues to be an area we value highly, and it is reflected in how we allocate our spending. One of our dogs got an ear infection, which meant a trip to the vet and a large bill.

We continue to look to cut back on the areas that don’t matter as much, so that we can put money towards the areas we truly value. Mindful spending is a big focus for us and we continue to improve at it.

Other Financial Updates

My side hustle with a minor league baseball team is back in full swing, so we had a nice amount of extra income come in this month. We put all of this extra income towards paying down our car loan. We should have the loan fully paid off in the next couple days. This past March we finished paying off our student loans, so paying off our car loan will make us completely debt free! While we have encountered various obstacles throughout our debt payoff journey, we’ve continue to plug along as throw as much extra money towards our debts as possible. It has been a long journey and we are both excited to reach debt freedom! I’ll write a post soon of the thought process we went through with getting a car loan and whether we regret it.

We brought in our highest level of dividend income ever, at over $200. This is money that is being generated by our investments, and then gets reinvested right back into those investment accounts. As our investments grow, eventually we’ll reach the point where this dividend income will be used to pay for our living expenses. It’s exciting to see it growing as our investments continue to grow.

Thanks for tuning in to this months expense report, and I hope you’ll check back again for next month’s recap!

Related Reading: Reviewing Our 2017 Spending

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