August Budget Review
Monthly Review: August 2020 - 81% Savings Rate
Lets quickly hit the big events from August:
Moved from Boston to Austin!
Sold my van
Stayed at a haunted plantation
Did a fan boat tour
Began my phone booth conversion
Saved furniture from the trash
Turns out everything we own required a 15ft U-haul and a car trailer. We thought we were pretty minimalist but in reality it took so many trips to donation spots and so much selling on facebook to get us down to this.
The drive was zero fun as we made our way to West Virginia to pick up my phone booth and down to Mississippi to see my family before finally reaching our new home in Austin, TX.
I will break down all of the details as we work through the categories.
After-Tax Income: $11,980.00
Another month with some additional income from work. I did sell my van for $12,500 but you won’t see that reflected here. The reason is that I removed the expense of all the repairs I had to do on it from my budget (transmission, exhaust, etc) and paid back Leslie any money she put in towards the van as well.
If you were curious to read more details on the Van project and all the expenses, you can check out my guest post for the step by step process.
Expenses: $2,248.46
I pride myself on rarely crossing the $2k mark but this month wasn’t a normal month. The Uhaul alone was $1060 for my portion of the move. I was able to offset some purchases such as some new furniture and a kayak with money I got from selling stuff to downsize.
We’ll be moving to a spot directly on the water with kayak storage and a boat ramp so it was a no brainer. How we were going to get it home from the seller was a different story.
Going Out: $11.43
Gas Station: $3
Pilot: $1.96
BC Seafood: $6.47
All You Can Eat Sushi: Downsizing funds
Largest Burrito Ever: Mom’s treat
One of my favorite Mexican restaurants back home started this insane deal on the biggest burrito I’ve ever seen. For $16 you get 5lbs of fajita meaty cheesy goodness. It had steak, chicken, shrimp and all the roasted veggies. Was delicious and the most economic. Mom hooked us up with this dinner out.
You may not agree with my accounting practice, but to me, if I sell something I’ve already paid for and buy something else, it doesn’t get counted as an expense.
I took some funds from the sell off that happened as part of our downsizing and got us a nice final dinner in Boston. All you can eat sushi makes the heart smile.
Groceries: $15.64
We continued our focus on burning through all the food we already had in the house so this month was especially low again.
The $15 as a reminder is for myself only.
Full grocery cost breakdown:
Star Market $6.97
Dollar Tree $5.00
Trader Joe $3.67
Bills: $923.82
Standard Bills
Rent - $837.50
Internet - $27
Spotify - $10
Car Insurance - $49.32
Travel: $56.49
So how did I buy flights to New Orleans and take a fan boat tour for $56?
The answer was I didn’t really. I spent more than that but I also got a refund for $122 worth of Luke Combs tickets that I’d already accounted for so it helped offset the trip.
The travel sections costs include:
Luke Combs: -$122
New Orleans Flight: $124.20
Uber: $19.41
Fan Boat Tour: $34.88
Haunted Houses and Fan Boats
My dad, sister, and brother-in-law had planned out a trip to New Orleans. I just randomly started looking at flights and was able to snag round trip tickets for $124 a week before they left.
My spending is so low that when a trip comes up that I’m interested in, I don’t really even have to stop and think about if I can afford it. I know that I’ve saved so much money in other areas that travel is wide open.
The first of our big events was the fan boat tour. I honestly couldn’t believe how much fun it was. I didn’t expect the boats to be so fast and maneuverable. We were on a six person boat vs the much bigger ones and I think that really increased the fun factor.
The tour was only $35 on Groupon. Groupon is always the first place I look when I’m visiting a new city. If you don’t see at least 15% off sale, try waiting a day or two before purchasing anything there. Bonus: if you have a Samsung phone, Samsung pay regularly offers 16% cash back for any Groupon purchases made through their portal.
Things Got Spooky
The agenda item that my sister was most excited for was the Myrtles Plantation. This property is supposed to be one of the most haunted locations in the United States. We stayed in the room that was featured on Ghost Hunters.
The picture above is of the main house but we were actually in the Caretaker’s Quarters. A little shack cabin right behind the main house. I’ll admit we didn’t really have any “encounters”, it was a neat place with lots of dark history.
The stay included some free tours that covered all that dark history and a really good breakfast out in the courtyard.
The Great Migration
As I mentioned in the July post as well as this post earlier, we decided to do a huge downsize and relocate from our nice Boston apartment to a 375 sq/ft condo with some much needed attention down in Austin, TX.
Even though we felt like minimalists, we had so much more than we thought. This made the move a bit more stressful than anticipated but freeing of ourself of so much stuff was also ver therapeutic.
The good thing was we had already had sourced all of our furniture we’d need and would be taking it with us. This meant we could move in and really be moved in. Not weeks of looking for a couch or dresser and living out of boxes.
Keep in mind we also would have to make room half way into our journey for my phone booth that I would pick up in West Virginia. If you’re curious how it feels to spend 40 hours of total driving to take a box truck and a car from Boston to Austin with countless construction and windy mountain roads….It sucks.
Leslie did a much better job documenting the journey than I did. Check out the awesome Tik Tok she made that helps capture the move.
Stay tuned for the September post where I can showcase the way our improvements transformed our tiny little condo into a modern, clean, functional space that we can be proud of and hopefully really increase the market rent for Leslie’s parents after we move out.
Miscellaneous: $1,197.77
Wow… that’s a big number for the random catch-all category but there’s a simple explanation. Moving trucks ain’t cheap. My half of the Uhaul alone was $1,060.
The full list of expenses for this category:
Uhaul: $1,060.33
Rhonda/Bob Gift: $52.98
Dollar Tree: $3.22
Home Depot: $16.92
Tires: $128.21
Sanding Disks: $28.33
Dollar Tree: $3.13
Burlington Store: $6.36
Dressar Knobs: $27.60
Box Tape: $4.11
Air Compressor: $26.58
Used Chase Cash back to offset $160
I’ll do a more formal breakdown of all the the ways we furnished the house next month, including our $2500 crate + barrel dresser that we got for free or how we traded out our bed frame for the same thing in a different color for a $100 profit.
So stay tuned
Gas: $43.31
The U-haul obviously took a lot more fuel than this. However, I still had some of those pre-paid debit cards from donating plasma that covered most of the gas costs for me. Leslie and I split the gas for the trek down.
Big Picture: Net Worth Increase $51,709 to $547,742
August was insane from a market perspective. There’s no secret “get rich quick” scheme going on. This is primarily index funds that are growing with the fantastic tax advantages that 401ks, IRAs, and the TSP offer me.
This month I saved $9,731.54 while the market brought in $41,977.98 for a total net-worth increase of $51,709.52.
