November Budget Review
Monthly Review: November 2020 - 91% Savings Rate
Lets quickly hit the big events from November:
Beach’n in Texas
Roadtrip to Mississippi
Parker McCollum Concert
Free Art Show + Dinner
Austin Hikes
I’ve never claimed to be a geography scholar. In reality, I’m terrible at it. Hence the surprise I had when Leslie first started telling me about their beach house on the coast of Texas located in Rockport. As you. can see below, it’s like a little Hawaii hiding out in our own backyard.
We’d been itching for a real vacation and were honestly getting a little burned out with work. So we decided to reserve the beach house for a week and just relax. Normally when we vacation there are Google docs/maps/etc with agendas and lots of planning.
We squeeze as much as possible into every single day. This time we just decided to relax and eat good food. This month had lots of good eats actually. Between this trip, a trip back to Mississippi, and all the Thanksgiving dinners…. the waistline was under attack.
While we may be bulking up, the expenses were able to stay slim.
Let’s break down all the details.
After-Tax Income: $11,404
Slightly increased income this month due to some variable compensation coming in. That money comes in based on when deals get signed. Generally if a deal is signed in one month, I’ll get paid out on it the next.
Expenses: $1,030.46
Dang… Almost got in the no comma club. No commas in expenses that it. Again, with rent being so low, this is going to be a fairly achievable number. This is especially true with travel being more reduced right now.
Even though this seems low, I still wonder how I spend this much. This is part of the reason I’m such a fan of tracking expenses. We don’t think about things like season passes or brake work on their car.
Alrighty let’s break this down by category.
Going Out: $151.24
There are actually several meals eaten out that won’t show up on the budget like the peanut noodle dish shown above. That’s because with November comes Veteran’s day. On Veteran’s day, many restaurants are gracious enough to offer free meals to current and former service members.
The first meal that would show up though was an Austin staple called Kerbey Lane. Seasonally they bring back their southern eggs Benedict which swaps out an english muffing for cornbread. It’s also Texas, so of course there’s beef and queso involved.
Next up is what I consider the national food of Texas.
BRISKET
I grew up in part of the country that loves and excels at BBQ, but it’s generally pulled pork and ribs. While I’ve never gotten good pulled pork in Texas, their brisket is world class. Some of our favorites in Austin are Stiles Switch and Terry Black’s. Both have amazing Brisket although I would give Terry’s the edge on sides.
Then we have the dining out related to our relaxing get-away down on the coast. Shocker, we found a good happy hour. The tiny beach town doesn’t have many fine dining options but Latitude 28 was up there for the area.
We treated ourselves to $5 martini’s and half price appetizers.
The last spot we hit up on the mini vacation was Moondogs. It had a beautiful view of the bay and the food hit the spot as well. We thought we were going to order more but after the shrimp nachos were tackled, we were stuffed.
The total break-down for eating out this month was:
Cidercade: $5.20
Bernies: $4.75
Rockport Donut: $4.15
Latitude 28: $16.25
Kerbey Lane: $18.50
Bonvivs: $5.36
Moondog: $10.16
Rockport Winery: $5.75
Thrive Craft House: $13.61
Switch: $17.49
Peppers: $8.71
Jester King: $27
Mi Toro: $5.50
Taco Bell: $3.25
Groceries: $71.14
A Grocery Run W/ No Restrictions
On our trip down to the coast, we went to the grocery store with no restrictions. It was vacation after all. We wanted fish, shrimp, and that good bacon we normally don’t spring for.
You may need to expand those pictures but there was a delicious spread of fish tacos, shrimp pasta, bacon/egg/cheese biscuit stacks, and a maple sausage egg bake…w/ tots of course.
Even though we really splurged, that grocery trip only cost us $47 a piece. It made me realize that it was too much fun to not do more often. I do love cooking though so this might not be as exciting to everyone else but it’s something I want to incorporate more. Splurge Grocery Shopping!
The last thing I wanted to highlight from groceries this month was my Thanksgiving creation.
Goat cheese sweet potato crostinis w/ toasted pecans and spicy honey drizzle.
They were a crowd favorite and I ended up making three batches in November.
Full grocery cost breakdown:
HEB: $10.54
HEB: $14
HEB: $3.24
HEB: $47.40
Trader Joes: $7.54
Bills: $365.56
Pretty standard set of bills. I did realize that i’d been accidentally counting rent as $225 in my spreadsheet instead of $275. Our total rent is $550 and I’m apparently bad at math.
The full set of bills were:
Rent - $275.00
Internet - $15
Spotify - $10
Car Insurance - $49.32
Cidercade: $16.24
Travel: $120.60
Now to my favorite piece of the update every month. What’d we do for fun?
The Hawaii of Texas
As shown in the leading picture, we were in the Hawaii of Texas. It is a small town though, so if you want to do anything more than relax you have to get a little creative.
So we did something Leslie’s parents had never even done in Rockport. We hit up the local winery. I’ll be honest. The wine wasn’t that good.
But it was a beautiful day and the staff was extremely nice. We have to be fancy every now and then right?
But really this trip was all about the hot dogs. Baking those legs in the Texas sun I mean. I wouldn’t put the beaches quite up to some of the Florida spots like Destin, but they were far better than any beaches I’d seen in New England.
Little bonus: You can actually drive any vehicle down the beach… Texas don’t care!
Art show + Free Food & Drinks
Next in our adventure / travel / outing section is a prime example of why I think living in or near large cities is a frugal thing to do.
You might save some money on rent living in the middle of nowhere, but you also probably won’t have frequent access to live events that are entertaining and often free.
They had really neat art being shown, free beer, and free food. I’ll take the big city.
Yep, More Live Music
Another month, another live concert. This time up is my boy Parker McCollum. He’s been blowing up the Texas country scene for a couple years but is now making his way onto national radio.
It probably won’t be too long before small shows like this are impossible to find for Parker.
Texas Nature
Rounding out this month was a little Texas adventure. Yes, Texas is massive and you don’t have as many nature spots accessible as we did in Boston. However, as far as Texas goes, Austin does offer a pretty solid variety of outdoor scenery.
You can see a group of rock climbers tackling this formation. This location had a pretty good mix of rock formations and water streams. We’ll be getting the paddle boards next month which should also open up options. Did I mention how gorgeous it is in November??? We love you Texas.
So in all the travel sections costs this month were:
Ski Pass: $94.20
Lyft: $6.43
Lyft: $3.42
Uber: $3.95
Kolby Cooper Concert: $12.60
Miscellaneous: $244.04
The only big expense this month was getting my brakes and rotors replaced. It sucks when you have larger bills pop up with the car but we certainly get our money’s worth from the old fusion.
Luckily my smallest random expense (some oldie records) are able to wipe away the pain. Ladies, avert your eyes.. Conway will look straight into your soul
The full list of expenses for this category:
Mom Christmas Present: $10.70
Brakes & Rotors: $191.85
Records: $3.25
Oil Change: $5.39
Canvas Art: $32.85
Gas: $66.31
We had some bigger trips this month. Driving to Mississippi and down tot the Texas coast. Gotta love cheap gas and 40mpg though.
Big Picture: Net Worth Increase $51,879 to $648,245
Wowza!
Last month I was anxiously anticipating another front number change. Going from 500k’s to the 600k’s. And with the help of the market, I blew right past it.
I don’t advise people checking their net-worth as often as I do, but I just love documenting the journey.
This month I saved $10,373 while the market gained me $41,505 for a total net-worth increase of $51,879.