September Budget Review
Monthly Review: September 2021 - 82% Savings Rate
Let’s quickly hit the notable moments from September:
Closed on the House!
FinCon 2021 in Austin
Attended Four Concerts
Paddleboard day to Rosebud Island
****As always, every category depicts what I spent, what I made, and how my net worth changed. Just me, not our household****
Welp… We did it!
We closed on the house. It was such a crazy, unexpected whirlwind and I can’t believe it happened so fast.
We have so many friends that struggled really bad with finding a house and especially closing on a house. Austin has been riddled with all-cash offers that are hundreds of thousands of dollars over asking and even waiving the inspection.
So needless to say, we feel very blessed.
Look at those happy kids
And we can walk to seven spots that have live music which is huge for me.
Speaking of live music, we had to sell some Tyler Childers tickets for a show at Red Rocks which would have been an all-time great concert. So that was a heart breaker, but we knew that trying to travel to Colorado as we’re closing on the house was just doing too much.
But this month did have plenty of live music and other fun bits such as paddle-boarding and FinCon 2021!
FinCon is a huge conference where I get to hang with tons of my fellow financial nerds but I’ll break that down more below.
As always, read on for the details.
After-Tax Income: $19,090.79
This month’s income came with some variable compensation but the big jump was thanks to some of my restricted stock vesting which made for a nice month.
On to the expenses
Expenses: $3,424.57
Expenses were a bit inflated this month mostly due to the furniture we bought for the house.
I guess with the mortgage I better get used to big expense months for a bit.
Let’s break down the expenses in detail.
Going Out: $113.28
The most memorable meal for sure was our all-you-can-eat sushi.
Why?
First off, it was delicious. But the biggest part was because we promised ourselves that if we closed on a house that we’d celebrate with a nice all-you-can-eat sushi meal.
But we certainly ate way too much and hurt ourselves.
The tastiest meal from a pure flavor perspective though was the shrimp and grits. Oh Lawd they were good.
The next meal was totally unplanned. We were supposed to be checking out this place’s Happy Hour food special that we’d never been to.
The only problem was that their kitchen apparently wasn’t operational even though they still advertised food. Huh?
But we took the opportunity to sit down and have a meal a Guero’s. We did the classic move to order one thing and split it.
We do this often because you can always order more if you’re still hungry, and we rarely are.
I think everyone knows though, my favorite meal is a free one. Especially a fancy free meal. FinCon always brings opportunities to meet new people while enjoying some delicious free food.
This was the dessert pic following a feast at Fogo De Chao.
The total break-down for eating out this month was:
Hotel Vegas: $10.67
Volstead: $10.00
Central Machine Works: $16.67
Jacoby’s: $12.50
Peche: $15.00
Shakespears: $5.50
Gueros: $5.44
Sushi Bang Bang: $37.50
Groceries: $74.67
This month saw the grocery budget get back down closer to normal and we traveled out of town very little this month.
I did get the hookup for a few days as far as eating thanks to FinCon but I also made some pizzas for some of my finance friends.
This pizza was a special creation just for A Purple Life. It had olive oil and garlic base, bacon, breakfast sausage, and ricotta.
Full grocery cost breakdown:
HEB: $5.34
Walmart: $11.01
HEB: $12.99
HEB: $20.50
HEB: $7.74
HEB: $17.11
Bills: $349
Oh cheap rent, how you will be missed. I’ve covered why this is in previous posts but basically, we put in a bunch of sweat equity to renovate the place that is family-owned, and in return, we cover all costs (insurance, HOA, utilities).
I think the mortgage will start in November…. Buckle up budget, things are about to get wild.
The full set of bills were:
Rent - $275.00
Internet - $10
Spotify - $10
Car Insurance - $49
Netflix: $4.87
Travel & Entertainment: $527.67
Sorry if I sound like a broken record but I must always say, just in case it’s your first time reading, that this category is going to describe what I did that month and what I spent on like things this month.
The biggest expense driver was certainly buying my annual Ski Pass. That probably won’t be any use to me until 2022. The biggest event though was FinCon 2021.
FinCon 2021 in Austin
FinCon is this big conference full of people who love talking about personal finance. They love it so much that almost all of them have a blog, book, podcast, or something online.
It was strange to have it in Austin this year with us living there. I won’t lie, it made it a b less of a “trip” when you’re just popping in and out and returning to the house instead of hanging in a hotel lobby until 2 a.m.
Covid world has also greatly impacted all live events so there weren’t as many sponsored happy hours or vendors as normal. Even with that, I will attend one every chance I get.
It’s the one time a year that I get to see all these money friends who have turned into just normal close friends. Like James here who is checking out that sweet pizza I made him.
There were a lot of free drinks and miles ridden on scooters, but more importantly, new friends made who love personal finance and are trying to spread that knowledge with the world.
FinCon wasn’t the only show in town though.
Concert Spree
Another month, another string of live music events.
The first one up was super fun and a guy that I believe will be a big star very soon.
Breeland takes a mix of hip hop and country to make some upbeat good feels. You know if I get that F-150 I’ll be blaring his song featuring Sam Hunt, “Don’t Touch My Truck”.
The next show was my first experience at the Parker Jazz club. A co-worker who knows I love live music always keeps me in mind when he has extra tickets come up last minute.
The band was an interesting mix of Jazz and 60s country. The guy on the trumpet was still in college but was one of the best I’ve ever seen.
That same co-worker hooked me up with tickets to Lucy Dacus who I’d honestly never heard of but put on a killer show.
The final show we went to was a pretty recent repeat. We had such a good time at the Continental club that we went back for the same performer as last time. It’s great to see some of the old school Austin spots still kicking.
Island Hopping in Austin
Leslie and I both had a Friday off and we took the opportunity to get out to a spot we had always wanted to paddle to.
There’s a cool little island, Rosebud Island, at the end of Lady Bird lake near the dam.
The full list of expenses for travel and entertainment were:
X Ambassador’s Concert: $35.75
Bourbon Fest Tickets: $9.97
Massage: $30
Epic Ski Pass: $451.95
Miscellaneous: $2,323.73
This category was really pushed to a high number thanks to all of our furniture purchases. But we have a great start to furnishing the house.
I had no idea how expensive decent furniture was, so we knew real quick that we’d be looking for second hand.
Luckily we found this great living room set that looked perfect for us, entertaining, and an Air BnB. We got the whole set for only $600. We also bought our bed, tv, big clock, two other chairs and more from the same seller.
The second hand shopping didn’t stop there.
I was able to find a really nice whirlpool set for only $400. The original buyer bought the dryer not realizing it was a gas dryer. Their loss was our gain.
The last highlight was not only second hand, but it was also FREE. We got four awesome full length mirror sections for the low low cost of $0.
They were intended to be sliding doors but we’ll take the hardware off and use them as just mirrors.
The plan is to frame one for the bedroom and guest room. Then the other two will be hung on the wall for the at-home gym we’re building in the garage.
Here’s the complete list of random purchases this month:
Sandwich Bags: $1.79
Standing Desk: $183.50
Bitters: $16.00
Trailer rental: $19.23
Bourbon Collection: $143.95
Ninja Grill: $151.54
Smart Garage Opener: $24.22
Ebike Charger: $18.50
New House Furniture: $1,530
Lawn Mower: $62.50
Leaf Blower: $10.00
Weedeater: $12.50
Leather Chair: $100.00
Chaise Lounge: $50
Gas: $36.04
Pretty light amount of driving this month. Working from home always helps this number and no big road trips this month.
Big Picture: Net Worth Decreased $5,927 to $968,754
Dang, closing in on the million-dollar mark and then got hit with the first bad month in quite a while. In all the market dropped nearly 4% and impacted me for a portfolio drop of $21,593.
Luckily though, I saved $15,666 for a which lessened the total net-worth decrease to only $5,927.
You’ll have months like this but you gotta keep a big picture mindset. Zoom out on those charts and they’re always a lot less scary.