So last month, I got back into the habit of doing monthly spending recaps – or more accurately, I said I was going to get back into the habit, and did it once.
As of today, let’s consider it a habit, because this is my official March spending recap.
It’s a really good thing it’s here, too, because I have been wanting to tweet about this basically since last Thursday night.
I saved half of my income this month!
That’s right, after 244 days of blogging (I calculated it, I’m not actually that meticulous about record-keeping) and trying to save half my income, it finally happened. And in the month I joined the fancy gym, even!
Here’s a breakdown of the big spending (and saving) events that happened this month – and yes, an update on the gym membership is one of them.
Overall Savings Rate
Officially, as per my tracking spreadsheet, I saved 62.42% of my income last month.
WHAT.
First and foremost, that’s including my pretty generous tax return, almost all of which went directly to savings, which is why I went from “omg saving 40% is pretty tough guys” to “Yeah no sweat, saved 60%” in the span of a month.
Here’s the fun part.
When I take the tax return out of the equation on the “income” side of things, and remove the saving (and spending) associated with my tax return, I still saved over 50% of my income! 50.13%, to be exact.
So with or without the massive bump that was my tax return, I managed to make it through March on half of my take-home income, and save the rest towards things like my house downpayment goal and my emergency fund.
Handling the Tax Return
But speaking of tax returns, let’s talk about what I did with mine, because it was a little bit off of the “typical personal finance advice.”
The bulk of my return this year came from my RRSP contributions, with a little top-up from charitable donations. If I was being A+ textbook-perfect with money, I’d have taken that return and sent it right back into my RRSP, as per the advice about how to maximize the RRSP for retirement savings.
I totally didn’t do that.
Right now, I’m using my RRSP because a) I will be in a lower tax bracket when I’m retired, and b) I want the tax returns to serve as a boost for my house downpayment fund.
I figure it’s a better balance than raiding my retirement savings for a house, but maybe that’s just me.
Anyways, that’s where the bulk of my return went – directly into my house downpayment fund, which jumped from $4500 to almost $7000 this month thanks to my return and my additional contributions (it turns out, a high savings rate gives you a lot more money to throw into your savings accounts. Who knew?)
But I’d be lying if I said that the entire return went into savings.
I saw a post on Facebook that one of my favourite local dog rescues is in pretty dire need of funds to cover some recent vet bills, so I sent $100 from my return their way.
I did it for the puppies, you guys.
Joining the Gym
With all this talk of saving, I feel like I should note that the gym was one of my biggest expenses this month – and not just because of the membership fees.
In Classic Des fashion, within the first two weeks of gym membership, I had lost
- A brand new lock that I’m pretty sure I left there, locking an empty locker, because I forgot to take it home with me
- My favourite hairbrush that, I’ll be honest, was so full of hair that it was barely recognizable and too embarrassing to claim at the lost and found. (This is a nice place and I am not kidding that the brush was Cousin It incarnate.)
So I replaced both of those items, and if we include the cost of the original brand new lock plus the replacement brand new lock, I’ve spent $38.94 just on items to help me go to the gym and keep brushing my hair.
Some people buy fancy workout clothes, I buy locks and lose hair brushes. To each their own, I guess.
That said, I have hit my goal of going at least twice a week every week, and last week I even hit the fabled four-times-a-week goal! I’ve been using the women’s weight room a ton, which makes me really glad I ponied up for a membership. It turns out everyone who said “weights are a really effective workout” was right.
And thanks to a guest pass used with The Boyfriend over Easter, I now know enough about how to use the machines not to get stuck in one. No #gymfails here.
Probably.
Cross your fingers for me.
Things I Didn’t (Or Don’t) Spend Money On
The other category I paid a lot of attention to this month was “things I didn’t spend money on.”
One of them was fancy lattes, as per my February recap and my goal to only drink plain coffee or tea if I was buying something at a coffee shop. I used the Small Change app from the United Way to track my goal, and I actually only ended up avoiding three fancy-latte purchases. That said, the app brought my attention to it, and every time I tracked my goal progress, TD Bank and the United Way donated $1 to help deliver financial literacy programs to people in need.
That’s so much better than the sugary amazingness that Starbucks is trying to sell me on right now. (I wants it though.)
The other one was drinking water.
I’m not one to buy bottled water to drink, but this month I became a lot more aware that “not buying drinking water” isn’t something that’s a choice for a lot of people in Canada. At some point in the past ten years, two-thirds of the First Nations reserves in Canada – in Canada – have had unsafe drinking water.
Some communities have been under do-not-consume water advisories for over 15 years.
In that context, me “not buying bottled water to drink” seems a lot less “virtuous personal finance behaviour” and a lot more “wow, I’m really lucky to have access to clean drinking water everywhere I go.”
That’s not how people should ever have to think about water.
I bought a Her Braids necklace this month, and a portion of the proceeds goes to the David Suzuki Blue Dot Foundation, which is working towards ensuring clean water for everyone. It turns out, even in Canada, that’s not something a lot of people can count on, which is kind of the worst.
(But having conversations about it when people notice my sweet necklace is kind of the best.)
So those are the big highlights from my month – saved half my income, got a tax return, joined the gym and didn’t really pay to drink things.
I’d love to hear how March was for you – including your monthly recaps if you want to link to them! (I’ve read some great ones from The Yachtless, My Alternate Life and Northern Expenditure so far this week!)
Yayyyyy!!!! Congrats on getting to half!! And I love that so much of your spending was on good cause stuff. (How crazy and sad that some people still don’t have access to clean drinking water, though hello, Flint, Michigan. I mean, it’s only 2016…) I think your fancy gym is proving to be worth every penny if you’re going that often. So awesome — keep it up!
Thank you so much! And I’m super thrilled I was able to fit in the good cause stuff, it was a really wonderful part of my month and I’m actually super encouraged that I fit in more than most months while still hitting my budget. I may or may not have already made another donation to the dogs in the past week… Those Facebook posts. They get me every time, in the best way.
Congrats Des! You made it to half banked! It sounds like March was an overall great month! Woot! Keep it up at the Fancy Gym!
My March was good too. I experienced my first market wave with more than pennies invested and my account balances are loving it.
I know, right?! Yay for the markets! I’m not one to follow them day to day, but I keep seeing news items about “earnings” this week or whatever. At this point, I feel impervious to pain as it relates to the markets. I am like the Unbreakable Investor. If I haven’t panicked in the past year, COME AT ME, THE MARKETS! I can take it*.
*she said right before she totally jinxed it and collapsed the world markets out of sheer bad luck somehow.
Woohoo! Amazing job, Des. The clean water crisis is incredible. Our school is doing something next month to benefit Flint, MI and schools in Africa. Last year, our community raised over $10K. I’m curious to see how this year will go. Personally, march was so good. April has been so poopy. Stupid markets, stupid gas prices, stupid Penny for checking Vanguard. 😉
Oh Penny! Don’t check Vanguard!
Although funny story for you, as a fellow investment checker, haha, I opened up my investment accounts today and saw that like… the vast majority of it was in cash and almost had a straight up heart attack. For a solid minute I was like… Ok, this must be my doing, but HOW?!
Then I remembered that I asked Wealthsimple to switch all my investments to the socially responsible ones and they said it would take a few days. And it makes sense that to buy those, they’d have to sell my other ones. This is what I get for checking them so frequently, haha.
What I’m taking away from this is your rent is too low.
What I’m taking away from it is that we can probably afford doggy daycare.
Want to buy a couple of cases of girl guide cookies? I can hook you up. Sounds like you have vroom in your budget…..
Hahaha you know you can always count on us for a few boxes!
That’s awesome that you saved half your income! Wohooo! And putting your tax return towards your house down payment fund is pretty stellar too! Here’s to a prosperous April!
Thanks Janine – right back at you! And thank you on the house down payment nod, haha, I totally feel like doing anything other than re-investing it is pretty much blasphemy, but it’s my biggest goal right now!
Wahoo! Awesome month! And what a cool necklace (both in looks and message!)
Thanks Maggie!! It’s so outside of the type of jewellery I normally wear (aka one plain gold band on my right hand and literally nothing else) but I’m actually loving it. I like that it’s different and sparks conversations!
Yay! Well done Des! I love that you hit the 50% mark. I also love your shout out about clean water accessibility. It’s been a big scandal in the states recently. Flint, Michigan has been without clean water for years, and the consequences are heartbreaking. I think you kicked March’s butt, and I’m rooting for you in April!
Thank you so much Kara! And oh my gosh yes – when I see the posts about Flint, it’s just heartbreaking. Clean water should not be this hard to access.
Congrats on the 50% savings rate! I find there is a direct correlation with lifting weights and savings rates going up 🙂
Oh totally – we should probably look at setting up “Squat Racks & Savings” as a separate blog project. It’s fully a causal relationship. “If you can lift a barbell, you can lift your savings rate.”
Awesome job Desirae! Your drive and commitment is most impressive.
You’ll be surprised how quickly your heap of cash turns into an avalanche of flexibility. 😉
Hahaha that’s the dream anyways! I feel like I’m way too impatient with myself, since I’ve only really been focused on managing my money for a bit over a year, but I know that over the years there will be a much bigger cumulative effect. Thank you!
Any chance you modelled your title after that of the Frugalwoods’ latest blog post “That Time We Bought a Homestead”? 😉
Hahahaha oh my gosh I totally did by accident! It’s a funny story – I was originally going to try to name it the way they used to name Friends episodes, and instead of looking it up I just kind of wrote down what sounded right at the time in my head. It turns out they always started with “The One…” (Like, The One Where I Saved Half My Income, or The One With Rachel’s Hair.)
By the time I realized I had not only totally missed the Friends-episode-name mark, I also realized I probably thought this was it because I had seen the Frugalwoods post already! Major fail – but there are way worse blogs to be inspired by, I love their homestead story!
Yay, so exciting! Your mission to save half your income is officially fully baked! 🙂 Maybe time to reconsider the mini “about me” blurb in your sidebar? (Although it’s funny, so maybe keep it.)
Lack of access to clean water in 2016 = unacceptable. I’m a big fan of the organization charity:water. The David Suzuki Blue Dot Foundation sounds great too.
Thanks for the shout-out!
Anytime – you know how I feel about your blog! <3
And great big sigh, I totally need to at least open my About page and take a look to see how hopelessly out of date it is! I feel like in between blogging and newslettering and all that jazz I have totally neglected the other parts of the site, haha. I figure the first step is admitting I have to do it, right? So I can take a break now that I've done that?
Right?
Anyone?
Way to go Desirae! That is pretty awesome! Keep going. Your inspiring all of us to be better savers. I’m hoping to hit the half mark by the end of the year. I’m debating doing a monthly expense report. Right now I do a net worth, but I leave out the amounts (just percentages). Our big goal this past month was to save the savings from any discounts we got. It really helps us to tuck away some extra $. Great post!
Thank you so much Andrew! I’m a big fan of the percentages too, especially since this is under my “real” name – I’m totally happy to get into the nitty gritty with individuals but putting up all my actual numbers is a bit beyond my comfort zone!
Good for you Desirae, congrats! I love how you care for the puppies and the water while at the same time nailing your savings ambitions.
Thank you so much! I feel too selfish not sharing with causes I care about since I’m lucky enough to be in the position to help out a little bit 🙂
Very exciting news. congratulations!! Great achievement. I am so frustrated that the First Nation people don’t have good drinking water. Hopefully, with the new government budget, they will use the funding to get clean drinking water first. I wish Canada will invest in its own aboriginal people along with the new refugees we are bringing.
Thank you so much! And yeah, the reserve situations are very frustrating, but hopefully the funding commitments and governance efforts that are happening now will help improve the situation. All I can say is kudos to the people who are working on these problems day in and day out!
Congrats, Des! You’ve fulfilled your half banked mission. So excited for you. 🙂 March was…well…March. Nothing terribly exciting to report on the financial front, except that we paid more than $3k to our debt. Woot!
Oh please, “except that…” That’s huge news Claudia, congrats!!! 3K to debt is nothing to sneeze at! Serious high fives coming from over here!
Awww…thank you! 🙂
Congrats Des! Well done! You literally banked half in March! I didn’t reach my goal last month yet, but there’s nine more months to do better this year. 🙂
And yay for being a weights convert, too! I was one of those people who were #cardioforlife until a personal trainer cut my cardio training from 1 hour to 5 minutes and replaced the rest with weights training. I can never recommend weights enough to other people, although it’s always difficult to convince other girls that ‘no, weights won’t make you look big.’
Nice necklace too!
Thank you so much J!
And oh my gosh yes to weight training, it’s the best thing ever – and it’s so much less boring than 45 minutes on the elliptical! I feel like I’m steadily making progress (mostly because I’m sore all. the. time.) I also know a few women who are professional body builders and unless they’re doing a competition, they look totally normal – even though I know how hard they are trying to bulk up! I just can’t imagine ever getting “too bulky” when I look at my entirely average amount of training and mediocre diet, lol.
Great job! That bump in the house downpayment fund is amazing. I love the necklace, and the conversations that you’ll have because of it. I, too, know about doing things for the puppies. I impulse donate a lot of times to emergency surgeries and last minute needs for rescues. Dog people, you know?
Congrats girl! That’s a big deal. I hope to reach the 50% mark soon. Just sold my car and in the process of selling my house and downsizing, plus got a new job so hoping those changes launch me over the half way point. Congrats!