MONTHLY SPENDING AND BUDGET REPORT-NOVEMBER 2014

To those new in this blog, This is my personal finance journal where I track my monthly spending. I just cannot believe that I last did this in June 2013. At the time my goal was to spend 60% and invest 40% of our income to help me (and hubby) to retire comfortably in our early 40s. Well that has changed a little bit. Retiring early is still our top priority but 60% has now become 50%.

It has been a very busy year. After paying up our last homeloan we went back to the banks and opened three new mortgages. And as most of you know, I am back at work and not miserable at all. Back in June 2013 we managed to live on 52% of our income. I really live well when I do this expenditure tracking stuff. I also enjoy it after a few months of starting because my spreadsheet is already set with fixed income and expenditure and formulas. November was a good month in that, we had a higher than norm income. We managed to live on 48% of our income.

Our November 2014 monthly spending and budget report:

INCOME	NOV'14	JUN'13	NOTES
Real Estate	11%	33%	Target is 25%. I only use NET (after costs).
Personal Income	49%	46%	We are working on growing other income streams to bring this lower.
Interest/ Dividends	0%	2%	Target is 10%. Our emergency fund interest was too low.
Online Income	2%	19%	Target is 10%.
Other	38%	0%	We got surprise money this month, skewing the results a bit.

Interest on my Emergency Fund is 5.25%, and the fund kept low. My stocks have been reduced by the huge sale we had to raise some funds.

SPENDING	NOV	JUN	NOTES
Real Estate	20%	34%	Still due to renovations.
Transportation	3%	0%	Fuel, insurance, hubby's tiny installment
Online	2%	0%
Internet/ Phones	2%	1%
Consumer	8%	4%	Includes food
Credit Card, Cash & Fees	7%	0%	Hubby used his credit card to fix the car.
Giving	5%	7%	This should be at around 10-12%.
Life Insurance	0%	1%	Fixed
Invested	52%	48%	We paid most of it into the Money Markets. I no longer top my Just Invest (Nedbank) savings up.

We lived on just above 50% of our income in June (comparing to 20% in May). Our Net Worth impressively well.

TRACKING 2013 GOAL PROGRESS (These are outdated; I will change these after setting new goals for 2015)

1. MAIN GOAL: net worth growth by at least 25%.-- 23% so far.
2. BUDGETING: invest at least 40% of income.-- 50.8% so far.  
3. EMERGENCY FUND: 3 months worth of living expenses.-- DONE.
4. GIVING: give of more than 10% of income.--5% so far.
5. REAL ESTATE: Construct at least 4 flats/ increase the rental income by 30% .-- not yet.
6. MORTGAGE: Pay up our home .-- DONE.
7. STOCKS AND DIVIDENDS: Get at least R12,000 in dividends.-- not yet.
8. EXTRA INCOME: Online income to R8000 per month by December 2013.-- +/-R3700 April.

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