Money matters
I couldn’t wait; I’ve paid off my student loans! The car loan should will be done by EOY and we’ll be officially debt free. Of course, life has its own way of humbling me at times this because I’ve got a pretty big unexpected expense coming up. Still, I’ll celebrate my wins as I get them. 🙂
I’ve also upped my 401k contributions to ensure that I should be hitting the maximum amount (18, 500) going forward. I’m pretty stoked to get to this point without harming my savings rate or needing to cut back.
Cutting Expenses
Lifestyle creep is a real thing and I’m ashamed to report that I’ve been bitten by this. Some areas where I currently indulge & need to scale back in order to increase my savings rate:
- UberEats – ordering in is a privilege and we need to scale back on frequency of use. We easily spend ~ $100/week on this and this needs to go ASAP. This is
probablythe biggest waste. - Starbucks – I’ve reigned this in a bit but I keep getting sucked back in with their promotions! I’m holding at $50/monthly on this splurge.
- Uber/Lyft – I don’t drive and this convenience is probably a $20/week habit. I’m holding on this because it is very empowering for me to be able to get about town w/o relying on others.
- Food spend – We don’t have a good system for meal planning and preparation. As a result, we often shop mid-week and weekly for food items. Unsurprisingly, our grocery costs are high just due to the lack of planning. I estimate we probably spend well over $600/monthly on two people which feels high. We won’t compromise on getting high quality food ingredients (organic, non-GMO where possible, etc) but we could be more efficient about this.
Financial Goals for 2018
- TBD (once various accounts settle, I’ll make projections for what I can realistically achieve this year)