My savings rate and expenses – August update

Hi and welcome to another monthly savings rate update.

I had a pretty awesome vacation in August so I knew my savings rate wouldn’t be anything to write home about but the main expenses(airbnb, plane tickets, car rental) for that trip actually fell into September as I didn’t cut my girlfriend a check until then.

That’ll serve to make this month slightly better although all of the trip expenses that weren’t listed above occurred here and I had some other one-time expenses like my car and rental insurance in August as well.

Let’s take a look at my gross income breakdown for August.

Yikes, back to a not so great month after a strong showing in July.

I saved 14.4% of my gross income this month as expenses were quite high. Adding employer contributions brings that number up to 19.38%. It’s not a great month but I honestly expected worse although a lot of that is due to timing of some expected expenses.

This low month isn’t surprising as I already knew that August would an expensive month. It would have actually been worse if my girlfriend’s bill for the trip(her dad paid for the tickets and airbnb, etc.) was given to me before September as that expense will impact next month due to timing. If I had paid it here, I’d be pretty much at a 0% rate, if not negative for the month.

Vacations can be pretty expense but the time I had in Denver is something I’ll remember forever so it was totally worth it!

Let’s look at my savings rate.

The savings rate for August was 19.84%. 

The rate jumps to 26.73% when I add in employer contributions.

That’s not the worst month of the year so that’s good to see considering I had so many expenses in August.

Let’s take a look at those expenses.

Rent is #1 as usual but was actually higher this month as my rental insurance bill came in which I tracked in this area.

Car expenses were higher as usual for the same reason – that dang old car insurance bill!

Restaurants were #3 as we ate out a few times in Denver although that number was lower than I usually see on vacations due to our stay in an airbnb making eating in a lot easier.

Clothes were #4 and included the purchases of a suit(2 due to a buy one get one free deal) and three ties as I had a wedding to attend when I bought the suit. I also wanted a nice new suit for my wedding next year as well as for when I have to travel for work. I’m not sure if you noticed, but I said I had a wedding in October and no longer do since the couple broke it off shortly after. I guess marriage just isn’t for everyone! It’s too bad as I was looking forward to wearing my new suit but it’s not like I bought it entirely for that wedding so I’ll have other opportunities to wear it in the future.

Groceries were next in line and included some stops at a Trader Joes in Denver as we had an actual kitchen to work with while staying there which is different from most of my regular vacations which necessitate eating out most meals due to the lack of a kitchen.

I had some other doctor visits for various things that I have to do yearly and that’s covered next in my health bills. I also have a few more visits before the year is over and will be having more of those before the year is out.

Other savings are next and included some savings for my future home which I track as an expenses since it’s a cash outlay that will happen in the future. It seems like the easiest way to track that is in the month it’s saved rather than having a HUGELY negative savings rate in the one month where I make my down payment.

The rest of the stuff are the usual expenditures with nothing major. The only non reoccurring expenses was a gift for my Nephew’s 3rd birthday. I actually bought a few things in August and another small item in September so that’ll show up again next month.

Overall, it wasn’t a great month from a savings rate perspective but I had some awesome times in Denver and still managed to save a pretty decent amount of cash. I always say that any month over 0% is a good month and I’m lucky to have a lot of those.

I expected September to be rather mediocre as well since all my travel expenses fall in that month but am hoping that October-December can pick up the slack I’ve seen in the last few months because I’m probably well behind my savings rate goals I set in my annual goals post.

Thanks for reading and let me know how your August was when it came to expenses and your savings rate.