My savings rate and expenses – June update – engagement ring

May was pretty mediocre when it came to my savings rate. I was expecting June to put me back on the right track. It was a three paycheck month after all but that didn’t quite work out for me.

Getting married is expensive. I know as my recent engagement really sent the savings rate for this month into a tailspin.

June’s expenses ended up being nearly double my average monthly expenses which naturally won’t do great things for a savings rate.

It was all money well spent though as my fiancee and I found a beautiful engagement ring that she loved. We ordered that and also put down the first payment for a quaint little wedding venue that we both loved.

We’ve also been house hunting pretty aggressively these last few weeks. We actually have an offer out on a house right now after missing out on our first offer. That means I had additional savings flowing into a future down payment expense that I know is coming in the near term(within the next 12 months maybe).

All in all, this three month paycheck month wasn’t quite what I expected it to be. Still, it was due to a lot of one time expenses that I’m not too concerned about and see as valuable.

Let’s take a look at the gross income breakdown for June.

Three paychecks and this is probably the ugliest savings rate I’ve seen yet!

I saved 13.8% of my gross income in June with expenses exploding! Adding employer contributions brings this number up to 18.74%.

This is well below my target and will make hitting some of my goals for the year really difficult.

Let’s take a look at the regular savings rate.

The savings rate for June was 18.93%.

That rate jumps to 25.79% when I add in employer contributions.

It’s not a great month but it’s still nice to see this number be above 0 in a month like this. I not only bought an engagement ring but also put down a 20% down payment to reserve the wedding venue for next year.

That’s three months in a row where my savings rate has been well below target. Vacations and engagements will do that. I’m hoping I can turn that around sometime soon. Unfortunately for my savings rate, I have another vacation planned in August that will likely impact that month as well!

Let’s take a look at my expenses for the month.

I wasn’t sure where to put down the wedding venue on my expenses graph. I ended up throwing it under entertainment versus creating a separate category for it.

It’s a pretty big expense. I’m not too concerned about it as I don’t think we’re going way out there in terms of costs. Hopefully, we’ll recoup a good portion of that cost with gifts. I also ended up buying a few PC games this month as well. I received a new PC as a gift this month which was pretty awesome!

The second largest expense this month was the gift section and that includes the engagement ring and a few presents for some birthdays. I don’t think we went overboard there either as my girlfriend is luckily rather reasonable in her taste.

Rent is next, not first as it usually is but still a bit part of my monthly costs.

Other savings are next and include additional cash savings for a yet to be determined down payment. The adjusted savings rate if I were to include that in my data would be 21.1% for the gross income rate and 29.14% for the savings rate.

Car expenses were next and included the car tax bill so that number was a lot higher than usual.

There’s nothing really outstanding with any of the other stuff as the month was dominated with a few big expenses beyond the usual suspects near the top.

It’s not a great month overall in terms of savings rate. There were a few purchases here that had a big impact on what I was able to save. I’m still thrilled to be in a position where I can buy a ring my fiancee loves, put down 20% towards a wedding venue and still save money!

I’m hoping July is better despite dropping back to just two paychecks. I already know that August will likely look rough since I’m traveling out to Denver/Wyoming to spend some time there. The plan is to see the total solar eclipse so I’m excited for that!

For those tracking their expenses, how was your June, any unforeseen expenses derail you or was it smooth sailing?