December was fairly calm. We celebrated Christmas and New Year’s Eve with close family in a small stress-free gathering. It snowed a bunch in early December but then rained on Christmas. I knit my family members mittens for Christmas, worked on content creating, studied hard for my big test in January, and binged watched The Sex Lives of College Girls on HBO. Mr. Fipolar was content and happy with his hobbies too.
We spent one very cold Friday playing hooky and skiing on our local mountain. It was a great morning which quickly changed to gale force winds and cutting our day off early to head home.
For Christmas, we received some money to put towards our IRA’s (thank you to our family who are always happy to support our retirement goals) as well as some accessories for our car and a few new board games. We’re excited to play Wingspan (Wingspan – Stonemaier Games) and Terraforming Mars (SHG6005 Stronghold Games Terraforming Mars – gamersroll.com) (not affiliate links).
December was a simple month of staying in, minimal spending, and staying under budget.
How We Track our Money and Budget
I use a budget template that I created over the years in Excel to track our monthly expenses. I track our paychecks, our spending, and our overall net worth (including our retirement funds). But, I don’t track what is traditionally thought of as net worth, instead, I track all of our cash (savings accounts, checking accounts, and high yield savings accounts), all of our retirement accounts, and all of our brokerage accounts. We don’t include the worth of our house or car and we don’t subtract the mortgage or the car loan. Instead, our net worth is what I consider to be our FI net worth.
We track so much because it gives us a wholistic view of what we’re bring home, what we’re spending each month, and if we’re living within our means. Even though the stock market contributes to the ups and downs of our FI net worth, we try to increase our net worth every month. This is proving to be more difficult as our investments take on a bigger percentage of our net worth.
We budget with last month’s money meaning that if our budget is for February, the money in it is from our January paychecks. This gives us one month’s buffer in case something happens and allows us to know exactly how much money we’re budgeting for. Mr. Fipolar has a variable paycheck, and every amount is different. Mine on the other hand is the same every month. We operate a zero-based budget, so every dollar has a home and a purpose. Even though not every month is perfect, this method works for us.
How We Spend
We spent almost entirely with credit cards and we use them responsibly. We pay off the balance at the end of every month after we input all of our expenses into the monthly budget.
We use credit cards to take advantage of travel rewards and cash back.
Right now we have:
- A Fidelity cash back credit card
- A United Airlines travel rewards credit card
- A Delta Airlines travel rewards credit card
- Two Alaska Airlines travel rewards credit cards
Yes, it can get complicated to track but we make sure to log into each account at the end of every month and pay the balance in full.
Our Incomes for December 2022
We brought in $7,230.36 in November which means we have $7,230.36 to save, spend, and invest during December 2022.
Our Expenses
| Mortgage | $1740.27 |
| Groceries | $469.50 |
| Car Payment | $311 |
| Gas | $37.99 |
| Bills (Insurance, Internet, & Utilities) | $673.82 |
| Cell Phones | $0 |
| Subscriptions | $0 |
| Mrs. Fipolar Spending | $109.14 |
| Mr. Fipolar Spending | $140.92 |
| Combined Misc Spending | $416.92 (we will be expecting a refund on a return in the coming months) |
| Dog | $40.49 |
| Dining Out | $124.00 |
| House Improvement Spending | $187.98 |
| Car Maintenance Spending | $316.08 |
We live in a medium to high cost of living mountain town (undisclosed) and currently our household is comprised of 2 adults and 1 spoiled dog.
We stayed under budget in many categories including our groceries category. This is partly because I used a $142 grocery gift card that I received from cashing out rewards points on a credit card. Additionally, we hosted my parents for Christmas and they brough their own groceries which allowed us to buy less.
One area we went over was our car maintenance category. Mr. Fipolar’s car battery unexpectedly died and after we tried jumping it, it was still dead. Although he works from home and doesn’t drive often, we still wanted his car to be in working order. He bought a new battery and a new battery terminal because the old one had corroded and installed them last weekend. That was a first for car maintenance in our household.
Lastly, we bought some cross country ski gear for Mr. Fipolar but it didn’t fit correctly. We’ll return it, anticipating a return in February, and rent him gear when we ski until we find a good deal on some used equipment.
All in all, I’m really proud of us for staying $1000 under budget!
Our Savings and Investments
| Emergency Fund | $2,673.00 |
| Mrs. Fipolar Brokerage Fund | $100 |
| Mr. Fipolar Brokerage Fund | $100 |
Additionally, I invest 15% into my 457b and Mr. Fipolar invests 8% into his 401k. We do not keep track of these numbers on a monthly basis nor do we take any matching contributions into account. Combined, our 401k and 457b contributions are somewhere in the range of $1,350.
Our FI Net Worth
Our FI net worth decreased with the market this month and is sitting around $225,000. Some family members of Mr. Fipolar very generously gift us $5,000 in early December which we put straight into our Roth IRA’s.
While it is not something I talk about often because the majority of our net worth is our own doing with our own frugality, our own earning, and our own investing, in 2022, these family members gifted us a total of $15,000. As I was working part time focusing on a health for most of 2022, we expressed frustration to them that we were not going to be able to fully fund our IRA’s this year. They generously decided to gift us $15,000 to help us out. This is not something I expect for the future and was what I believe to be a one time thing. We’re very appreciative and it really did help us this year.
Now, with my higher paying job and working full time again, we are in the financial position to fully fund our 2023 IRA’s by ourselves again.
Thanks for reading our monthly round up!