Monthly Saving Report – June 2020
Overall, we saved $4,228, which was 50% of our total net income for the month. This was around $400 less than we saved in May, but still one of our best months ever.
Income
Our joint income after tax as a couple (an Executive Assistant and a Customer Success Manager) was $8,513. As usual, I choose not to list our separate salaries for work confidentiality reasons, but it’s important context to show what we are working with when we save.
Fixed Expenses
Last month I did an audit of our fixed expenses to try and root out any unnecessary expenses, cutting out enough that adds up to $600 a year. This month it has stayed largely the same.
| Rent (expensive in Vancouver!) | $1800 |
| Car insurance | $155 |
| 2x phone bills (minus $75 covered by work) | $70 |
| Hydro (12 month split payment) | $29 |
| Internet (so expensive in Canada!) | $101 |
| Netflix | $17 |
| Strava | $4 |
| Fender | $6 |
| Google One | $3 |
| Total | $2182 |
Living Allowance
While COVID-19 is still having a positive impact on our day-to-day living expenses (life is quieter, with less opportunities to spend), the city has slowly started to open up again, with bars, restaurants, and parks running limited operations. It’s also the start of summer, which generally means more spent on driving to and visiting different places.
With that in mind, I added $1,800 to our the pre-paid Koho Visa we use as a living allowance account.
| First payday | $900 |
| Second payday | $900 |
| Total | $1,800 |
As a reminder, any unbudgeted spending that happens is taken off the savings total for the next month, which means I have to keep a close eye on what it being spent outside of this account. The formula looks like this:
Savings for the current month = Income minus Fixed expenses minus Living allowance minus Un-budgeted spends from the previous month
This isn’t a fail-proof method by any means, and as you’ll see below, we wildly underestimated our budgeting needs this month!
Un-budgeted Spending
Last month, we spent $303 outside of our living allowance, which using my budgeting method above, comes off this month’s Total Saved amount. At the time, I thought was an acceptable-ish amount while I get used to this way of budgeting, and optimizing our money management.
That was until today! This month, we spent a whopping $1,052 outside of our living allowance. With it being the start of summer, we took a couple of long weekend road trips around British Columbia, which feel cheap at the time, but actually add up when you look back and see how much is spent on gas, ferries, and food/drink. I’ll make sure to consider it when planning future weekend trips! We were also quite sloppy with sticking to our pre-paid Visa card for living expenses, and used different debit/credit cards which went unnoticed.
This total will come out of next month’s savings, meaning July will be a poor saving month.
Total Left To Be Saved
For the month of June, after paying ourselves first (living allowance), and our fixed expenses, we had left to be saved:
$8,513 – $2,182 – $1,800 – $303 = $4,228
Splitting the Savings
I didn’t add or remove any savings ‘pots’ this month, although after a few months of using this method, I think I will try and streamline it further soon to include specific pots for a down payment, as we get closer to affording to buy an apartment.
The pots we currently have are:
- Joint Savings
- TFSA (Johnny)
- TFSA (Candy)
- Vacation Fund
- Emergency Fund – we didn’t have separated from our savings until 3 months ago
- Big Purchase Pot – if we want something big, better save up!
- Capital Gains Tax fund – I’m due to pay CGT on some sold company shares in 2021, so I’m putting money away each month to ease the blow come tax return time
- Presents / Gifts Pot
As I have been doing for a while now, I am splitting the savings into different pots using percentages, which I tweak on a monthly basis depending on a) the total amount we’ve saved, and b) whether there is something new we need to account for e.g. a new holiday or big purchase that we’re behind on our goal for.
| Joint Savings | 25% |
| TFSA (Johnny) | 25% |
| TFSA (Candy) | 25% |
| Emergency Fund | 7% |
| CGT Coverage | 3% |
| Big Purchase Pot | 5% |
| Vacation Fund | 10% |
| Presents | 0% |
| Total | 100% |
The first three pots are the bulk of our savings (75%) and are not to be touched until really needed e.g. a down payment or some other investment. In an ideal world, these would be separate from savings for retirement, but unfortunately I do not have a workplace pension plan, and RRSPs do not make sense for us as British citizens living as Canadian permanent residents at this time. Candice does have a workplace pension plan that are separate to these finances. In addition to this, buying property in Vancouver is expensive, and it’s likely we’ll need every penny we can get hold of when the time comes!
The Emergency Fund and Capital Gains Tax Fund (10% total) is effectively not our money, and I do not consider this part of our wealth. I put this away in accounts that are harder to reach until needed.
The final three pots, the Holiday Fund, Big Purchase Fund, and Presents Fund (15% total) include money that we fully expect to spend in the short term. They are not long-term savings, but it feels good to be budgeting for these expenses properly – it allows us to better budget for the year, and understand how much is actually going into long-term saving goals.
Summary
Our final savings for June 2020 are as follows:
| Long-term savings goals and investments | 75% | $3,171 |
| Emergency Fund | 7% | $296 |
| CGT Coverage | 3% | $127 |
| Budgeted spending pots | 15% | $634 |
| Total | 100% | $4,228 |
I hope this is useful for anybody looking to set up a personal budget of their own. I’m also learning and optimizing as I go… I’d love to hear your thoughts below on how I could improve on my own methods!
