I couldn’t wait to post my updates for this month! August was the best month I’ve had in a while. It honestly seems like things are finally coming back to normal, whatever this new normal is.

Things have started to settle down with work so the stress level has definitely gone down. Things have also settled down in terms of home furnishing and home improvement spending so this month’s budget is starting to reflect my usual spending.

Even getting COVID isn’t bringing down my good mood. In fact, it’s the reason I’m not going to be behind in writing my post this month. I have nothing else to do but stay home.

The only thing that could’ve made this month better was if the market stayed on the upswing. The market looked like it was hitting a recovery which allowed me to finally hit my quarter of a mil net worth earlier this month! Sadly, it has since gone back down.

August Budget

My budget has finally stabilized and I think I’ve finalized a budget that I can use for the rest of the year.

Fixed Spending

Streaming Services – American Express made an enhancement to their credit card reward to give $7 credit on Disney bundle subscription! So yay to $7 off every month on my TV subscription.

Otherwise, nothing new to my fixed spending category. These will likely stay the same for the rest of the year.

Variable Spending

Utilities – This category includes my internet, electric, and gas bill. I received some credit on Gas & Electric this month so that definitely helped offset some of my AC bill.

Gas – I only filled up gas once this month. Being sick actually saved me some gas money!

Entertainment/dining out – Last month, I considered raising my dining out budget to $200. Well, I’ve decided to raise it to $250/month instead. It’s a more realistic budget that won’t set me up for failure. 

Take this month for example where I only dined out on the weekends (not even every meal) which I’d consider very reasonable and have already spent over $200. It didn’t make sense for me to set a $200 budget that I’d end up going over anyways so might as well face the truth and make a realistic budget based on my spending.

Groceries – Surprisingly low considering I ate in for most of my meals this month. I found a Target gift card from last Christmas (lol!) that I got from my aunt that I’ve been using this month.

Shopping – Bought my mom a new charger for her phone. Also bought some mini legos for fun!

Miscellaneous

Travel – As I mentioned last month, I am planning my vacation to Europe. My flight is fully covered with my credit card points already, but I still have some expenses this month including train ticket and city passes.

Others – Just some miscellaneous spending like parking ticket and metro ticket. I also had to mail in my passport renewal application once again! I received a notice that the processing center did not receive my passport along with my original application when I for certain sent in both my passport and passport card together with the application!

Seems to me that the processing center somehow lost my passport and passport card so they better find it! I returned my application and wrote back saying I did in fact send it in and it must’ve been lost with them considering they received my application which had the passport book and passport card in the same envelope.

It’s almost at the two week mark and I’ve yet to hear back. I’m just hoping for the best, especially since I have my trip fully booked already for this fall.

Investments

Now that I’m done building up a cash cushion and spending on home improvement, I’ve gone back to focusing on my investment that I’ve been neglecting.

I tend to get over excited and put thousands into my brokerage account one month when I have the money and neglecting it the next month. My goal is to take a more steady approach and dollar-cost average every 2 weeks until the end of the year.

Student Debt

Student debt paid this month: $880.77

Student debt remaining: $30,003.86

Ahh, I can’t believe I’m $3 short from getting into the $20k’s. 

I’m still researching Biden’s new announcement on student loan forgiveness. A theme for the last 2 years has been my regret over refinancing my student loans which meant I no longer qualified for the 0% interest rate.

Luckily (or unluckily), I still have about $4k that I did not refinance and is still under federal loans. Hopefully that can still qualify for loan forgiveness!

Here are all my previous student debt statements.

Goals for Next Month

I landed on a quarter mil net worth this month before it disappeared right in front of my eyes. I’m hoping that I can get there again and stay on track to hit $300k net worth by the end of this year.

I’m going to try keeping emotions out and really follow through with the dollar-cost averaging strategy next month.