Welcome to my June 2020 financial progress!

If you are new here, every month, I post the progress I’ve made on paying off my student loans and on my savings. I’ve done this since I first started paying down my loans in July 2017 and it has been so worth it.

I do this to hold myself accountable and to share my progress with others who are also facing debt payments of their own.

Debt paid this month: $880.77

Debt remaining: $51,152.07

I house every month’s debt progress from the very beginning here if you want to check out the progress so far.

Updates for This Month

I can’t believe how time can go by so slow yet so fast. I felt like time had been passing by so slowly with COVID-19 restricting most activities but it’s actually halfway through 2020 already!

And guess what that means? It’s time for a quarter II net worth update. But first, let’s start with the debt and budget updates for the month.

As I mentioned last month, I will continue only with my $880.77 minimum payment to my private loan for the time-being. My main goal this year is to increase my savings as I plan to purchase my own home in the near future and to keep a hefty emergency fund during this trying time. 

I am slightly disappointed that I haven’t broken under the $50,000 mark as that would have made a nice quarter II update. It’s a huge understatement to say that I’ve become quite passive with repaying my student loans, but with a low 2.2% interest rate, I’m allowing myself some breathing room and ramping up my savings. 

While $51,946 debt is nothing to joke about, I definitely have the peace of mind knowing that if anything were to happen to my job I would at least be financially set for the year with a fully funded emergency fund.

I can’t fathom going back to 2018 and parts of 2019 when I was throwing everything I had to my student loans, waking up every morning in fear of losing my job with my very minimal emergency fund.

I also know that if I were to change my mind in the future on buying a home, I can easily throw all the money I’ve saved into my student loans, but the opposite doesn’t quite work the same way so minimal student loan payments and maximal savings it is!

June Budget

Fixed Spending

Nothing much here, just the usual expenses. I live at home but pay rent to my parents and am also paying back my personal loan to them at $500/month.

Other than that, my cell phone bill and Netflix make up the rest of my fixed spending.

Variable Spending

Gas – Still very minimal gas spending although gas prices are starting to rise so next month will probably see an increase.

Entertainment/dining out – Celebrated a friend’s birthday COVID-style with minimal physical interactions. It’s times like these that I feel fortunate that I’m a complete introvert. If even an introvert like me is dying for social interaction I can only imagine how hard it must be for my extrovert counterparts. 

I’m still wary of dining out so my restaurant outings have been limited to minimal take-outs which is frankly good for my budget.

Groceries – Under budget thanks to my revised budget. The family member that was staying with us has now left so I’m expecting a lower grocery budget for the rest of the year.

Shopping – Bought some new shoes from Vans that was offering a BOGO and some products from Amazon. I’m also due for some new pants so that expense is probably coming up in the next month.

Miscellaneous

Car insurance – my 6 month premium was due and thanks to COVID-19 I received a 15% discount, making this my lowest car insurance premium ever.

Savings

I continued my automatic contribution of $500 per paycheck to my savings account and since my Roth IRA is now fully funded, I kept the rest of the money in my checking account in anticipation of my federal tax payment that I’ll have to make in July.

Net Worth

To say that 2020 has been a crazy year would be an understatement. But I guess some good has to come from the bad.

Quarter 2 Net Worth: $70,738

90-day Change: +$37,042

If I ever had any doubt how unpredictable the market can be, I just have to look back on this post. Because I made an unprecedented $37,042 gain in the last 3 months in the midst of a pandemic!

I guess it helped that I lost money last quarter when my net worth increased by less than what I was actually taking home. 

I’m definitely happy to see my current highest ever net worth of $70,000. But I also had little celebrations along the way in the form of 2 mini landmarks that I hit on my path to $70k net worth that helped me stay motivated.

The first landmark came soon after I finished my quarter 1 update, and I was disappointed that I couldn’t include it as a part of that update, which was hitting $100,000 in assets (not to be confused with net worth). 

It was nice seeing that while I still had a long way to go to my first $100k net worth, had I never gotten into student debt I would have been there. Wishful thinking.

And ignore that random spike in net worth. That was a glitch/delay when I was going through my student loan refinancing. Another wishful thinking of how my net worth could’ve been had I not gone into debt.

The second landmark came in the form of hitting $50k net worth!

It was a nice moment to see that I was on the halfway mark to my 2020 goal of $100k net worth that I set back in 2019. It couldn’t have come at a better time. After a market loss during the first quarter, I had lost hope of hitting $100k by the end of this year but seeing the changing tides kept my hopes up.

I don’t know how the rest of 2020 will go and I’m still a far $30k away from hitting $100k. Plus, I was working a lot during this time, covering shifts from people who had to stay home due to COVID-19 to take care of family or weren’t comfortable coming to work.

Starting this month, I’ve seen my hours cut so I doubt I’ll be able to take home as much as I was during the first half of this year.

Goals for Next Month

I owed federal tax and since the tax deadline was extended to July 15, I of course, am procrastinating till the last minute to make that payment. I did decrease my withholding for 2020 so hopefully next year I won’t be owing or at least owing less than what I have to pay back this year. 

This month I made sure to have money in my checking account to make that payment.

Starting next month, I am hoping to increase the amount I am putting to my savings account back to $1,000 per paycheck for a total of $2,000 savings/month since I’ve finished maxing out my Roth IRA last month.