Wow what a month September was. I can’t say I’m looking forward to reviewing my spending for September which is why I’m late in posting this update. I went on two vacations merely 3 weeks apart which made the month go by so fast. Although it felt a bit rushed, it was far from a bad month. I will however predict that it’s likely to be a spendy month when I assess my spending in my budget section.

I just got back from my 3rd vacation, averaging one vacation a month since I went on my first random getaway in August. While it has been quite healing, I fear I have really caught the travel bug.

I went for a week-long trip to Washington with my family in September and I just came back from another week-long trip to Colorado with a friend from college this month. I have to say, the work/life balance struggle has been real. While I have every right to use my PTO that I accrued fair and square, I still felt some unnecessary guilt/worry when I was taking PTOs only weeks apart.

I actually still have one more week of vacation left this year but will likely just let it accrue until next year. Work is getting busy the rest of the year and my manager has warned that PTOs weren’t guaranteed approval for the rest of the year hence why I was desperate to use up as much as I could in September and October.

I am actually quite conflicted. On one hand, not going to lie, this jet-setting lifestyle is what I had always dreamed of as a high school kid waiting to start the “real world”. On the other hand, I’m also facing this guilt of spending money instead of saving for FIRE.

The sad truth that my most recent travel has solidified for me though is that I am not getting any younger and my body can no longer recover as well as it used to. I fear that the older I get, the less I’ll be able to enjoy travel or be able to engage in more strenuous activities like hiking for 12 miles (did it, so worth it!).

So I’m really trying to make peace with myself and realize that I really should take every opportunity I have to travel whenever I can.

Student Debt

After getting out of the $40k’s zone in my student loans, I’m back on the grind, still just making minimum payments.

Student debt paid this month: $880.77

Student debt remaining: $39,074.23

I haven’t made much progress in paying down my student loans as I’m expecting my mortgage interest rate to be higher than my student loans so I’m not in any rush to pay it off. I’m just continuing my minimum payment of $880.77 to my private loan.

I’m also continuing to take advantage of the COVID-19 forbearance on my federal loans so I have not made any payments there since March of 2020. 

With the forbearance announced to end this year, I am thinking of making a lump sum amount in January 2022 to finish off the remaining ~$4,400 of my federal loans so I can finally close my Nelnet account.

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

September Budget

Fixed Spending

As noted since February, my parents and I agreed that I would postpone any monthly payments to them while I am in the midst of the home-buying process. I will instead continue to save up and resume payments once the home-buying process is complete.

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

Variable Spending

Gas – Gas spending is fairly low this month. This is because I was only home for 3 weeks. I did have a rental car on vacation but I separated my gas spending during my trip to my travel category.

Entertainment/dining out – I’m counting my travel in a different category hence why my entertainment budget is $0. 

My dining out spending is surprisingly within budget. This is partially thanks to my mom and aunt splitting most of the dining costs during our trip.

Groceries – Cannot believe how low my grocery spending this month is. Obviously this just shows how little I ate at home this month. Not good. At all.

Shopping – I ended up returning the $150 shoes that I bought last month hence why I am actually getting money back this month in the shopping category.

Miscellaneous

Travel – Flights for both my September and October trip along with most of the hotels for the September trip were already paid for in August. So at least the damage for my September trip was mostly taken care of already. 

This month’s travel category covered October trip’s hotels and car rental so hopefully my travel spending will be back to almost normal in October.

As I mentioned last month, my September trip was supposed to just be a mother-daughter trip that I planned to fully pay for to make up for living rent free at home most of this year. 

While at first I was not excited that my aunt decided to tag along, in hindsight it was really great to only have to pay for ⅔ of the trip as she chipped in for the hotel and car.

My mom and aunt also split up the majority of the dining out costs between the two of them during the trip which was really nice.

Car Registration – It’s that time of the year again. Car registration renewal.

Savings

I’m still automatically allocating $1,000 to my savings account each paycheck for a total of $2,000/month. With my Roth IRA fully maxed, my two focuses are on maxing my HSA and 401K.

Goals for Next Month

My initial goal was to max out my 401K by the end of October because construction on my home is expected to finish by the end of this year and I wanted to have more take-home pay to spend on furnishing.

However, unlike my old company that will continue with employer match even if I max out my 401k early, the new company will not. It’s certainly not the end of the world, but it does mean I will have to slow down my contribution rate to keep getting my match till the end of the year.

At the very least, there’s no penalty for maxing out my HSA early so I plan to have that maxed out by the end of October.

As for the blog, I do want to recap my travel itinerary for these past few trips just so I can look back later and remember my time.

I also realized that the beginning of October marks the end of the third quarter so I plan to review my net worth and put up an update on that as well.