Long overdue, but it’s finally time to tally up our financial comings and goings from November. Better late than never, right? December has been a whirlwind of surgeries (of the elective variety) and vacations, so all of a sudden I find myself just a few days before Christmas having not yet posted an update for the previous month. Check out the details below in our November 2021 financial update!
In our inaugural blog post, I briefly introduced you to our goal of achieving financial independence (“FI”) by the age of 35 and shared that we are already over halfway to our target net worth of $1,250,000! Here’s last month’s update in case you missed it, and here‘s how we fared last year in total.
This post is the latest in a regular series of monthly financial updates to track our progress to FI and beyond. Bear with me – I’m a little obsessed with spreadsheets and track every penny we make and spend in excruciating detail. I’ll do my best to summarize that activity in a way that gives enough insight into our financial maneuverings without boring you to tears.
Net Worth
Here’s where our net worth ended up through November 2021:
| | BALANCE | CHANGE FROM PRIOR MONTH |
| ASSETS | | |
| Cash, Checking, Savings | $16,082 | $2,552 |
| Investments | $959,697 | ($3,435) |
| Home Equity | $107,028 | $571 |
| LIABILITIES | | |
| Credit Cards | ($6,912) | ($1,603) |
| Misc. Other Debts | $0 | $0 |
| NET WORTH | $1,075,895 | ($1,915) |
Mr. Market taketh away in November, as our net worth dipped slightly due to a choppy trading month and some Black Friday spending. Let’s check out each individual category:
Cash, Checking, Savings
This consists mostly of our emergency fund held in a high-yield online savings account at Ally Bank. The rest is held in a “big bank” for depositing our paychecks and paying bills. As we get closer to our FI number, I anticipate building this up a bit in the coming months.
Investments
Several different accounts are included here, most of which are true “retirement” accounts. It also includes our taxable brokerage account at Schwab. Though we made $7,500 of contributions to our various accounts this month, our market losses totaled $11,000. Such is life when your portfolio rides on the whims of the S&P 500.
Home Equity
Purchase price of our home, less the outstanding mortgage balance. I don’t worry about adjusting the value to whatever our Zestimate is on a particular day because it doesn’t matter until we sell. Having said that, new homes are being built and others are being sold in our neighborhood for well over what we paid for ours, so this is likely a conservative number.
Credit Cards
Just the balance on our various credit cards (we use these extensively to fund our travel hacking exploits) as of the end of the month. We pay these off on time and in full each month, so the change in this balance will usually manifest itself in the expenses below. We continued our wardrobe revamp and added in some other Black Friday shopping, which you’ll see in the Expenses section.
Misc. Other Debts
Usually just my administrative accounting of who owes what for various fantasy sports leagues. I’m finally clear of all debts after the conclusion of baseball season.
Expenses
Here’s a look at our expenses for the month of November:
| EXPENSES | Budget | Actual | Over/Under |
| Home (mortgage, property taxes, maintenance, etc.) | $2,259.05 | $3,066.87 | ($807.82) |
| Utilities | $218.41 | $347.40 | ($128.99) |
| Automotive | $480.21 | $307.43 | $172.78 |
| Groceries | $375.00 | $577.29 | ($202.29) |
| Dining Out | $116.67 | $291.05 | ($174.38) |
| Health & Beauty | $266.96 | $718.02 | ($451.06) |
| Cell Phones | $16.67 | $0.00 | $16.67 |
| Travel & Entertainment | $369.32 | $260.73 | $108.59 |
| Pets | $119.17 | $280.03 | ($160.86) |
| Work-related | $8.50 | $10.14 | ($1.64) |
| Merchandise (furniture, decorations, clothes, etc.) | $250.30 | $836.21 | ($585.91) |
| Other Expenses | $269.75 | $6.23 | $263.52 |
| Total Expenses | $4,750.00 | $6,701.40 | ($1,951.40) |
Another $1,900 over budget this month, and there appears to be overspending all across the board. For a finance blogger, I sure don’t seem to have a great handle on our budget…
Let’s take a look at some individual categories:
Home Expenses & Utilities
The budget is built to average the cost of property taxes over the year, so in all months other than May and October, we should be under budget. We did purchase a new kitchen faucet to replace the cheap, builder-grade one that came with the house.
Groceries, Dining Out
Both of these categories were over budget – we just love food and drink. In hindsight, these categories probably need to be increased in next year’s budget. We hosted not one but two Thanksgiving dinners this year, so that accounts for most of the excess in November. Hoping for a return to normalcy next month.
Health & Beauty, Pets, Merchandise
I’ll lump these two categories together, as the prevailing strategy was the same. We made the decision in the past few months to start buying things we know we will need in retirement since we seem to be inching closer to that point with each passing day – revamping our wardrobes, purchasing useful items for international travel, etc. We also stocked up on dog food and treats with all the Black Friday sales going on.
In November, I just about completed my shopping list and Mrs. FIby35 continues to chip away at hers. Hopefully we can get a good chunk of the rest purchased in December.
Cell Phones
As I’ve explained previously, we both have cell phone plans through Mint Mobile that only cost about $15 each per month for unlimited talk, text, and 4GB of 4G LTE data. I receive reimbursement from my employer every few months as well, so my cell phone is basically free.
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Conclusion
Though the activities were relatively minimal in November, there was obviously no shortage of spending. Luckily, these have been mostly discretionary purchases with very few surprises, so we could always cut back if necessary.
If you’re following along at home, you may have noticed our spending this year has already eclipsed our $57,000 budget. As much as I would have loved to come in under that number this year, there are a lot of moving parts as we prepare to depart the workforce in the near future, and some extra spending is a necessary part of those preparations. We’ve also more than covered the additional spending with unanticipated revenue sources (selling a car, stimulus checks, etc.), so it’s not a complete Spreadsheet travesty.
Some day, after we’ve ridden off into the early retirement sunset, I’ll probably have to write a post detailing these preparations. I’ll add that to one of the many To-Do lists we have running right now…
How did your November spending end up? Did you take advantage of any sweet Black Friday deals you want to brag about? Feel free to comment below!
