Wednesday 3 April 2013

March 2013 Expenditure Tracker

If I do not meet my financial goals for 2013, March will have been the reason why.  I saved and invested virtually nothing, I spent too cash and had to repay significant previous expenditures which had accrued on my credit card.  It will actually take a spectacular amount of discipline to work myself out of the (relative) financial hole that I've put myself into in March (compared with where I want to be).


ItemMar 2013TargetOver/(Under)
Share Investments+$1,094+$2,000-$906
Offset Acct.+$229+$3,500-$3,271
Personal expenditure+$7,550+$2,200+$5,350

The major causes for the movements in my 3 accounts are listed below:

  • Personal Expenditure
    • Normally I deal with this last however this month this gets first priority because it was the reason everything else was dragged down
    • My credit card bill for this month was close to $5,000 which alone is more than double what my total expenditure goal is for the month.  It was this high for a few reasons including
      • I signed up for the CFA program and put it on my credit card (~$1,200)
      • My car insurance was due (~$1,100)
      • Dining out, partying hard and drinking after becoming single again (this cost was stupidly high and I'm not going to put it up here)
    • My cash expenditure was much higher than normal
      • I had to pay double rent this month - I had been paying rent to my parents while living at home and I moved out of home and needed to pay my landlord rent for a month in advance
      • Too much partying which I have been scaling back
  • Home Loan Offset account
    • I did not save anything to my home loan offset account this month
    • The only reason that it was a positive number is because, with the reduced interest rates as well as the cash I have been putting into this account while looking for another place to invest it, my investment property has become positively geared
    • This was not an intentional decision and should reverse once I find new share investments that I am happy and comfortable with
  • Share investments
    • Other than my investment in my employee share plan I did not invest any cash this month
    • With the run that the share market has had, I'm finding it harder to find appropriate opportunities
On a cumulative basis my performance can be seen below

ItemJan 13 - Mar 13TargetOver/(Under)
Share Investments-$6,020+$6,000-$12,020
Offset Acct.+$12,727+$10,500+$2,227
Personal expenditure+$15,115+$6,600+$8,515

As you can see my personal expenditure is dragging down my share investment performance.  I'm still ahead on my home loan offset account by virtue of the sale of my employee shares in February 2013 which I have discussed before.

I have thought about redoing my goals in much the same way that I did last year however having thought about it more I have decided to keep the ones I have for the moment.  They are reasonable goals and I have just been very irresponsible in the first quarter of this year.

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