March 2017
We had another great month and topped off a great first quarter of the year. We had normal expenses of 1468.72, and a savings rate of 79%. Of that, $671 was home insurance which comes each March. So $797.72 for everything else. This falls in line with January and February. Last year we had expenses of over $2200 for March so this year was much better.
January - $804.08
February - $518.70
March - $797.72 (+ 671 home insurance)
Our savings rate for the first quarter was 86%. April and May are 'non-home-expense' months so we should stick under 1K for each.
Interesting things for the month -
We ate out for the first time all year on March 24.
We achieved our highest investment income level so far - $275.12
March was an exceptionally busy and stressful time for me at work. Taking on more leadership/leading meetings is not what I enjoy doing, but it had to happen. We had big changes going into production this past weekend and no one else could have organized it. The past 7 days have been particularly horrid, with full weekends worked as well. Now that we're done, life will get much better at work!
Expenses/Savings
Total Spend - $1556.69
Renovation Spend - $87.97
Normal Spend - $1468.72
Total Savings - $5892.88 ; 79%
Lending Club turned positive this month. The higher interest rates have boosted income a bit, but charge offs are still pretty high so income was pretty low.
Highest dividends ever!
Total FAI - $4,255.63 (+225.96)
Time to Bills Only - 5 Months (-1)
Time to Bills & Food - 19 Months (-1)
Time to TTM Expenses - 38 Months (-4)
TTM Expenses - $13112.10(-770.13)
Our TTM Expenses took another great plunge this month. We have one more plunge to make in May and then we will be around where I expect our goal will be - somewhere in the 11K-12K range.
SWR decreased from 12.36% to 11.17% and years saved increased from 8.09 years to 8.95 years. We'll just call it 9!
Hedonic Adaptation to Savings Rate
So I've noticed that saving 5K dollars/month isn't as exciting as it was just a few months ago. I think I'm past the point where I get happiness from huge savings deposits and it's really just a waiting game now to get to where I want. The same with our low level of expenses. It's a feeling of "well this must be what everyone else is doing, so what's the big deal". I guess it was bound to happen, but I didn't expect it so soon into this.
Gardens
We have been really busy cleaning up our gardens from last fall when we had no time. We've also been busy starting a lot of seed and have begun hardening off some spring crops like peas, brassicas, celery, onions, etc.... This is also partly due to not having room in our grow setup.
Can you see why I'm building a greenhouse.
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif)
We always plant way too much.
![Image](http://i.imgur.com/kKq27I5.jpg)