I sheepishly update my journal today, for both April and May.
My net worth continues to ascend, there's definitely a trend here, much to my pleasing, however there's more than meets the eye going on here.
Savings rate:
April - 24% - Despite an unexpected windfall last month, my savings rate was a mere 24%, I have highlighted expenses that are due to my wedding which is just weeks away, the majority of these expense is for our honeymoon trip to the USA, however there a few extras in there which I cannot mention in case SO is reading
. Despite losing most of the windfall to wedding expenses, 50% of any contributions we receive as gifts on the day will go towards my FIRE savings, the rest to furniture for our new home and SOs savings.
May - 45% - Again, some more spending on wedding related things, mostly my stag do/bachelor party, I did a reasonably frugal trip on a local train line, with craft ales at every stop, but also a a blow out trip to Cologne, Germany with some life-long friends. Well, blow out for us frugal folk, all in all the trip cost about £250, but I came back with 70 Euros of that unspent for my next trip overseas. I little bit of a luxury here I guess, but still pretty chuffed with the 45% rate all things considered!
Wedding expenses should be winding down now, just a few odds and ends to tie up, and then we should hopefully see some generous gifts which will hopefully mitigate some of my expenses, although these will be all off chart in my and SOs joint savings account. Not sure I mentioned that previously, but we do have separate accounts, and these figures are mine alone, although we do try to balance out expenses, you only see here my savings!
In other interesting news, I have shifted away from eating meat, and now eat mostly a plant based diet. I bought a vitamix in April (hence terrible savings rate
) and have been loving getting in copious amounts of green smoothies!
I have lost about 6lbs without even trying and really don't miss meat at all. I have dabbled a bit in diary, mostly cheese, but I can take it or leave it this stage, the only time I have had it was when SO bought it and I couldn't bring myself to waste it, or I have been in social settings when there was no alternative, I'm definitely not 100% vegan, but think I could be one day assuming SO and family would be willing to accommodate it.
I'm happy to settle for drastically reduced meat/diary consumption at this point, but I really would like to say I am 100% vegan at some point in the future. SO was resistant at first, but I think she is coming around to the idea, I've replaced our mayo with egg free versions, she's complemented my meat free, soy mince chili con carne, I think baby steps are necessary with SO while I swap out the meat in favor for plant based alternatives.
If I play my cards right this month and keep expenses low, I'll hit the £10,000 milestone for personal FIRE savings, albeit temporarily as I will require another £1000 for our 3 week trip to the US, still, I feel I am making great progress lately and life is looking good.