September Numbers Revised

Hi friends,

So..,I forgot to include something in our September numbers.  Dividend was paid…and that’s income…right? However, I didn’t add that to our income…duhuh. Originally, these were the numbers:

September 2015
Mortgage: 34.40% (+0.29)
Emergency fund: 186.8% (-31.6% because we invested a bunch of stocks! Still…way too much cash for my liking….)
Stash (=EF + stocks): 18.76% (When will we pass 20%??)
Savings rate this month: 32% (Boohooh, October is going to be worse…we booked a holiday home for a week. However, that’s something we’re really going to enjoy! ❤ )
Savings rate this year: 43% (Ok)

Now that I included the dividend paid, we managed to boost our savings rate to 35% that month. Woot!

From now on, I will always add dividend to our income. Our VWRL stocks pay dividend in March, June, September and December. Our Meesman stocks will provide dividend mid-year, however the dividend is reinvested automatically. That’s still income, right?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Farnoosh Podcasts

I really like personal finance guru Farnoosh Torabi. She started So Money podcasts and they’re great! I’ve listened to the ones with Mr. Money Mustache and J. Money. I love the questions she asks. It’s listening to PF great minds talking to each other as if having coffee together and casually throwing all these mindblowing philosophies into the equation. Yep, girlfriend got it going on!

I was very much inspired by J. Money’s Craigslist habit. I am going to incorporate that habit after having this baby. Our house is still stuffed with…stuff…which we can make money from.

Have fun listening to her podcasts. The next one I’m going to listen to is with Seth Godin.

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

The February Numbers

February 2014
Mortgage: 31.36% (0.14% increase, interest on the savings part of the mortgage was paid out, we can’t make extra mortgage payments due to stupid tax rules)
Emergency fund: 306.1% (about 2% increase…we have started throwing more into index funds…but the emergency fund is still growing!)
Stash: 9.35% (0.2% closer to early retirment)
Income to spending ratio this month: 74% (as expected, not very impressive. the husband repaid his wintersport buddy the remainder for his holiday, we had professional pregger pictures taken, the hubby bought tickets for a music festival…besides the fact that we’re going to have a baby, nothing expensive will be happening to us in March 😉 )
Income to spending ratio this year: 76% (not a realistic number yet…, we’ll get to 60-65% by the end of this year!)

Ok, let’s put on our Money Mustache and make things happen in March!

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

It’s The Economy, Stupid!

Hence Bill Clinton’s successful campaign.

https://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2012/04/25/james-carville-slams-mitt-romney-for-stealing-his-line/

There’s even an It’s the economy, stupid! game you can play online. (I haven’t played it, though…)

Municipal elections are coming up here in The Netherlands. Our national government is about to shift many responsibilities towards municipalities. That’s what will make these elections even more important. However, less than 50% of my fellow Dutchmen intend to show up for these elections. Uh oh…

Right now, we’re hearing mostly positive news about the economy.

According to the media we are spending more (especially on vehicles and other luxury items) and home sales are up again. I can concur the latter statement with my brother’s situation. His apartment has been up for sale for almost three years now. Last week there were two viewings (the first in a long time!) and next week he’ll have two more viewings. I also see many “sold” signs on houses in my neighbourhood. The Dutch also anticipate house prices to rise again. Confidence in our economy has risen. It seems our economy has grown indeed.

D’you think it has something to do with the upcoming elections? 😉

On the other hand, there’s also some negative news. Interest rates on savings accounts keep declining. Youngsters don’t feel responsible for their own pension. And our unemployment rate has risen to 8.6%.

Does any of the positive or negative news affect Mrs EconoWiser’s family? Nah, don’t think so. We don’t intend to sell our house, switch jobs or at risk of losing a job. We also don’t intend to spend more that we feel we need to. However, it’s good to hear other people being positive about the future again. We’ve never stopped being positive about our own future, and we never will!

How about you? What’s the general outlook on your country’s economy and how does it affect you, if at all?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Christmas

This week was tiring, but great! We visited family for Christmas and they provided all the meals and entertaining. So there was no pressure whatsoever for us to think of Christmas recipes, do groceries, decorate tables and whatnot. This year’s Christmas was one of the best ever. Nothing fancy, just a simple meal with family. I hope we get to do this every year from now on.

Yesterday we spent €800 in a baby store. Ouch! About half of that amount was spent on a new maxi-cosi and a click-fix thingy. The second-hand maxi-cosi was over five years old and then it just isn’t safe in a crash anymore. That’s why we were willing to spend money on a new one. The click-fix thingy is a non-necessary item, we know. We will enjoy it a lot, though. It will save us lots of fiddling around with seatbelts. Oh well, we decided to treat ourselves to this luxury.

The other stuff consisted of things like a mattress, baby bath, blankets, towels and other items a baby needs. Combined with our second-hand purchases we spent about €1400 in total on the baby and we think we’ve got it all. I prepared the trip really well. I made lists of things we’d need so we were in and out in about two hours. Still, it was a very tiring experience. Why on earth would anybody want to hang around these stores on a weekly basis?

Because of all these activities I couldn’t find the time to actually write a blog. I’m still working on the index investing for Europeans total blog post. Also, the side business is extremely busy. The company’s bank account is taking in lots of ‘stash. Yay! January is usually also an extremely good month for my business. So I guess next month I will be rather busy with the side business as well.

The baby is still kicking like crazy and she tends to wake her mother a couple of times each night using her bladder as a trampoline. Oh well…

The husband will be leaving for his short snowboarding holiday on the 1st of January, early in the morning. I’m excited for him. He’s really looking forward to this, but he does feel a little bit guilty. I’m the one pushing him to go and enjoy it. I’ll be queen of the castle in the meantime and wash all this new baby stuff and fiddle around with other things on my to-do-list. Can’t wait!

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Paycheck Delay

Yesterday, on the 26th of the month, I still hadn’t received my paycheck. I wasn’t worried, because I have more than enough ‘stash to cover the delay. Apparently, the bank responsible for all salary transactions messed up big time. Usually, employees will receive their money on the 24th or 25th at the latest. An email was sent explaining about the bank’s stupidity and a statement was made that we’d receive our paycheck asap. That afternoon I received my paycheck.

This event didn’t worry me for a second. However, I can imagine that people who always have a shortage at the end of each month were kind of worried. I would hate that feeling and situation. I am so glad I discovered the path of frugality and saving.

How about you?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

The Global Rich List

Holland is a rich country and its inhabitants are very wealthy, even though sometimes they’re not aware of it. A person on welfare nets around €10.000 a year (including benefits) and according to the global rich list that income puts that person in the top 13% richest people in the world!

Somebody else who nets around €25.000 (including benefits) here in The Netherlands is in the top 2% richest people of the world. The top 1.28% to be exact! In my opinion, this is quite a regular income for somebody who went to college or university and works an average job. If you net around €28.000 (including benefits) a year you’ve made it into the top 1%! There are only 63 million people in the whole world richer than you. Errr…these people are regular persons here in The Netherlands. They’re not the evil people who control the world with the power of their money Occupy was all about when they talked about the top 1%. Maybe they should change that to the top 0.1%? (I’m not making any statements here about the ideas of occupy, I’m just questioning their numbers. The Wall Street high flyers were whom they were after and they’re much higher up on the list)

These numbers really made me aware of how wealthy our nation already is. Why are we complaining so much? It has also caused me to appreciate our wealth even more.

Is this list an eye opener for you as well?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

It’s Newsletter Day!

Ah, the last Sunday of the month! I just love that day. It’s the day we always send our newsletter. The side business generates the most on a day like this. People have their paycheck and don’t have much do to on Sundays except shopping for stuff on the internet, I guess?

It feels more and more weird to be thinking like this in order to have people spend their money on my products. I am trying to live frugally myself and would not budge for my own offers. Strange, hey? I started the side business over six years ago…I was a spendalot then myself.

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Dollar Millionaires

According to this Dutch newspaper article there are 191,000 dollar millionaires in The Netherlands. We’re in 12th place worldwide.  The U.S. has the most dollar millionaires (5.9 million), Japan comes in second place (1.5 million) and China takes bronze (1.3 million). The total amount of dollar millionaires worldwide is 13.8 million. I thought that amount would be higher. My husband and myself are determined to “join the club” as 1 million dollars equals 760.000 euros which sounds like an achievable goal if one takes a couple of decades to get there.

Maybe I should join J. Money’s million dollar club?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

A Lot And Nothing Really

Uncle Sam told us we’re going to get a part of our tax refund within the next 2 weeks. I made a small extra mortgage payment the day I received this month’s salary. I just threw in most of what was left right before the bank transfer. I have a feeling June is going to turn out to be a nice and frugal month for us. As soon as we receive the first part of our refund we’ll throw that into the mortgage.

Furthermore, I had a talk with my superior about my salary. I threw in all these really great arguments but he didn’t budge. He’s not going to give me more money… If I don’t like the pay, I should look for a different job. This is very not very motivating to say the least, I already explained the bit about the OLDER MEN earning heaps more while sucking at their jobs. From now on I’ll just work 100% and that’s it. No more extra work for free, he ain’t gonna get that out of me anymore!

I went to the gynaecologist’s a couple of times during the past week. I have another appointment tomorrow. Turns out my husband’s tools (if you catch my drift) are doing a great job. The little fellas are alive and kickin’. That’s great news! However, my ovaries aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing: releasing some nice eggs at the appropriate time. No wonder I’m still not pregnant. Hmpf…I’ll probably have to get some sort of fertility treatment. Starting with chlomid tablets in order to get these eggs all nice and grown. If that won’t work it’ll be hormone injections and if that won’t work…well let’s not think about IVF just yet. I am soooooooo glad that I live in The Netherlands and all these things will be paid for.

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser