April 2015
Mortgage: 33.47%
Emergency fund: 296%
Stash (=EF + stocks): 17.3%
Savings rate this month: 34% (we splurged on a new born photoshoot and another baby carrier, I had to pay “my own risk” health insurance…it’s a Dutch thingy)
Savings rate this year: 33% (+1%!!!! I am hoping for a 40% savings rate this year…but 50% would be awesome.)
From now on I’ll pick up blogging again…promise! 🙂
Lots of love,
Mrs EconoWiser
Oh dear, another great idea was launched here in The Netherlands. The new trend is to let people take the items they want and make them pay later from shops. Most of the Dutch do not pay with their credit cards, it’s basically the same principle. We have debit cards here. But then the amount due is extracted from your bank account immediately. This also causes an increase in sales around the end of the month when it’s payday. Retailers now hope to spread and increase their income by offering extended payment, just like customers are offered in online shops. Marketeers have decided that people “want and expect” this “service”.
The spendthrifts and shopaholics will cheer, I guess.
Ugh…
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
When we decided to buy a specific Toyata Verso we negotiated a deal including winter tyres and a tow bar. The vendor called…ehm…yeah…the car already had a tow bar a dismountable one. The connector was well hidden and he just didn’t notice it when putting it up for sale. So…we got another €680 discount on the car. We now believe it was a very good deal indeed…for a three-year-old car that is. Still…a shitload of money.
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
Since we didn’t purchase the new car from the garage who bought our old car we’ll the money will be wired to our account. We’ll then wire money (a lot more!) to the other garage. Normally, you would get a huge discount for the used car. But now there are two forms of cash flow. Since this isn’t income, it would be weird to add the money to our income. My idea is to just put the difference between the proceeds of the used car and the cost of the new car in my Excelsheet, because that really is how much we literally spent on the new car. Right?
Is this the best option?
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
Yep, yesterday we bought a car, a 2011 Toyota Verso. One we already saw a week ago, but didn’t test drive. We first went to see another car. It looked like the better deal….because it was cheaper. We thought we were going to buy that one. We took it for a test drive, parked it and took off the hood. The motor block didn’t look good at all. For a car that only had 56.000kms on the clock, it looked in really bad shape. Then we opened the maintenance book and there was our answer. There was only one stamp in there. The car had been taken to a garage in 12.000 for the first and last time! Yikes!
When we came back we were able to negotiate an even better deal, because of the stamps. I wanted to take a written offer along to our second best option. This turned out to be the best option. Yeah, it was more expensive. But the car had been serviced four times already with 68.000kms on the clock. Toyotas need to be serviced every 15.000kms, we were told. The motor block looked perfect, no rust, no damage, no weird stuff going on.
We were able to negotiate a good deal here, so we bought it. We’ll pick it up this Friday.
I’m so glad this whole car debacle is over. I hope and expect this car to last us at least 10 years.
Lots of love,
Mrs EconWiser
Last month my husband bought some days off…so that decreased his income significantly. We also bought a double stroller on sale, since we’re going to need one in March. Our vacuum cleaner broke down and we had to buy a new one. The hubby had to buy himself some Hue lights, whatever. We went out for dinner. And….life’s what happened…really.
So, even without purchasing a new car (which we’re going to do in December) November is hereby declared a disaster. We spent a whopping 92% of our income. (Mind you: I do not include income from the side business here. I do not pay myself out. It’s just what’s left at the end of each year, basically.)
November 2014
Mortgage: 32.7% (0.06% increase)
Emergency fund: 400.8% (5% increase, due to the closing down sale of the side business)
Stash (=EF + stocks): 16.23%(0.48% increase, due to increase stock market and closing down sale…)
Spending to income ratio this month: 92% (Ugh….)
Spending to income ratio this year: 63% (since we are going to buy a car in December there’s no way we’re going to get that under 60%)
I decided to include the purchase of the car in next month’s numbers and not to write it off over a period of time. I mean, our last car was supposed to last us at least 10 years but it broke down after only 4 years. I am, however, interested in how much we spent without the purchase, so I’ll calculate that number as well. But in order for things to be fair, transparent and honest…I’ll include the purchase of the damn car in my annual overview. The hubby wanted it that way as well. (I was going to cheat….and be honest about the cheating….;-)…but after a few comments decided against that. Thanks, guys!)
Love,
Mrs Econowiser
Yesterday our car broke down while we were driving on the motorway. The AAA-guy guessed the timing belt broke. Ehm….that’s an iron throne a car with only 85.000 kilometres on the clock and during maintenance in July the garage never mentioned this thing should have been replaced. Worst case scenario is that the whole motor went to smithereens and repair will likely cost us a couple of thousand. Ugh…
We feel like the garage should take responsibility here. It’s their job to replace things on time. This isn’t the first time things break down. I’ve been a loyal customer for over fifteen years. I’m seriously considering going to a different garage from now on.
We also talked about going car (care?!) free…but at this moment that’s just not an option for us.
Jeez, I hate these things!
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
P.s. Ah, that was a complainypantsy post! On the bright side…we have enough emergency fund to cover cost of the repair. The money was just sitting there in a useless savings account anyways…now some of those euros will be off to actually “do” something…I guess….. But seriously, I am very grateful we are able to pay for these emergencies straight up.
April 2014
Mortgage: 31.74% (0.8% increase)
Emergency fund: 296.7% (more has gone into investments, yay!)
Stash: 9.5% (hardly an increase here)
Income to spending ratio this month: 78% (uhoh…the hubby went to a music festival, we bought an amplifier, bought several items at a baby store, a couple of annual memberships were paid for and the hubby got me expensive shoes for my birthday…I need special shoes due to my orthotics)
Income to spending ratio this year: 71% (Ouch! Would still like to get to >60%!)
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
With the baby ‘n all we have gotten very lazy when it comes to doing our groceries. These past weeks we ordered our groceries via this very convenient pick up point. We use an app to create our shopping list. It’s all too easy. The only thing is that we’re now shopping with a more expensive supermarket. This automatically means we’ve spent a lot more on groceries each week for the past couple of weeks. Oh, well… I guess we’ll keep up this habit for another couple of weeks and then go back to our frugal way of shopping.
The baby is doing great! She’s added another 1.5kg on top of her birth weight. We’re very happy with our beautiful little girl. I’m also sort of coming out of isolation and have started to manoeuvre back into the real world. This also means I’ll pick up blogging again. Obviously, I took a break. I hadn’t intended on taking a break before giving birth. But, hey, life happens while you were busy making other plans. Right?!
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
Finally, our Hungarian real estate agent made it to my Hungarian farmhouse and that of my brother’s. He took pictures and now they’re up for sale. We are never going to get the money our parents put into these houses back for them. I wish they had never bought these houses for us… I don’t want to sound ungrateful. Putting these two houses up for sale already cost me and my brother €508 in total. There goes our spending to income ratio of this month. Each house that is eventually sold will cost us another €1500 each in legal fees etcetera. IF these houses ever get sold… (Oh, and don’t think we’re going to fetch tens of thousands on these deals. Trust me, you wouldn’t want to be in this situation. We really want these stupid houses off our names a.s.a.p.)
Another lesson learnt. Never, ever, ever buy a second home (especially abroad). It’ll only cost you time and money. This also proves (again) that the hubby and I don’t want to be landlords. We’ll stick with cash, stocks, bonds and REITs.
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
EconoWiser 