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
Next weekend we’ll go to a combined birthday party. Two friends are throwing this party together. Within this group of friends we have an awesome tradition when it comes to buying presents for each other.
We all have digital wish lists which we can easily access online. So you’re always sure to buy somebody a gift that they really like. But here comes the coolest part: we’ll collect a whole bunch of money and then buy gifts collectively. This makes it possible to put more expensive and more useful items on your list instead of these €10 thingies. The cool part is that in the end you’ll spend less per person on these gifts…but you’re giving kick-ass gifts.
This time I offered to do the shopping. I just ordered everything online. 😉
Do you buy gifts collectively as well?
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
As today is the first of December the November numbers are in!
December 2013
Mortgage: 31.01% (I continue to hate the fact that we can’t make extra mortgage payments anymore…)
Emergency fund: 309.18% (187% increase! Thanks to the endowment.)
Stash: 8.14% (4% increase, almost at 1/10 of being FI!)
Income to spending ratio this month: 57% (verrrrrrrrry happy about this!)
Income to spending ratio this year: 63% (1% decrease, yay!)
The husband and myself high-fived over our income to spending ration of this month. We “only” spent 57% of our income (I didn’t add the endowment to the income). The “unexpected” spending went to changing to winter tyres, a board game festival, a donation to help out the Philippines, a couple of presents, new bathrobes, maternity underwear, a second-hand nursery for my parents so that the little one can stay the night there sometime in the future, other second-hand baby stuff, one lunch with a friend and uncovered health insurance expenses.
Without all of these “unexpected” expenses we would have stayed well under a 50% income to spending ratio. We are so getting better at this! If we’ll really be able to spend less than 50% of our take-home pay we’d be FI in sixteen years. Cool, I’ll be 48 by then. Our goal is to have this mortgage paid off by the time I’m 50…so our ‘stash by then should more than cover our expenses. Whoohooh!
How did you do last month?
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
It seems to be all the rage and the things you can see on those ultra sounds are amazing! We saw 3d ultra sound pictures compared to pictures of the same new-born and you could really tell they were the same child.
I thought something like this was going to be very expensive, but I was wrong. The ultra sound is “only” €85 and for an extra tenner you can get a DVD with all the clips and photos. We’ve booked a 3d ultra sound for our kid on 19th December (I’m almost 27 weeks then). The plan is to have a couple of photos printed, put them in a cute picture frame and give that to the grandmas and grandpas.
We think they’ll love their Christmas gift. What do you think?
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
Yesterday we went to a baby store for the first time. I’m just not the type to “go shopping” when I found out I was pregnant. All the gear and especially the prices made me a bit dizzy. Apparently, most first time parents spend thousands on baby stuff.
Anyway, my mother (who now calls herself grandma-to-be :-)) wanted to buy her first grandchild a big present. Actually, we already agreed on her buying us a baby stool for the kid. We found out that a Tripp Trapp stool is the most durable thing one can have. It’s also very difficult to get them second-hand because one can use them for the first decade of a child’s life. Friends have had theirs for over ten years and are still using them. So we went to the store, grandma bought a white version including new-born carrier, a toddler harnas and cute lining.
White chair + new-born seat + beige textile
Baby seat
Cushions (our chair is white)
Pictures taken from Stokke.com
It’s a big present indeed, isn’t it?! We’re very happy with this gift. It was also a bonus that the chair was on sale at this specific baby store. Moreover, my mother’s best friend works at this store and through her she got an extra 15% discount. The whole package cost granny (and gramps…he’s not the type of person to go shopping at baby stores) €320. I would have really offended them if I didn’t take the gift or go shopping this big present for their first grandchild.
What would you have done?
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
Ah, the birthday mini break. It was great! We went to a little picturesque village called Dwingeloo and had a blast. We took our own bikes there and we cycled a lot in the area. We also went to this Dutch heritage park (Veenpark) about the history of our moors. Poor people used to build houses from peat and also dug it up to use for fires.
Anyway, the whole thing set me back about €450. Yes, it was rather luxurious. We ate in restaurants and slept in a comfortable hotel room. The memory…priceless.
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
The little one is growing rapidly and I’m still extremely tired. Funny fact: my belly is growing very fast (it’s rather obvious that I’m pregnant) but I’m not gaining any weight. I even think I lost inches around my upper legs and upper arms. Is this baby eating away my fat?! I hope so! 😉 I’m certainly not bingeing, I eat healthy food and I just don’t have that much of an appetite.
My husband came home the other day with three bags full of baby and toddler clothes. A friend gave this to him. I sorted everything out. They’re mostly girl’s clothes and they look awesome. We don’t know the gender of our baby yet. We’ll visit the midwife this Friday, maybe she can detect the baby’s gender on the ultrasound. We’ll know for sure on the 8th of November. Then we’ll have our 20-week ultrasound (at which point I’ll be almost 21 weeks). I’m so excited!
Furthermore, I bought two baby carry things. One mini monkey which looks like this one. We intend to use it when the baby is still very small. It was €5 second-hand.
And a Kipling version (reminded me of that guy in The Hangover, haha!) for €7 second-hand. It sort of looks like this:
Both were hardly ever used and look great.
I’ve become enthusiastic about carrying the baby ever since reading Valhalla’s blog. I hadn’t thought about that before and just assumed putting the kid in a stroller in order to tag it along. This does seem more natural, intimate and an opportunity to bond much better.
I’m also reading a lot about breast-feeding. I hope to breast feed for at least six months.
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
There’s a bank in The Netherlands which allows you to digitally split a bill, sends every participant an email and keeps up with who paid already and who didn’t. Coincidentally, this is “our bank”. Today my husband used the software for the first time and up till now he’s pretty impressed with what it does. His only concern was whether his friends minded the fact that the bank now knows their email addresses.
Do you use a feature like this?
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
Okay, so…I’m sort of thinking ahead here, I know. You guys know I love my cargo bike trailer which I use on a weekly basis for the groceries. I was thinking I’d really like a bike trailer to tow along our kid(s) with. I started looking for these things and have now convinced myself we’ll “need” a Chariot.
This model goes for about €900. Yes, it’s one of the most expensive versions. However, (oh, here’s the yes-but moment) you can use this thing as a cool stroller as well. Two kids can be transported in it (and with some extras you can even put a one-month-old baby in it) and there’s room for groceries (small shopping, I’d still need my cargo trailer for the big grocery haul once a week). It’s foldable, so we can take it everywhere with us. We’ll make lots of use of it since we still want to stick to the 5k radius rule whenever we want to go somewhere. (If it’s within a 5k radius…sometimes even 10k….you don’t take the car, you bike!). You can use it while your jogging (don’t know about that one, though.) And you can replace the wheels with skis and take it cross-country skiing, I mean how cool is that?! Okay, the latter one is an option we’ll never use…but it’s such a cool feature and made me laugh. I do believe we’ll make so much use of this bike trailer and in the end will save us a lot of cash as well.
Now, obviously I started searching Craigslist for a second-hand version. These trailers aren’t cheap new…but they sure as hell aren’t cheap second-hand! I’ve seen people bidding €300-€450 for a used one. And sometimes they’re over five years old! Jeez…that really put me off.
On the other hand, if we buy a new version we’ll be able to eventually sell it at that price as well. So looking at it from that perspective, a new one is the best option.
Is it? Or isn’t it?
Oh dear…the spending money on kids crave has started. Argh!
What’s your honest opinion?
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
The Dutch are getting more and more fed up with the bank system. A couple of people now started a bank coop. They’re now recruiting new members. I’ve actually signed up and paid €20. In Belgium the same type of organisation managed to gather over 40.000 members within a couple of months. The idea is that the bankers don’t get ridiculous bonuses and most profits are shared amongst members. Me like!
Would you sign up for something like this?
Love,
Mrs EconoWiser
EconoWiser 