Monthly Savings Rate – November 2017

Poopsie and I had an incredibly busy November.

We spent a week in Newcastle for my best friend’s wedding. I was the Maid of Honour which I thoroughly enjoyed, but it did come with some busyness and some nerves about my speech. Everything went off well and most importantly, my friend and her new husband had a wonderful day.

Poopsie spent two weeks in Sydney learning his new job, and I joined him for one of those weeks to do a training course and meet the folks I’ll be working with next year. We managed to find a house to rent which is a relief. It’s very centrally located, walkable to the shops and the train station. Perhaps if I challenge myself, I may even be able to ride my bike to work…. we’ll see.

The Christmas Tree at QVB in Sydney.

Due to the travel we had to do, we spent in this category more than usual. I also spent some money replacing some shoes, my purse and I bought a new umbrella. These are not regular occurences, but can make an impact on the savings rate as they do add up.

While in Newcastle, we picked up our wedding rings and paid the remaining balance on them. I love my ring, and can’t wait to wear it! We also made the final payment of our honeymoon. As I write this, there’s less than a month to go to our wedding and we are beyond excited!

Council rates, renewing the registration and insurance on our car and purchasing some Christmas presents rounded off our spending for the month. While all necessary, they always look huge when they occur in the same month.

Our savings rate for November:

Not fantastic, especially considering it was a three pay cheque month. However, we continue to spend on the things we value so we really have nothing to complain about.

We did spend some money this month preparing to sell our house. We have a couple of empty rooms in our home, so have rented some furniture for those, as well as renting a TV cabinet and fake television. We purchased a few things, mostly from Kmart, which will likely be donated once we have sold the house. While they certainly make the place look great for the photos and open homes, they’re not necessarily to our taste.

I have chosen not to include these costs when calculating our savings rate as, when our home sells, I will not be including the profit we make as income. Calculating our savings rate is intended to look at how much of our salary we spend on living. If we weren’t selling our home for a (hopefully) profit, we would not have made these purchases. As such, we’ve chosen not to include them here.

How did you go with your November spending? Share in the comments below!