CategoryJul-18CommentsRent$768.75$750 for rent, paid via PlastiqInternet$55.92Internet is kind of expensive.Cell Phone$0.00Already paid for 1 year of service through MintSIM. = $15.51 / month!Natural Gas$19.72Little below average.Electricity$24.79Below average. I switched providers recently because they offered a low intro rate. Will cancel in a month or two when the rate changes again.Water$35.25Below averageGroceries$124.21Below average, due to work travelCar Insurance$0.00I pay every 6 months in April and October. Gasoline$95.55Above average, due to work travelCar Expenses$0....

CategoryMay-18CommentsRent$750.00$750 for rent. No Plastiq fees this month thanks to referral.Internet$55.92Internet is kind of expensive.Cell Phone$0.00Already paid for 1 year of service through MintSIM. = $15.51 / month!Natural Gas$52.46Paying for this month and last month.Electricity$21.29Below average. I switched providers recently because they offered a low intro rate. Will cancel in a month or two when the rate changes again.Water$34.01Slightly below average this month.Groceries$141.28Below average. I did some travelling this month, so less groceries at home....

Please excuse the somewhat late posting, as I’m on vacation.This month was another somewhat high spending month, as I traveled once for family and once for personal vacation. My policy is to record all of my expenses incurred while traveling (including food) under “travel” rather than where they might otherwise be recorded if I incurred them while at home, so that I can better understand the financial impact of my trips and budget for them in the long-term....

So I managed to make it through the busy part of the year alive and in one piece. Besides work, March was a pretty uneventful month, except for the markets. Market volatility seems to be here to stay, which has the potential to mess up the steady, even progress I had been enjoying up to this point. I still haven’t lost enough in one month to outweigh the new contributions and thus cause a month-to-month decrease in Net Worth, but I’m sure that day isn’t far off....

Well, it’s that time of year again, when work takes over almost all my waking hours for about a month and I have almost no energy left for anything else. Highlights for this month included getting a stand mixer for my kitchen (more baked goodies = less depressing work environment), completing my tax return (first year filing with self-employment income) and receiving a fat refund (thanks to January’s strategic tax move), and losing enough money in the market to offset almost all of my savings for the month....

January was a really strange month. I deliberately overpaid over $6k in federal income taxes on a credit card in order to trigger a 25k mile spending bonus and set myself up for another 25k mile bonus in another month or two. Since it’s just about tax season, I’ll be getting almost all of that back as a refund in a month or two, minus the 1.87% credit card fee. Totally worth it for the extra travel I’ll get from it....

Pretty good overall for the month, considering the accelerated spending I did on travel. I bought about $950 worth of hotels.com gift cards, some at a 15% discount, and some to earn 10x Chase points during the Chase Pay Best Buy promotion. I value the 8,000 points I earned from that at about $136, so not a bad return on investment there.

Another month gone! Maybe it’s just the season, but time really seems to be flying by lately. Been very busy at work so the days and weeks have started to blur together. Nothing super exciting to report out for this month, other than the stock markets continuing their great performance for the year. It’s weird having months where capital appreciation is actually more than how much I spent during that month....