September was a good month from a social perspective. We had a great weekend getaway in Centreparcs with lots of family (the grandparents rented 3 cottages for 3 nights). Miss CF greatly enjoyed the waterpark and slept like a baby (again) in the hours afterwards. Lot of fun with the big diners and lunches, as well as the mini golf and petting zoo. Both of us also had some time to relax, life was good!
Another fun event was a local flower parade/carnival parade in the town where Mrs. CF grow up (totally free to visit). This year did not disappoint either! Great laughs all around.
As to the financial side of September, here is a quick overview:
- Mr. CF officially changed companies (still the same work/position with the same company, but now it’s no longer a secondment). This had a big effect on the income as the payment schedule changed from a once per month to a once per 4 weeks. In short, income for Mr. CF was considerably lower this period (only got about 55% of what normally comes in);
- Mrs. CF did not have her expense claims paid before the end of this month, resulting in a reduction in income for the month of September;
- Income (principal and interest payments) from crowdfunding loans is now starting to exceed €150/month;
- Income from the new rental units is now starting to come in, but we should receive the first full payments as per late October/early November;
- We purchased glass and paint for the new windows, which will replace the old ones (~€350);
- Groceries & grooming a bit above normal at around €425 (partially caused by the B-day party for Miss CF);
- So were costs for day-care and kids related expenses (~€1100, including benefits);
- The weekend getaway was completely paid for (except some food and fuel), the parade was free too and the fairground rides for Miss CF were paid for by grandma, so no travel & leisure costs this month;
- We sold an double bed that we had purchased for friends whom were staying over in August, made €30 of the resale! We were initially wanted to keep it for ourselves, but decided not to as our own bed was still good enough. Smart move, as we made some money on selling it. This is also causing the negative percentage on the other category (it’s an negative expense); and,
- The invoice for the webhosting and domain name for Cheesy Finance pas also paid this month (~€84)
So the saving rate for September ended up being relatively low due to the temporary lack of income and expense payments, which will correct itself in future months when there will be a double income in the same month due to the new 4 week pay periods and the expenses will be received. Still we ended the month with a respectable savings rate of 43.4%. See below for the usual graphs.
How was your month? Did you do well on you savings rate for September?
A savings rate of 43% is still pretty impressive if you ask me. Keep up the good work!
Hey Petra,
we cannot complain, still, the higher the better 🙂
Take care!
Anything above 0 is good 43 percent is killing it. Do that or near that every month and you will be good to go.
Thanks for the support Doug!
Woah, 43% is certainly great. Struggling to get above 40% myself, mostly end up around ~38%.
I’d love to know more about your crowdfunding loans. Is that something you’d recommend others to do? How’s the return on those? Which service do you use? Maybe it’d be a good subject for another primer-type article? 🙂
38% is a very respectable savings rate! Good for you. Keep that up.
As for the crowdfunding loans, we use http://www.geldvoorelkaar.nl. Have been using them for the last 15 months and like it so far. Return on investment is around 8%, which is really good. No defaults as yet, but there will likely be one or two at some point. As long as the overall ROI stays at around 7%, we’re a happy bunch. Will be doing a post on these for sure, but wanted to wait for about 18 months to be able to say someting useful.
Thanks for the visit!
43% is amazing savings rate. I love how much fun you had with your frugal budget. I am definitely envious of the savings rate and the fun. Looking forward to what October brings.
Thank you, we certainly have been lucky on the frugal fun. Still have a few more ideas of things to do in October, including our meetup with like minded people like yourself. Cheers!
Fantastic savings rate despite being lower than August… but August was more of a abnormally I suppose?
The savings rate was indeed pretty good. August certainly was an anomaly, primarily caused by a tax return and refund of the deposit for the previous rental we lived in. But you definitely don’t hear me complaining 🙂
Great post!
43.4% is a very respectable rate indeed. Congrats. Unfortunately I’m not in the position to be saving like that right now. But someday I look forward to getting back to that high of a rate. Thanks for sharing!
Hey Graham, it took a bit of re-engineering of our expenses and life to get and stay at this level. But it seems to be on auto pilot at the moment.
Good luck yourself, hard work, bit of dissipline and a bit of luck (on the job front) will get you a long way.
Cheers.
Congrats on saving 43%! That’s incredible! I would love to hit that number, I’ve been doing as much as I can to try to save, but bills take over…life takes over. I admire your hard work and dedication. It will pay off!
Thank you. It certaily is paying off, actually already, it’s helping our cheesy index to grow faster than anticipated. This is great motivation for us to keep going stong. But I hear you too, bills can be a royal pain in the behind. It’s hard work (if even possible) to keep them to a minimum.
That’s a great month! I’m seeing some tough spending months coming up so my savings rate will be lower for the next month or two but it looks like you’re trucking right along!
Hey TITM,
I trust you will do everything in your power to limit the damage in the coming months, right? We certainly will try to peek trucking through in the coming months as well. Except for some maintenance on the house, we don’t expect any major expenses. Will see 😉
Wow a 43% savings rate is fantastic, congratulations! Saving has become so ingrained as part of my daily ritual 🙂
Same here, funny how that works eh? It becomes a bit of a daily challenge.
Center Parcs, brings back memories from a time it was still called Sporthuis Centrum… Grandma talking 😉
I am still not good at calculating my monthly savings rate. It always gets a bit messy with differences between montly, quarterly and yearly payments. Same with salary: do you divide yearly extra’s like holiday allowance by twelve?
Next to that: there is a difference between savings and reservations (for example: I don’t have an insurance for my pets, but save 30 euros a month in case they have to see the vet, so that is actually a reservation). The difference is quite a thin line to me, so I don’t really know how I should calculate my savings.
No, we take the money as it arrives in the bank account. Therefore also some of the swings in savings rates (as well as stuff happening in one’s life obviously).
We don’t do any/keep reservations. We keep sufficient cash on the side to cover any large expenses should they arise (e.g. holidays, washing machine, etc.). This only further contributes to the swings in SR (as you can see, last month we hit over 80%, but the month prior aroudn 32%). For us the yearly average is much more important as this provides the longer term look (which is extremely good this year at over 56%) and better reflects overall performance.
It had been a while since we last visited centreparcs, but it was really a lot of fun.
Thanks for simplifying things 🙂
You’re very welcome 😉
That is a very considerable savings rate considering the delayed payments! Going strong.
It is, pretty pleased with it actually.
I LOVE mini golf. It’s great to hear that you had such a great time with the family 🙂 Cute to think about a flower parade too, you guys seem to really like your plants & flowers there.
Still a good savings rate for the month CF, and next month should be great – can’t wait to see it. I love all the frugal fun you had this month. Nice job on the bed re-sale, takes skill to sell on for a profit.
Tristan
We were very lucky on the bed, we had actually forseen a loss on the re-sale (albeit initially we did not foresee a sale as we wanted to keep it for ourselves).
We even did mini golf on our wedding! Has become a sort of tradition on holidays.
Cheers Tristan
Nice job. Team cf keeps going strong!
Thanks AT, working hard on it!
Well done… And all is relative on the lower’ monthly number: after my investigation on average saving rates per income groupin the Netherlands (ao 60% of the households have a negative rate, ), I consider 43,4% as sky high!
Really, 60% a negative rate, wow. Considering that we are doing stellar!
Cheers mate!