Between getting my tax refund and then me getting acute appendicitis halfway through the month that basically knocked me out of commission from life and living (and spending) for two-plus weeks, (it is almost three weeks since I went down and I'm still struggling to get my life back in order) my money has gone to interesting places and my spending has gone down interesting routes.
And I managed to save a lot of it.
Presently though, I'm still trying to figure out how all of the major events that happened in April (particularly the part where I nearly died... to exaggerate some things) will affect me and my money long and short term going forward. Even now, a couple of days into May, the big picture of just how this event affected me is still somewhat fuzzy.
Or maybe I just think it's still fuzzy because my head is still feeling the effects of the meds I'm on.
INCOME: This month's income was... well it was big. Like, a lot of money went through my bank account this month.
For starters, my regular income from work was larger than normal because I got some holiday pay plus overtime pay from the previous month in both biweekly cheques. This amounted to close to an extra $400 made total, which was a huge boon for me and my money during a time when I was curled up in a ball in my bed for two weeks.
That is to say, I haven't yet figured out what the hell I want to do with that extra money because I haven't been able to really look at where I am money-wise, so I don't know whether to prioritize paying down debt or squirreling it away.
Then there were a slew of freelance cheques totaling close to $450 for work I did in March that came in during April. I did previously figure out most of that money before I got sick so most of that gave my savings accounts a nice fat boost where I can.
And then there's the GST/HST cheque from the government for around $100 and a dividend payment of around $4. That was split between debt and savings.
All of the above would have made for a great month of income for me all on its own. In fact, on its own it would have been one of my most profitable months so far this year.
However, as you well know as I've told you many times since, I also got a huge sum back from my tax refund this year, which basically put me way way way over the top as far as money earned went this month.
How over the top? By keeping my costs pretty much the same as I spend month-over-month, all that extra money I earned allowed me to increase my net worth by nearly the equivalent of what I increased it by from the first quarter of the year, or three months.
This one month is equivalent to three months worth of savings and debt repayment for me. I don't know about you, but that is HUGE.
DEBT REPAYMENT: Collecting on my big, fat tax refund from the government meant that I made a fatter than usual debt payment for the month of April on all my accounts. All told, on top of the $700 or so dollars I make in minimum payments (that is to say, minimum payment on my student loans and the self-imposed minimum payment on the credit card loan) I also ended up throwing on an extra $1030 to my debts.
Now, despite the fact that the smart thing to do would have been to put all of that extra money onto the loan with the highest interest rate (student loans), I didn't do that. Mostly because having to find the $200 minimum on my credit card a month still makes me antsy. With that said, I did send most of that money in my student loans' direction to the tune of an extra $800.
So the other $200 added to my 0.99% promotional APR credit card to act as an "extra month's payment."
Speaking of interest costs, there has been a real effect to it. Previously, I used to pay close to $4.20 a day on my student loans interest. Now, it's $3.62, a saving of about 60 cents a day, which can really add up in the long run.
Still a lot of money in interest I'm paying to my student loans, to the tune of two coffees a day I'm buying the government. Ugh.
SAVINGS: As impressive as the above debt repayment numbers seem... when you consider the extra money I made this month... it really isn't.
I got way more than the $1000 I used on debt repayment from my big fat tax refund from the government. Try almost four times that amount.
So I did not utilize my full refund to the max by using all of it to pay off debt, which some would say is the absolutely wrong thing for me to do when in debt.
So what happened to the rest of that money then? Well, I wanted to use a chunk of it... okay I ended up using most of it for some kind of savings.
Well... "savings" when you consider that $1,500 of it went into my travel savings account, money that doesn't even register into my net worth to be honest because that money isn't long term assets, but actually planned spending. So that $1,500 honestly just kind of disappeared into the ethers of my spending ways.
In the same breath however, it's not money that is doing nothing for me in the meantime.
Because I will be reasonably holding onto that cash for another two months before I need to spend it on the planned trip, I decided to use it in my chequing account in order to save the $10.95 banking fee I currently hate. That is to say, I'm using it and my emergency fund to save me 11 dollars a month now.
It may not be collecting interest, but at 0.35%, it's better used saving me from an 11 dollar fee than collecting 20 cents a month.
As for the rest of the cash I earned from my tax refund, I put an extra $500 dollars into my TFSA and proceeded to buy another stock with said money in my Direct Investing account. I also stashed well over $1000 of this money for the month into my emergency fund in order to really make up for the stealing I've been doing from it the last while before replenishing my short-term spending account.
All in all, a lot more money went into my savings accounts this month than in any preceding month and basically everything exploded when it came to my savings. But in a good way.
SPENDING: I really don't know what to make of this section for April.
On one hand, I didn't overspend in the groceries and total food category (although I did blow up the eating out budget) because of the aforementioned illness basically neutering my ability to stand for long periods of time never mind going out. And all told, I didn't spend all that much when it came to my four major discretionary spending sections. (Food, Make-up and Clothing, Entertainment and Other)
However, I still ended up spending about $30 over what I budgeted for myself for the month, mostly because of spending in areas that I don't look as totally discretionary but ended up being so this month with $60 extra dollars having to be spent on transportation because of the appendicitis and health and pharmaceutical costs that played a factor into all of it (medicine and the like).
Also, there were a number of household costs that I incurred as well that weren't expected.
But as $60 of those dollars are reasonably coming out of my "emergency fund" money as a result of said emergency, I can't fairly deduce that I did go over budget this month as a result, as the $60 wasn't what you can fairly call "discretionary" given the circumstances.
And so, here is the moment of truth. Because despite all my words and stories on how I managed my money and how things went, I don't think a clear idea could be had on just how this month stacked up for me and my money. Because this is something that only the numbers can truly quantify how I did.
That is to say, I did gang-busters this month!
CURRENT NET WORTH: $-25,343.33 (+11.56%)
Yep, Between the bonus money and the tax refund, this month alone meant that my net worth has rocketed up well over $3,000. And to be honest, that doesn't actually account for all the money I earned because some of the extra money made, such as the extra money earned through work, is in a holding pattern for me to figure out how to best to utilize given the mid-month emergency I encountered.
So the full effect of everything that came to be this month will affect the money I save and spend in the following month.
Nevertheless, this month alone gave me a huge jump on my stated goal of increasing my net worth by $15,000 by the end of the year in a significant fashion, more so than any other month that came before it. And it is gratifying and exciting to see that this goal is truly within reach for me and my money and that by year's end I may actually have something I have done that I can be entirely proud of.
Now if only I can get healthy enough to get my life back in order and my money actually moving again...
No comments:
Post a Comment