I shared in the previous post that I went over budget in March; and while I’m working on giving myself grace and be patient with my journey, I’m also working on a few more things and resetting my budget. As the inflation continues to make us frown, I thought I’d add on a few more things on my to-do list in addition to my monthly budget:
- Focusing one step/paycheck at a time:
For my current paycheck, while the take-home number is a bit less, it is because the 401(k) match is officially in effect. As shown in the pie chart below, this means that while the number per paycheck is lower in a sense, I’m upping my savings, and it is now at roughly 28% savings rate (including my Roth IRA contribution, 401(k) contribution, employer match, and other savings I’ve set for down the line). It’s also worth noticing that I now intentionally left the 4% “remaining” money as a cushion in case inflation gets the best of me, and if I don’t use that at the end of this pay period, I’ll either put that back in the savings or in our brokerage account for investment.
2. Continue with the credit card points/cash back game:
I’ve now gotten my new Amex Blue Cash Preferred card, and plan to use the shit out of it for the bonus as long as I spend $3000 in the first 6 months, which for grocery shopping along with the streaming services we have now? That should be a piece of cake. I will also continue to use the Citi Costco card for everything Costco-related, and Chase Amazon card for Amazon purchases.
The hope is that between the 6% back in grocery (for the first few thousands spent), and 4% back for gas and all the other perks with each card, this will turn into ways to more savings as well as covering annual fee for the Amex card for the next year and all. I’m very interested to know how this would work to our advantage, and will definitely report back at the end of the year.
3. Consolidate and maximize benefits of my bank accounts:
One thing I did go a little overboard in the beginning of the journey, is to get many bank accounts to serve as my “envelope.” It works back then because I love and hate the envelope system, where you’d carry cash in each envelope to really watch your budget. I’m so not a cash person, so I thought I’d do that by applying to multiple bank accounts to serve as the envelope. It was also a way to get the bonuses, too. I think by applying for a checking and savings account with Chase, I got a $600 sign-on bonus.
I did enjoy having my Emergency savings separated, because aside from our “regular” Emergency Fund, I also pull another $15,000 as our Emergency Fund for the house. If you are a house owner, you’d know that shit happens; and I feel like if I were to set aside a good chunk, then we wouldn’t feel too bad should we ever need to use that money for any upgrades on appliances, or if there’s anything we need to do to the house that requires us to hire help (whichever that is, it could be costly). For a long time, this is housed in my CIT Bank, which was offering pretty decent APY (still pretty good; currently at 0.449% APY); but in my “enveloped” mind, it is then blended with the rest of it (which I haven’t decide what to do just quite yet… was planning to invest in real estate but the housing prices are out of control rn).
For that matter, I started the Chase accounts for their sign-on bonus, and for a while Chase savings serves the purpose. Then I quickly found out the sad APY Chase offers (which is pretty much non-existent), hence I started the Marcus by Goldman Sachs which is offering 0.6%APY at the moment. The plan is to move the emergency funds over so it continues to be “enveloped,” while it continues to earn whatever APY I could until I find out what to do with the rest of the savings (of course not spending it all; just wanted to have better strategy before I do something with it).
These aren’t much, but it’s my way of handling the situation as it comes. If you are like me, and if you’re feeling slightly defeated with your own budgeting, know that you’re not alone. It is an ongoing learning process, and it shifts from time to time. All we have to do is to learn to pivot and thrive. Celebrate the wins when they come, and give ourselves the grace and be patient when things aren’t going exactly as planned. If you have a minute to share your thoughts or tips, I’d really appreciate it. 🙂
Xennials on FI/RE 
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