I’ve been tracking all my money ever since I started to read from Dividend Growth Investing blogs back in July 2014. Big expenses have been gone to zero. Do we need a new computer when there’s a computer in my home that works just fine? NO  Do we need the most expensive/beautiful bicycle or can we use a 2nd hand? 2nd hand ofcourse!

Since I got my wallet closed and keeping an eye on all the actions like 1 euro for a big bag of potatoes in the supermarket. Together with my girlfriend we have saved LOTS of money by doing so.

There’s one thing to note…. my girlfriend is paying the food for the month and everything for our son like new clothing and such as she gets the extra’s every year from the tax department roughly 900 euro a year.  The thing is.. she wants to live as if it is her last day by spending her monthly part-time salary for monthly activities with our son and the rest of the family. She knows it will be for the better good in the future that I invest my leftovers.And so I will be fully devoted towards the saving and early retirement. Some hiccups can occur like a car that breaks down that I cant invest for a month as I do not have a very high salary to put much aside.

I just want to prove to the world that a young father at the age of 26 with a low taxi salary can be financially independant within 20 years by investing about 1000 euro/1200 dollar a month. My aim is 45 to be free of my chains of working and spending all my time with my girlfriend and son by traveling over the world. There’s just so much to see and so little time. Even this past year ive worked all the holidays except summer holiday just to earn some more money.

By living a frugal lifestyle I’m able to cope with the 1000 euro investment a month that I’m gonna be making starting in January 2015 as I do need to save some money for some future planned expenses.

So each month I will update the Income & Expenses for the previous month so this update will contain the month of december 2014.  I am tracking every euro of what comes in and what goes out, so what you see is exactly what I have earned and spent (rounded to the nearest dollar). As this blog is international ill just keep it in US dollar and use the currency calculator on google using the term “euro to usdollar”

 

Income From January 2015:
Salary Income	$2119
Other Income	$651
Total Income	$2770
Expenses From January 2015:
Mortgage + Utilities	$837
Auto	$81
Student Loans	$53
Insurances	$530
Gifts	$0
Everything Else	$0
Total Expenses	$1501

 

Income

This is now my second income/expenses report that I’m posting about.. it does seem a bit awkward by just sending it out to the world for public view, but I am for real and want to spread my word across the globe through the internet. The word that wealth can be made by those like me that have a low salary income and by living a frugal lifestyle, just by investing all the leftover money in high quality dividend growth stocks for early retirement.

The salary that I received this month was because I worked lots of hours this past December . Having days of 11-13 hours of work during 1st and 2nd of christmas and old/new year’s eve without breaks so I had it payed in full without the loss of an hour of “breaktime” mostly during my drives towards clients ill eat my sandwiches. So I wont forget eating haha. The hours I made during December were payed out this month. I had a modest 338 dollar above my average salary.

The dividend income is just the starting out and once I start gathering high quality stocks then the dividend income will really start rolling. I bought my first high quality stock this January which was the Canadian Bank Bank of Nova Scotia. I’m fond of the broker system that degiro.nl uses so ill continue using it as they’ve got very low fees and its easy to use. Haven’t been payed out a dividend from the company yet.

The other income consists of $293 tax department as they are paying the rent of my mortgage. Received $5 from the bank as I had a chipknip a few years ago and they cancelled it so I received this as that was a leftover of the chipknip. $40 was received as I took the car from my neighbor for an APK check in the garage of the taxi company I’m working for.  $230 was received from my partner to help with the bills she wants to help me getting us to Financial Independence earlier. She donates it to me twice a year to speed up our process. $4 was received as I once had a website in 2008 with subscribers and got that as a donation into my paypal.

Still getting too much from the tax department every month so that goes towards my savings account. That once they come to reclaim the money that they’ve send too much then I’ve got it nicely aside.

 

Expenses

The expenses have been lowered pretty much as I did my last debt payment last month. Now with the falling euro it seems that the monthly expenses are quite lower then the last month. As an example the electricity/gas bill has been lowered by $7 from $151 to $144. Mortgage by  $27 from $588 to $561. VVE homeowners association went by $6 from $136 towards $130. The cable tv is very low this month as they miscalculated the costs. I had a new offer from the cable company instead of paying 69 euro, I had to pay 36 euro for six months after that it will be 52 euro a month for the last six months.

Mortgage and utilities consist of :

$561 mortgage     $1 cable tv/internet     $144 electricity/gas      $136 VVE for homeowners association

My auto was not used by myself and my girlfriend fills the tank for her job as she needs it more then I do.     I am on my bicycle for a total of 80 minutes a day up and forth from my job. The only monthly costs for my car consists of roadtax $29 and the $32 car insurance.

The student loan I have with the interest percentage 1.5% will be payed with this amount of $53 for a while until the total amount of $7085 – now because of the falling euro -> $7642 is payed in full.

 

This month 1128 dollar was send towards my broker the rest of the money will be set aside for my dentist-costs and upcoming tax department reclaiming some funds. I changed my healthcare insurance to Menzis with the full dentist package which will be $119 a month. The costs were payed twice, 1 for January and 1 for February. If that didnt occur then I would have made the 50% savings rate.

 

 

Savings

This last month of January 2015 I have managed to save 46% of my income. Could have saved % more if the health insurance Menzis didn’t get January and February in the same month at once.

The savings goal I have for this year 2015 will be 60% a month of my total net income. Might not make if I keep getting unexpected bills. I keep optimistic for this year as I have done a terrific job for myself to save a lot to start out my forest full with seeds.

 

How did you do it this first month of 2015? Did you get any unexpected bills?