Since I started my quest to educate friends on how they can save and invest, a surprising byproduct has been my aggressive and rigorous tracking of expenses and savings.
While I worked at my previous firm we would keep on saying that track and measure impact. It had been ingrained that I can measure impact and work to improve things only if I track it. And yet here I was not tracking my savings or savings rate. I had been tracking my expenses but not my savings. Sometimes seeing your number go high can boost your morale and motivation to save further.
I have decided to post it here on the blog about my expenses and savings.
| Rent & Bill | 16,000 |
| Groceries | 5,000 |
| Eating out | 5,000 |
| Entertainment | 3,000 |
| Transport | 2,000 |
| Total | 31,000 |
As you may realize, I’m not too huge on entertainment and eating out. I typically go out for dinners with friends once in a week where my share is not more than 1000 bucks. This month, I’ve spent a lot as I’ve taken some time off to meet friends and socialize with the extended family. This also means that my entertainment cost has gone up for taking nieces and nephews for movies and malls.
My transport cost has also gone up due to Uber-ing around in last 3 days. Typically my transport / commute costs are around 1500 INR month as I end up taking a lot of public transport. Living in Mumbai has its benefits, of all the cities I’ve been to within India, Mumbai has the best public transport system.
This month has been much better in terms of expenses as I have managed to cut down on my expenses irrespective of extra activities.
I know I have only talked about expenses here. My investments are mostly automated, that is, as soon my salary is credited everything gets transferred to my savings account and from there to SIPs. This month, I also had to start putting money into my emergency fund as I had to withdraw some in May for some bike repairs. I’m not worried as I should be able to fill up my emergency fund by next month.
This month I’ve also maxed out my PPF that is 1,50,000 of yearly limit has been reached. I’ll see it rolling out awesome interest by next year in March. This time I’m two months late as I typically max it out by April. I had few major expenses in Feb and had been repaying credit card bills till May. The good thing is I no longer have any credit card debts and I’m in clear.
As of this month, I need 17L more to reach my Barista FI.
Honestly, I’m super excited to be sharing this number with you all. I hope you can follow Barista FI journey with me in comments.