Monthly Spend Report – April 2020

Hello everyone, hopefully you’re doing well.

Today we’re going to take a stab into uncharted territory.

For over a year now we have been tracking things like net worth, passive income and ways we like to produce revenue into our household, but what about the other – possibly even more important aspect to prepping for retirement and participating in the F.I.R.E. community: Spending!

So today we’re going to do just that, we’re going to take a look back at our April spending and hopefully over time be able to come up with ways to “cut the fat” with where our money is being spent. A more efficient household will get us to our goals faster!

If we enjoy doing this and get feedback that it is something people want more of then we will definitely keep up with these – so let us know!

There is a pro and con to using April specifically as our very first spend report: The pro is that we had no idea that we would end up doing one of these spend reports, so there was no chance for us to curb our spending or try to artificially move the numbers one way or another. Hopefully this leads to the most authentic results possible.

The con is that April was still very much influenced by the pandemic and this may have depressed our numbers since we weren’t out and about as often as normal.

Only time will tell how this stacks up compared to future months.

Here are the numbers:

At first glance the mortgage may seem high to a lot of people, but we’re living in Northern Canada where housing is very expensive compared to the rest of Canada (or most of it).

We are now a family of 3 + a dog so we do need some space and the trade off to moving into a smaller house or basement is not worth it and a non-negotiable aspect of our spend at least while we’re both employed and can afford where we live.

As far as what we’d like to work on in our current situation, the cell phone/internet/cable and subscriptions could likely come down. We may have to switch providers and get back onto an entry promotional deal to save some funds on this as I know it has been creeping up. Unfortunately in Canada we don’t have a lot of low cost providers compared to what I’ve read online from other countries.

Groceries were abnormally low, this stems from us having our son early on in the month and our fantastic friends sending over some frozen meals and assorted dinners and snacks to help us out which we greatly appreciated!

On the other end from the groceries, we also had a couple abnormally high expenses in the car department. We were due for an oil change and needed a new battery in the same month. These are “expected” but they aren’t a recurring monthly expense as an oil change is maybe 3x per year and the battery should be good for several years now.

Next month it will be something else that pops up – such is life.

The real end goal for our financial freedom is to reduce our spending to $4,000 per month, we still believe that it’s possible once we leave this inflated area we live in plus ditch a car from our lives (we currently use 2 vehicles).

We’re also hopeful that our next location will be able to cut down from the $2,500+ mortgage payment by a large margin as that appears to be the lowest hanging fruit.

So how did we do? Let us know what you think of our spend report and your own spending in the comments or over on Instagram @FindependenceCanada and we’ll be sure to get back to you.

Also, if you don’t want to miss another post be sure to subscribe to the blog and follow along on our journey!

Thanks for stopping by,

FIC.