Rebel Finance School Week 1 Homework

Dear Faithful Reader, 

Well! It's been a minute, hasn't it. 

I will be recording my homework for the Rebel Finance School here. 

Here is Week 1: 

How much did you spend last month? $9,375 - I ended up spending a lot. 

How big was your gap last month? -$4,933.88 

Decide how you’ll track your spending for next month onwards and start. I will try to track towards the beginning of the month. 

Keen-bean homework. This is completely optional. Extra pineapples if you do the optional work! 

Fill in the “how big is your gap” tracker for the year so far 

Categorize your May spending 

Here are my "Necessities" categories:

Mortgage

Health Insurance

Groceries

Baby Needs

Cell Phone

Home Repairs

Dental

Transit

Misc

Health

Credit Card Renewal Fee

Here are my "Discretionary" or "Luxury" categories:

Supers Holiday Tip

Fast Food

Restaurant

Entertainment

Electronics

Alcohol

Clothing

Snacks

Grooming and Toiletries

Education

Gifts

Anniversaries

Holidays

Travel

Travel Insurance

Business expenses

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May
Income	$3,663	$3,672	$3,829	$10,138	$4,441
Total Spending	$4,681	$4,639	$4,106	$3,830	$9,375
The "Gap"	-$1,017	-$966	-$277	$6,307	-$4,933

I deleted the cents for the "gap" so numbers may be off by a dollar or two.

Did you get value from what you bought? Yes. I paid for a vacation for our family that some family members said they would reimburse me for, though, if I ever do receive the money, it likely would not be until August or September. I also spent a lot on another two different vacations.

Did you spend in line with your values? I did. I value vacations and I value food, both of which I spent on. Lessons learned: Food outside of NYC is rarely as good as in NYC, at least in the domestic US.

What’s the true cost of your habits? It looks like I'm pretty consistently overspending each month. I think I need to break even and not go over as I'm currently saving 5% of my salary into my 457, which honestly seems like plenty right now. So I need to cut back on $100 or maybe $500 per month, and really keep an eye on not going over. I definitely don't want to go into debt and I'd like to pay back some debt if possible.

Thank you again for reading.

I remain,

Into the FIRE