July 2020 Spending Report: How I Lived Off 10% of My Income - Clo Bare Money Coach (2024)

1. July 2020 Spending Categories
2. July 2020 Spending Report f*ck-Ups
3. July 2020 Spending Report Wins
4. July 2020 Spending Report
5. My Six-Figure Savings!
6. Goals Check-In

I start all these spending reports the same way if you haven’t noticed by now– AMAZED BY HOW IT’S ALREADY X MONTH WHEN WASN’T IT 2015 YESTERDAY?!? My aging body can’t handle this time thing and I am legit blown away that it is now August 2020.

With that being said, the numbers are in for my July 2020 spending report and it’s a mixed bag. I went over budget by $35 and completely BLEW the budget in two categories.

But, I did live off of 10% of my pre-tax income, and I also lived off only 35% of my post-tax income.

Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?

It’s not really. But I’ll explain later. First, let’s look at the budgeting categories so we can talk about how I failed and how I succeeded.

AGH. I don’t even want to talk about the dating category cause I blew all that money on a dude who ended up being a total sociopath. We can’t win them all. That almost $400 spent on dating in July is because:

1. I lost a bet and had to pay my sister $100 for dating before June 2020. I literally could’ve just waited a day but I didn’t. Regret. So much regret. But fun event– check out Fever Candlelit Chicago if you need a fun and socially distant date idea.
2. I bought fun tickets to this socially distant event ($99) and also bought dinner that night which was about $200. $200! Who do I think I am?!? Agh. Bougie Chloe is getting put back in her cage, smh. Cabra— you were delicious. But see you again, never. The event was fun though. Check outFever Candlelit Chicagoif you need a fun and socially distant date idea and use the code CHLOED92249 to receive an $8 voucher!

To be fair, that dinner and that concert was probably the most fun I’ve had in a while. Too bad it had to be with an asshole.

Sigh.

I digress.

Lesson learned– no more investing this much money in boys until it’s been longer than a minute.

*bougie Chloe nods her head in shame, licks her wounds and takes off her heels*

I went a little over on Entertainment this time too. Not mad about it because my sister came into town and we ate out, had a seafood night, and got some joy out of shelter in place that I needed!

It was wonderful, and even though it wasn’t California like we originally planned– it was still amazing so I’m totally cool with the fact that I went over budget here. Now for the next couple of months, I’ll take a chill pill.

Promise.

The good news? Outside of eating out with my sis, I didn’t really order in as much as I did in June. And I only ordered Grubhub when hungover ONCE (Firecakes donuts FTW). That’s better than the $200+ I spent last spending report BUT I still spent a lot on eating out. So in August, my plan is to also chill that out a bit.

Transportation was lower than the last two months, which is good because I don’t want that to start creeping up. I still haven’t used the Zipcar yet, so I’m not sure if it was worth it or not yet. To be determined, but I have many months to see if that $75 purchase was a good move or not.

Living off 10% of My Income in July 2020

Also, as I mentioned earlier, I lived off of 10% of my pre-tax income and 35% of my post-tax income. That sounds cool but actually, it’s not as impressive as it sounds because rent didn’t come out of this round, nor did the extra $1k I usually put down on debt.

So really, if those two items had come out of my spending, and I re-did the calculations, I actually spent 73% of my post-tax income and 48% of my pre-tax income. Not as great.

I also made an extra $1k this month from Clo Bare which boosted my overall income.

We’ll pretend it’s a win because the numbers work, this time.

The good news is, that on average, I’m definitely spending less than 50% of my pre-tax income and doing pretty well on the post-tax too.

• % of Income Spent on Debt: 16%
• % Living Off off Post Tax: 35%

Savings

• Cash: $11k
• Real Estate Investment: $43.9k
• 401(k): $53.5k
• Total Savings: $108.4k

Debt

• Student Loans: $35.3k

Total Net Worth

• $73,080

As you see at the end of my spending report, I now have 108k saved between my investments, real estate investment and my cash savings!

That’s huge! If you think about even a year ago, in August 2019 I had a total of $41k saved. I’ve more than DOUBLED my savings in a year while still putting about $20k on my debt.

Read the August 2019 Spending Report.

That’s insane and very exciting. We aren’t even at the two-year review yet since I started my budgeting year in October, BUT I’ve already, two months early, saved more than double than what I saved last year. Can’t wait to see the numbers in October!

Plus, take a look at that net worth climbing! Last month my net worth was $58k, and it’s jumped up to $73k! That’s a $15k jump! In just one month! That’s partially because my real estate investment cashed out on August 2nd. I made about $8k on that which I can reinvest now, and it’s also because I put about 25% of my last two paychecks in my 401(k) which is about $4k a month. The other $3k? Change in market and decrease in debt. Oh, math. I love you.

YAAAS. Making moves. It’s pretty cool to see that savings amount grow right along with my net worth. I’m going to have a six-figure net worth in no time.

You might’ve also noticed that I had some deleted transactions on the spending report because I got a $250 bonus on my new Chase Freedom credit card! Free money! I thought about tracking it in my income, but instead, I erased some purchases cause sometimes you just gotta let loose and erase your grocery bill.

Now, onto goals! Woo! Let’s check into how I did with my goals last month and what my plans are for August 2020.

Goals for I set for July 2020

1. Stop eating out when you’re home alone. I succeeded! Minus ordering donuts that one time I was hungover.
2. Put another $2k on debt and see about refinancing your loans for a lower rate. So I didn’t put down $2k on debt because I refinanced my loans down to 3.54% (from 4.75%) and during the overlap I didn’t end up putting an extra $1k on the loan because it was in that weird space between when they refinanced and when it hit my account. Will be putting $2k in August though! Perhaps more.
3. Stop spending so much on transportation. ˆSuccess! I did it! I only spent $34 on transportation for a whole month.

Goals for August 2020

1. 1. Put $2k on Debt. Since I didn’t last month, definitely need to this month! It’s important for me to put $2k down this month and $2k next month so that by October I will have put $20k total for the year on debt.
   2. Keep not ordering in Grubhub when I’m drunk or hungover. That should be easy this month! I’m taking a chill pill on drinking which means I’m taking a chill pill on being hungover. Win, win.
   3. Keep dating expenses LOW as well as entertainment. I want to stick to the budget on both of those things! I have my yearly budget to keep in mind, and don’t want to go over. There’s only five more pay periods left this year for my Clo Bare fiscal year, so I want to nail it.