I’m sure you’ll agree with me that this year is just flying by. At the time of writing this post it’s already mid October, and I’m well behind in my blog posts. September was a good month for us and we managed to get a tonne of things done on the renovations.
Our renovations continue to be our biggest expense and to date we have spent over 20k this year on completely renovating the ground floor of our house. September renovation expenses came to just over 4k, and we a few more thousand to go.
To view all previous expense review tagged posts click here.
Top 5 Expenses – September 2021
- Renovations = $4,239.35
Notes: The majority of this month’s renovation expenses were a shower screen ($1672), plumbing ($800), and a vanity ($1400). The other purchases were small items from Bunnings or from the paint shop. Our bathroom is now completed, and we are now finishing off the laundry. We are currently awaiting some items from IKEA which are on back order. We have hit a bit of a problem with our renovation savings in that we have run out of savings. We are now trying to finish the last bits within our current income, and are trying desperately not to reduce our investing. Something may have to give, but at this stage we haven’t had to reduce our investing. We are now hoping to be finished our renovations by mid November (and might have our downstairs area listed on Airbnb in December).
- Mortgage = $1,544.73
Notes: In September we finally completed our home loan refinance, and have set up our loans to enable us to start debt recycling. We managed to get a great variable rate of 1.99%.
- Utilities= $779.95
Notes: Our utilities include our mobile phones (4 phones @ $104.95 per month), Internet (MyRepublic @ $59 per month), Water, Gas and Electricity (We use Reamped – link here for $50 referral code).
- Food and Alcohol = $626.35
Notes: We had a good month with our grocery bill. We do our main shop at Aldi and shop at other places depending on the specials available. We shop online at BWS to make use of cashback rewards (If you want to sign up use this affiliate link – You’ll get a $10 bonus once you make your first transaction).
| Shop | Amount |
| Aldi | $453.95 |
| BWS | $89.00 |
| Woolworths | $25.30 |
| Bakers Delight (Bakery) | $21.90 |
| Fancy Bottle Shop | $20.69 |
| Foodland | $12.05 |
| IGA | $3.46 |
| Total | $626.35 |
- Health and Medical Items = $453.95
Notes: Our Health and Medical expenses were quite low compared to previous months as we only had one visit to the doctor. This category is also made up of our Private Health Insurance (Silver Family Cover for Hospital and Extras), which costs $156.85 per fortnight. Health and medical costs are a non negotiable in this medically challenged family.
Year to Date Comparison
We spent $7,877.11 in September and $11,612.73 in August which is an decrease of $3,735.62 on last month. We spent $262.57 per day in September which is down from last month’s $374.60 per day.
Other Expenses (% of total expenses) – September 2021
New Expenses (September)
No new expenses.
Changes we’ve made this month (September)
No changes made.
Changes to expect next month (September)
Next month I will be starting a new job and I’m in desperate need of some new clothes so I expect our clothing expenses to increase in October.
Year to Date Expense Overview ($)
Total Spend 2021 (To Date) = $77,632.82 or an average of $8625.87 a month for 2 Adults and 2 Children (Aged 13 and 10).
Investment Rate 2021 (To Date) = 43.68% (includes wages and side hustles)
Our goal investment rate at the start of the year was 60%, however we created this goal before I took a 30k (after tax) pay cut in March. Given the massive pay cut and the renovations we are doing this year I’m happy with where we are at. More importantly we are still tracking to our current goal of hitting financial independence by January 2029.
Notes: I track my Income and Expenses via my tracker available on my Etsy Store Link Here .
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Frank on FIRE 