November 2014 – networth and expenses

Things are getting better after last month’s disaster.

  • brokerage account 103.0k
  • mutual funds 63.0k
  • “bonds” 20k
  • cash 3.5k
  • gold coins 9.0k
  • total 198.5k

This is an increase of 9.9k (+5.2%) over last month. I was hoping to jump back over the 200k level (which I did during the month). After all it is almost +10% over last year’s figure (180.3k). And 20k seems to be our usual yearly contribution. So things are looking still okay.

Cash holdings are down significantly and I moved it into an alternative investment (which pays bond like interest). If there is the need for cash I will sell some mutual funds. I have approximately 50k in a conservative funds.

Monthly expenses

  • January -2.7k
  • February -3.1k
  • March -3.0k
  • April -3.2k
  • May -3.8k
  • June -2.4k
  • July -2.6k
  • August -2.8k
  • September -2.4k
  • October -2.4k
  • November -2.9k

I did not met my goal of less than 2.5k for the month of November (see below for the explanation). But as stated in October’s report I got the refund (on the last bank day of the month), so I reduced September and October in retrospect. Together with June this marks 3 months as success!

Notable subcategories

  • housing 1010 (including one time fees of 412)
  • groceries 245
  • children 131
  • travel 293 (5 nights Airbnb)
  • going out 109
  • pension 307

So, if I remove the short trip and the one time fees for housing I’m well below 2.5k. I could even reach sub 2.0k (which is my true goal). I know I can get there by cancelling the pension contracts (which I will investigate next year) and some useless insurance policies (that my wife still clings to).