2015 – Yearly Expenses

Financially, 2015 was mind-blowing. Our net worth rose from 212.6k to 291.8k – a gain of almost 80k. Most of this was from the financial markets (my active investing, mostly selling options).

Work-wise it was a shitty year and 2016 something has to change there. I will write about this, when I have done something in this regard. At the moment it is still “work in progress”.

2012 – 2015 in comparison

  • 2012 – 42k
  • 2013 – 44k
  • 2014 – 33k
  • 2015 – 34k

In early 2015 I set a goal of reducing the yearly expenses to 30k. Later I realised this won’t happen and changed it to 36k. I’m very pleased that we stayed well below 36k. 2016 should on the one hand see raising expenses (child care), but also declining expenses (we terminated some insurance contracts). Overall I’m again aiming for 36k. Stretch goal will be to stay below 2015’s expenses.

Expenses by category

  • pension payments – 20 %
  • housing – 17 %
  • groceries – 16 %
  • children – 13 %
  • car – 8 %

Housing is much less than last year (17 % vs. 22 %). The biggest increase is in groceries. The difference of 1.5k is roughly want I paid for grass-fed meat. I’m eating Paleo for almost all meals, my wife joins me for dinner (all week) and lunch (weekend). As the freezer is currently full, I expect grocery expenses to be lower in 2016. But maybe this grows as our kids get older – and eat more.

Goals for 2016

  • Yearly expenses below 36.000 Euros (average of 3.000 Euros per month).
  • Change in work situation.
  • 100 Euro per month side hustle (project Escape 9 to 5) in December 2016.
  • 24 blog posts (average of 2 per month).

Out of these goals the side hustle is the most important one, because this could lead to an earlier retirement. My goal is to semi-retire in 2018 and with our savings alone this is not possible. (Maybe not entirely true, a semi-retirement would be possible, but my wife won’t let me retire without an “alternative” job.)