In light of the impending demise of Mint, we’re going to be doing monthly wrap-ups so as to have a record of our financial details. Without further ado, January’s Sankey:
We finished the month with a 70% savings rate and a $10,000 net worth increase, going from $786,116 at the end of December to $796,723 today. Notable things this month have been:
- We have two larger expenses here that are paid on an annual basis, our annual renter’s insurance, and our annual laundry costs. I add one flat annual estimate for laundry because our building has coin machines and I’m not going to start tracking loonies, but we very consistently do one or two loads a week (excluding when travelling, where laundry costs are included in the travel budget) and it’s $1/load to wash (we hang-dry), so I make a rough estimate every January for this and call it a day.
- We got a pocket wifi! These days being totally mobile-internet-free while travelling overseas is getting tougher, as a lot of attractions now require you to book online, etc. A pocket wifi is a great alternative to a smartphone, if you are ardently iPhone-free like us.
- We had an idiot tax for the first time in a while. That was accidentally booking the wrong non-refundable train ticket for an upcoming trip and having to pay to fix it.
It was a pretty decent start to 2024, though February is going to be a bloodbath as we’re heading to Europe and Morocco.
Incoming Assets 
cool. I’m not sure what the benefit is with pocket wifi. you mean you don’t use smartphones, instead you use laptops? Or do you mean you don’t have Internet on your smartphones?
The pocket wifi is for our tablets. We do not travel with phones as a general rule. At home Steph has a basic non-smart flip phone and Celestian has a very old model of smartphone that operates the same as a flip phone (just calling/texting, it can’t use apps, internet, etc).
Looking forward to the 800k cookies! Exciting stuff 🙂