One thing I can respect when it comes to receiving any kind of advice is transparency. I wonder if that person has done or is doing what they talk about. When it comes to money I expect nothing different. I am going to try to do my best to be open with you all about how each quarter is going with my investing, budgeting and spending. So, let’s look at how my first quarter of 2018 went and maybe you can use this as an example or motivation to help you.

Investing 1Q2018

As you all know from my article on investing I have a 401(k) and it’s 100% invested in stocks. At my age I don’t need any bonds or less volatile investments. My portfolio is about 75% U.S. stocks and 25% international stocks. So, how did my portfolio? The value of the portfolio actually went down -0.7%. What does this mean? Nothing really. As up and down this year has been, remember I’m invested for the long term and you should be too. Don’t look too deep into the day to day performance or even quarterly performance. I’m just doing this to be transparent and show you how much I believe in the education and advice found here at BrotherFI. And oh yeah, note for 2017 my portfolio went up 20.9%. That’s basically what the S&P returned last year. So yeah, I’m not too concerned with 1Q2018.

Budgeting 1Q2018

Budgeting hasn’t been easy, but in our second year it’s a lot more under control than last year. In this first quarter we’ve done ok with our budgets. We definitely had some unexpected expenses, but thanks to a profit sharing payout we were able to knock out a decent size of my wife’s student loan. I can’t wait to write about that journey. Budgeting still continues to be a challenge, however with our Google sheets budget template this part of our lives has been manageable. In my second year of budgeting I can honestly say this was the best financial decision I’ve ever made. So, nothing to crazy this past quarter, but we are moving into a new apartment in 2Q18 and I’ll be sure to document how that goes!

Spending 1Q2018

By far the one part of our finances that we are starting to be better at: spending. I used to be a big gadgets guy! What can I say? I love my headphones and car audio accessories. However, I don’t think I spent any money on gadget in 1Q2018. Our grocery budget and gas budget was a little lower than what we actually spent. I’ll keep an eye on those two items to have to see if we just under-budgeted or overspent. One thing is for sure, we are going to be visiting the local farmer’s market more often in this second quarter.

We also traveled to Tennessee for my best friend’s wedding so there were some expenses there. However, we knew in advance about this and budgeted appropriately so that we would be prepared. So, there wasn’t any crazy spending going on, but I can already tell you for sure in 2Q2018 there has been quite a bit spending with our new move which I’ll write about in July.

Final Thoughts on First Quarter of 2018

This first quarter of 2018 was not too bad financially. We’re still on track to be completely debt free within the two year time frame we set for ourselves. We haven’t seen much change with the addition our little one, but time will tell as she’s already eating solid foods. Investing is always going to be fun to look at quarterly with the constant ups and downs of the market, but remember this is a long term relationship. Budgeting seems to be steadily under control and spending is basically a direct result of how committed you are to the budget. This is my first time sharing something like this and I hope you enjoyed this. Let me know what you like or didn’t like and if you have any tips on ways to save more and spend less in this second quarter, please let me know!