As I’ve been trying to get my podcast going this 2018 I’ll admit I’ve been a little behind on my article writing and I hope you can understand. Moving forward my plan is to write one really, really epic and awesome post a month. The financial progress reports would be in addition to so you would get two articles on those months, lucky for you.
In 2018 I started a special series with our financial progress report, sharing some information with how we’re doing and our financial goals moving forward. I hope the first post from April 2018 inspired you to take responsibility for your financial future. Let’s see how 2Q2018 went.
Investing 2Q2018
Nothing has changed how I’m invested in my 401(k) plan, although now that Fidelity has offered this zero fee fund FZROX (more research to come on that later). I’m still 100% invested in stocks, with 75% of my portfolio in U.S. stocks and the other 25% in international stocks.
So, how did my portfolio during the second quarter in 2018? I checked my online account with Fidelity Investments and guess what? In the second quarter, from 04/01/2018 to 06/30/2018 my personal rate of return was 2.6%. Fidelity does a good job giving you different parameters to set to see different performances and I’m sure your tax advantage or non-tax advantage account can let you do the same.
Remember, in the first quarter my portfolio was down -0.7% and now the portfolio is up. And in case you we’re wondering as of July 30, 2018 my year to date return is 5.2%. Your lesson of this section: continue to never panic. Stick with your allocation asset.
Budgeting 2Q2018
Budgeting has been pretty steady using our Google sheets budget template. Since early 2017 we have been working through the budget and in the second quarter of 2018 we’ve continued to stay diligent. Even with the new move to an apartment we’ve been able to adjust our budget and stay close to what is allocated. We did have a little hiccup in June, but that’s because of the little one’s birthday. I’m thankful we planned for that. We set an amount to spend for her 1st birthday before the month of June arrived and we were close to that number. I think our spending would have gotten out of control had we not been budgeting.
One big change was for us was that we opened up a high yield savings account with American Express. This account earns 1.75% interest and basically serves as our emergency fund. We had to budget some money to transfer to the savings account.
Spending 2Q2018
Second quarter of 2018 was very interesting. We spent about 81% of our income towards different expenses like rent, utilities, and groceries. 55% of the money we spent was allocated towards debt, specifically student loans. It’s crazy to see that we spent 25% more in the second quarter than the first quarter. Maybe there’s something about Spring and Summer seasons that encourage more spending. That will be something that we’ll need to watch in the third quarter and at the end of the year.
Debt 2Q2018
As mentioned in the Spending section, we’ve been slaying our debt and the second quarter of this year was no exception. We knocked off another 10% of the total amount we started with in March 2017. We have about 15% left of our consumer debt.
Our plan was always to pay off our debt in 2 years. Thankfully we’re on track to do better than 2 years. We’ll actually pay off all of our debt in 20 months. That post is coming soon in October or November this year.
Final Thoughts on Second Quarter of 2018
This second quarter of 2018 was a lot more active than the first quarter. 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. 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 third quarter.
