My Cost of Living in the Austin, TX Metro Area-July 2022
It’s that time again for me to look back at my spending, saving and investing from the previous month. This month I received my quarterly commission check which gave me more money than usual so that’s why the numbers look a bit higher.
I like to use Personal Capital which offers a great dashboard for keeping track of all of your accounts in one place. If you’d like to check out my last monthly budget blog post you can find that here. Now, let’s get started!
Investing $2826 USD
This month I didn’t receive any commission payments so I’m back to my normal investing amount. My job has a 4% 401k match and I am also investing in my Vanguard brokerage account and a new Wealthfront brokerage account.
About $626 is invested into my Roth 401k, $2,000 into my Vanguard brokerage which completely goes into the Total Stock Market ETF, and $200 into Wealthfront that is in an aggressive investing fund mostly made up of stocks.
Savings $4980
I am preparing for a possible recession. Even if it doesn’t come, I need to beef up my emergency fund to reflect my higher costs that will come when moving into our house and having to pay for childcare for my daughter. This helped bring my emergency fund up to $15,000 which makes me feel more financially secure.
Rent & Utilities $1150
My husband and I split the rent and utilities of a 3 bedroom/2 bathroom apartment in the Austin Texas metro area. This total includes my portion of our rent/sewage/water as well as our electricity bill and apartment insurance. This month’s electric bill was about the same because we keep our thermostat set to 75 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime and at 74 degrees Fahrenheit at night.
Groceries $800
So…my food bill continues is about $50 USD cheaper than last time but still a bit too high for my liking. I have a Hello Fresh meal subscription where I have 4 meal kits sent to me weekly which ends up being anywhere from 2-4 servings per meal kit (I’m a light eater). Whatever else I can’t purchase through them is bought at our local HEB grocery store. We do have a toddler that eats a lot and is sometimes picky about what she needs to eat. This bill will hopefully be going down a bit after she goes to school since they will be providing her with two snacks and lunch each day. I would LOVE to get this back down to around $500 USD but I don’t want to sacrifice my food quality and happiness just to get back down to that number.
Charitable Giving $135
This month I made a monthly donation and a quarterly donation to a child I’m sponsoring in Kenya and another child I’m sponsoring in Uganda. This is something that I’ve been doing for over two years and I will be continuing to do it. 🙂
Subscriptions $65
This covers my three YouTube creator subscriptions, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Netflix. It’s worth having access to TV shows for my entire family.
General Merchandise $299
This spending was about $800 USD lower than my last blog post. Whoo hoo! I won’t bore you with the details but most of this spending comes from buying household items.
Restaurants $202
This is a little bit high, but about third of it is reimbursed by my company. We have two team paid lunches each month which is a nice way to play games online with my co-workers and enjoy some delicious food!!
Debt Payoff $300
This goes toward my low-interest personal loan. I have increased the monthly payment by $60 to chop down this debt much quicker. I’m still considering paying it off completely by the end of this year with my commission money.
Personal/Self Care $11
This is about $100 USD lower than last time. It went towards my Billie razor subscription.
Dependent $202
This could technically be rolled into general merchandise. It includes the cost of my daughter’s monthly diaper subscription with Coterie Baby. I added an extra box this month in preparation for her going to daycare soon to have extra there with her at school.
Insurance $66
This category isn’t very exciting. It covers our apartment insurance and my term life insurance.
In conclusion…
In the entire month of July, I invested and spent a grand total of….$10,970 USD. This month was not out of the ordinary because we didn’t make any large purchases (if you don’t count my phone) and our grocery bill was high…again. As long I invest at least $2,000 per month I feel that I’m still working towards my goal of early retirement by 45.
Do you track your spending? If so, tell me how you do so and I’d be happy to hear from you!
Are you new to paying off debt and investing towards retirement? If so, I’d recommend checking out my free Early Retirement Resources Toolkit.
