In this post, I’ll discuss the strategies I used to:

Make my final $3,800 payment on $67,000 of high-interest student loans;
Save $5,000 for my emergency fund in 3 months;
Spend less on travel when I visited South Carolina and Cape Cod;
Get a “like new” computer for less than $100;
Live on $800 a month; and,
Why I spent $185 on items for an emergency kit

I achieved a huge goal in this quarter of 2017 – making the final payment towards completely paying off my high-interest student loan balance, which totaled $67,000. I have been working extremely hard all of this year and last year towards this goal, and it is a HUGE relief to reach it. Subsequently, I launched into my next financial goal of accruing a $10,000 emergency fund, and saved half of that target amount in this quarter. At the same time, I enjoyed my summer of traveling and going to the beach. The highlight of this quarter, by far, was traveling to South Carolina to visit family and see the totality of the solar eclipse!

I spent more closely to my spending plan this quarter than I did last quarter, and in fact was below goal for most categories. My largest over-expense by far was the stuff I bought for my emergency kit, as I was inspired to plan for events such as the hurricane in Houston, especially since I live in a coastal area and could be affected by similar circumstances. I consider this emergency kit part of my emergency fund, and part of my insurance, though by far its most valuable purpose is providing my partner and I with the peace of mind that comes with knowing we are well prepared for a disaster. Overall, I spent on average $800 per month, just below the amount allocated in my Spending Plan.

Spending Plan Review

Table of Contents

(July, August, September 2017)

The first number shown is the yearly allocation for the category, and the Q3 – $ amount shows how much was spent in Quarter 3 – July through September. In parentheses, the percentage spent of the yearly allocation is shown.

(Read this post for an introduction to spending plans)

Student Loans

Low-Interest Minimum Payment – $790: Q3 – $160 (20%)

High-Interest Minimum Payment – $7,025: Q3 – $585 (8%)

High-Interest Extra Payment – $24,000: Q3 – $3,230 (13%)

In July I finished paying off my refinanced high-interest student loans! I was looking forward to being done with that huge payment of at least $2,585 each month so much that I managed to scrape together an extra $1,230 so I could get it completely paid off in July. It definitely helped that July was a three paycheck month (I get paid biweekly). I was initially planning to have it paid off by September, but I’m proud that I achieved this goal two months early! Paying off $67,000 of my student loans in less than 2 years was a huge win, and a huge relief. I plan to continue paying the minimum payment on my remaining low-interest loans, and start diverting the $2,585 that I was previously using for the high-interest loans to accumulate an emergency fund (see below). This quarter, 64% of my spending was on student loans. Year to date, I’ve achieved 87% of my goal for spending on student loans payments.

Student Loan Payments – $31,815: Q3 – $3,975 (12%)

Savings Goals

Emergency Fund – $10,000: Q3 – $5,000 (50%)

Since I have paid off the majority of my student loans, including all of my high-interest loans, I am now going to use my extra money to accrue a true emergency fund. In 2015 and 2016, I had an emergency fund of only $500, which was enough to cover my credit limit at the time, but not enough to cover the recommended 3 to 6 months of living expenses. Now that I will have at least $2,585 per month that was previously going towards student loan payments, I can accrue a $10,000 emergency fund in less than 4 months, by the end of November. $10,000 will cover more than a year’s worth of living expenses, including minimum payments on my remaining low-interest student loans. Having this money saved will give me peace of mind in the case of an emergency or job loss.

Total Savings – $10,000: Q3 – $5,000 (50%)

Expenses

Enjoying Life – $2325: Q3 – $270 (12%)

I spent less than I could have this quarter – only 12% of goal – and still had some amazing experiences. I hosted a 4th of July party, went to my brother’s wedding, attended a (free) music festival, and hung out at the beach and a children’s museum with my young cousins who live across the country.

My partner and I got a hotel in Cape Cod for a weekend… okay, it was a motel. A few ways I save money when we travel is by extending a work trip with personal travel (that way at least a portion of the expenses and often all travel expenses are paid by my employer), and moving from the fancy work-paid hotel to a cheap hotel/motel for our personal portion of the trip. After all, we only spend time in the hotel when we are sleeping. Another way to save money is participating in free activities such as walking on the beach and exploring a new area, which we did in Cape Cod.

The highlight of the quarter, for sure, was taking a road trip to South Carolina to see the totality of the solar eclipse! Plenty of money was well spent in many of the following categories for that trip, but we saved where it counted – lodging and food. We stayed with family near Charleston, and had some wonderful home cooked dinners and great quality time. Exploring South Carolina, for the most part, was free too, including walking around Historic Charleston, going to (and drinking on) the beach, and of course watching the solar eclipse!

Food & Alcohol – $2,220: Q3 – $715 (32%)

Surprise, surprise, I overspent on food and alcohol again. Celebrations involving sushi and Guinness were had when the high-interest student loans were paid off. There were also birthday shenanigans, a 4th of July party, and meeting up with (and having drinks on the beach with) old friends. Plus, when in Maryland, you have to eat crab, right? When it’s hot out I also eat far more ice cream – for my friend’s birthday in September we had some incredible vegan ice cream in Philadelphia. My office had a summer party at a kick ass biergarten, which of course came with its own, non-office-sponsored after party (thank goodness the boss left).

With all of that going on, it’s a wonder I didn’t spend more than I did – which was quite a bit over target anyways. I am starting to think that I should raise my dining and alcohol budgets next year since I’ve overspent every quarter so far. I will still resolve next quarter to come in closer to my goal and if I do not, I plan to revise this category for 2018.

Business – $225: Q3 – $155 (69%)

I’ve finally made some business expenditures, in the form of web hosting, domain, and my yearly Evernote and Crashplan (online backup) subscriptions.

Automotive – $2,930: Q3 – $255 (9%)

This was my most spendy quarter for Automotive so far, though I suspect next quarter will be worse… I need new tires in October (eek). This quarter, I had to buy supplies for replacing my sparkplugs and wires, as well as an oil change. My partner and I do all auto maintenance ourselves (he is, among many other things, a mechanic after all). I also bought a dash cam for my car, and boy some of the videos I’ve gotten already are GOLD.

We also drove down to South Carolina, which resulted in more gas expenditures than usual. One way we saved money on this was taking my partner’s 2001 Honda Civic, which he has modified to be more aerodynamic. We average 40 miles per gallon for the trip (2x better gas mileage than if we had taken my car)!

Rent – $1,200: Q3 – $15 (1%)

This post explains my housing situation (go to Rent section). Now that the garden is in place, there wasn’t much more to spend on for the house. I bought a small table for the backyard, from the clearance section in Target at the end of the season. Since we are still having beautiful weather I think it will get some good use this season.

Objects – $1,010: Q3 – $490 (49%)

Oh boy, this category got wrecked. I got a purse and some awesome shorts that I really love at Goodwill (for a grand total of $11) , but at the same time, I did not really need another pair of shorts. I also bought some video equipment for the solar eclipse, some new magazines for my airsoft gun, a few pots for my plants (my cheaper and less demanding surrogate for a dog), and a $9 hard drive enclosure for my old HDD. Last year I had bought a SSD for around $75 on black friday, and finally got around to replacing it in my computer. So for less than $100 (and thanks to a free copy of windows 10), I made my 7 year old computer work like brand new!

The largest expenditure, by far, was my emergency kit. After watching the hurricanes on the news, I went all out and prepared our house with a fully-stocked emergency kit. All of the gear set me back a whopping $185. I made sure that at least 3/4 of the items in the kit would have regular use (either in our kitchen or in our camping gear), but there were some specialized items that needed to be purchased specifically for emergencies. Despite the expense, the peace of mind is worth it, especially since we live in an area that is prone to being affected by hurricanes and other natural disasters.

Misc – TIAIC: Q3 – $415

Health expenses were a killer again this quarter, with more doctor bills and new contact lenses coming up in the same quarter.

Losses – TIAIC: Q3 – $90

I did poorly with keeping track of my cash (again), and also got hit with two bank fees – aren’t those just so frustrating? It was my fault for not complying with the bank’s rules on minimums in the account in order to avoid the account service fee. To avoid incurring this fee again, I transferred in a “base” amount that will meet the minimum requirement and am considering the base amount “savings” that are not to be removed from the account.

Total Expenses – $10,165: Q3 – $2,405 (24%)

Total Expenses + Student Loans – $41,980: Q3 – $6,380 (15%)

Extra Income

Additional Full-Time Income: $265 – The additional income I received is net income from working overtime.

Credit Card and Bank Rewards: $15 – Credit card cashback bonus, which I applied directly to my bill, freeing up extra money to put towards my student loans and save for my emergency fund.

Interest: $2

Total Extra Income = $282

Investments

401k: Continued contributing to my employer 401k enough to get the employer match. When I make additional income at my full-time job, my 401k contribution (which is a percentage) increases and so does the employer match! After I finish saving my $10,000 emergency fund, I will begin saving money for additional investments.

Final Thoughts

This summer was a great example of living my life in full while not spending a lot of money — and most of all not feeling deprived in any way! I got to visit several states I had never been to before, I had a once-in-a-lifetime experience of seeing the solar eclipse, and I spent a lot of time with family from across the country that I do not get to see very much. I am also on cloud-nine because I’ve finished paying off my high-interest loans. That was a huge weight off my shoulders. I’m sighing a breath of relief because I have saved more than half of my $10,000 emergency fund and I have put together a comprehensive emergency kit for my home. At the same time, I was flexible within my spending plan and overspending in some categories balanced underspending in other categories, leading to overall expenses that were exactly in line with my Spending Plan.

WANT TO REMEMBER THIS? SHARE THESE TIPS TO PAY OFF STUDENT LOANS TO YOUR FAVORITE PINTEREST PERSONAL FINANCE BOARD!