One of the goals for this blog is to hold myself accountable for my actions. It should provide a log of my progress towards FI in 2029. One way to do this is to log each month our saving rate and our Amber Index.
Savings Rate
A month with no extra income like tax returns or a bonus is actually a below average month for us. This is a pattern I noticed in 2015. Actually, this is normal as our income is not evenly distributed in the months. The Year-to-date savings rate is doing well.
This report is typed on a new laptop we have. The other one had more than 8 years and had these “smart” events like hard disk errors or processor cores that created the typical blue windows screen… Thanks to our medium term budget, A buy like this is not visible.
Due to changes we plan to make in our budget, it will be a challenge to reach our overall 2016 goal. Let’s hope we can keep our spot in BSRI. We are in the gold league for now… but only just making the cut off…
Amber Index
Overall, we are still down from our personal high. We are even behind the FI plan. At this time, I do not worry about this. In 2029, this will all be forgotten.
How was your February?
amber tree leaves 
I’d guess 8 years is very long these days to keep a laptop, so don’t beat yourself up too much! Great savings rate, I like it how you split it out to exclude/include the mortgage.
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For the enw laptop, we stayed under the budget. So that is good.
I also like the split savings rate. It shows what actually goes into the investing accounts.
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I just love it “Amber Index”!! This is to show that you guys track your spending to the core. I need to start doing this. but accounting to the penny is probably not my thing. I’ll get Mr. to do it, he’s obsessed with numbers until he met me. I don’t know why he’d stop.
All of us FIRERS know that expenses is everything in early retirement plan. I almost always able to save 50% of my take home income for the past 10 years (I don’t count my 401K contribution, counting that, I’m probably in the high 60s). That was before I know about being able to retire early. 😛 weird huh? frugal is in my blood heheh!
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Nice savings rate that you have.
To be honest, I do not track each line item to the penny. We have a big line item called shopping and that takes groceries, gifts, … We have only about 15 categories. Most of them have a fixed costs anyway. Easy to keep track.
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Hey AT,
If it was not for the daycare benefits we received on the last day of February, we would have had the exact same savings rate graph! Did not buy a laptop, although we are still to replace the motherboard for our desktop PC as that one is corrupted. That expense is likely to come in March.
Good to see that the Amber Index did recover from the January dip.
And you close the post with some wise words, short term hiccups are no problem for the long term plan.
Cheers.
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It’s kind funny that Europeans use commas instead of dots. My wife certainly do that. 😀
8 years is a LONG time to keep a laptop. Isn’t it nice to get a faster laptop to improve your work efficiency? That’s my reason for getting an iMac a couple of years ago. It was taking way too long to edit pictures on my old MacBook Pro.
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For editing my pictures I also got a Mac book pro. Loving it
The other laptop is more for every day kitchen use and for the kids to play with.
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Considering that most people don’t save at all and others are saving less than 10%, I think you’re in a good place.
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Hey Amber,
That’s a great savings rate. Keep it up, several years of doing it like you are..you’ll definitely hit your target 🙂
Tristan
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