The Dividend Family Guy

LED Bulb powered Santa With all of the holiday spending out of one's system it always seems easy to not buy anything in January.   By not buying stuff you are able to save a good bulk of your income.   With the new budget in place I set out to do exactly that. In an effort to be completely transparent with our money I created the budget and went over it with Mrs. DFG.   She had a few questions but overall was OK with it.   We both understand it is important to save for retirement (hopefully early.)   However with five children it can be challenging to create a plan where you are saving 75% of your income to reach FIRE.   This is especially true for the DFG as I am the sole income and will be out of work in a month. Category Spent FrugalMaster Notes   Housing/ Insurance $2,282 Still paying extra $700 in principle.   However after reading some Frugalwoods I may alter this. ...

The spreadsheet says I am saving! With the new year came a new budget.   I base my budget on 2 paychecks a month.   My current employer pays biweekly so I get a bonus 2 paychecks a year that go directly to savings.   This works in my favor not only because of those bonus paychecks but because it is helping me learn to live on less than I make.   That is always the way to a better life.   Live on less. So what did I change in the budget? 2018.1 Budget Category Change Notes   Housing/ Insurance $0 Still paying extra principle. 9 years to go Investments $0 Still maxing out 401k and IRAs Utilities -$110 Cell phone plan change Transportation $109 Cars are getting older so setting aside more cash Education $70 New category to save monthly for school fees when the...

June Camping In this post we are going to take a peak into how the DFG family spending went for 2017.  The main points of interest are: How did spending compare to last year Were we frugal or cheap Was savings on track for achieving financial independence Last year we switched to using Mint to aggregate all of our data.  It also has a decent budgeting tool which I setup just to see how it works and how we do against it.  As events changed over the course of the year the budget was adjusted.  It has some nice features like adding your various savings goals  to it.  For example I added Travel and Retirement goals to the budget.  This allows me to save first for my goals and then budget the remainder.  The other feature I like is the ability to put in sporadic items like my insurance (every six months).  It will create a budget item and split the estimated cost over the time period you specify.  This ensures I am ...

  October was another merry Halloween.  I started using a new spreadsheet to track things more like a business.  It is like a balance sheet with income/expenses and assets and liabilities.  The big thing is it is a total picture.  Before I was only tracking after-tax items.  With this spreadsheet everything is tracked.  The 2 most important cells on the sheet are the monthly cash flow and the net-worth.  These two indicators tell me whether I am saving every month and how things are tracking overall (am I getting closer to FIRE.)  The good news is I am tracking the right way.  The bad news is I have had negative cash flow for the past 4 months.  This is contrary to my savings rate which was 26% for October.  All of that is in my 401k contributions. Upon doing this I have discovered I am still spending more than my after tax income.  What a lie I have been telling myself.  I have accepted my financial mi...

Our yearly trip to the Zoo With October close to being over I just remembered I am two months behind on sharing with you how I am progressing in my quest for financial freedom.  Sharing with the community is important as it might give hope to those who are just starting to save and are looking for some inspiration or tips. It is important to me because it is almost like confession of my financial sins.  Some months I am an angel and some months I am possessed with the consumerist devil. August Home, food, shopping and utilities (including cellular) dominated the month of August in that order.  I continue my extra principal payments in an effort to have the house paid off in10 years. Food came in second which includes eating out and junk food. If I could persuade the family to eliminate the unhealthy and unnessacary our food bill for 7 would only have been $641 or $92 per person.  My wife's sister and her family were in from out of town for a week....

The Caves at Hocking Hills Summer is here and I tend to spend as much time outside as possible.  To get more exercise I have taken it upon myself to wake up early every morning and do yard work (some call it gardening).  I do this for about an hour before coming in to get ready for work.  It is very relaxing being outside when all is quiet (especially since the rest of the family is still sleeping.) The outside work also tends to bump up my home costs during the summer.  However that is budgeted for the year.  I do not look at it as money lost because it improves the curb appeal of the house for when we sell.  I was reading some article that explained that your house will sell faster as the outside is the first thing potential buyers see.  This makes sense as it is a reflection of how well you take care of the house in general. This month there was a large jump in health related expenses.  This was due to me being diagnosed with...

My brother was diagnosed with brain cancer this month.  It certainly puts life in perspective.  He is three years older than me and I looked up to him allow when I was a kid.  He didn't smoke or drink but did have a love for food.  He did work at a desk all day just like me.  I had stalled on my weight loss about a month ago but now I need to ramp that up.  Exercise, eating right and not stressing out about everything are things I need to continue so that I can keep on going and fight the good fight. This is the second month of extra principal payments on the house.  I also found a route to work that shaves 20 miles off my commute each day.  That savings should become apparent next month.  Plus no more highway or tolls to pay.  The estimated savings per month there is $40.  March On the flip side the amount of money spent on food is above what I had predicted for the year.  I went out to lunch with coworkers twice....

Nothing much out of the ordinary here the Dividend Family Guy household except for saving 45% of my income.  I still plan on saving more once my son gets a job this summer and pays for his car insurance.  On top of that I will be dropping TV as soon as my contact expires in the summer.  Worst case I will get sling TV for the family at $20/month but I hope to convince them hobbies are better. Until then I will keep on saving as much as I can because in April I will be able to contribute to my 401k.  Once that starts I have 9 months to sock away 18K to max it out (and to collect the employer match).  They have yet to show me what funds are available but I am hoping for some low cost index fund choices. The only change this month was further simplification of my categories.  To simplify things (and match up to default categories in Mint), I combined groceries and eating out into one budget.  So for the month I was $89 over which is from addition...

The first month is well behind us and it is time to update how I did before March and spring come.   With my 3 savings goals pretty much on autopilot it is more challenging to stay within the budget.   By autopilot I mean I have separate savings accounts for those goals and money is automatically moved from them at the beginning of each month.   What is left in my checking is pretty much what my monthly budget is.   I do have some buffer in my checking to handle bills that come up quarterly or bi-annual. Overall for January I was right on target saving 40% of my income.   This beats my goal mostly because of some extra income for the month.   Every year we 'donate' money to our church Christmas raffle that benefits the social committee.   For the first time since we joined the church we won and it was the big one on Christmas day.   My wife was screaming so loud when they called us I thought something bad had happened.   It was j...

Hungry baby! Did I meet my budget for 2016?  Well the short answer is yes and no.  If I spent only what we needed to live off of (needs) then I was under budget by about $900 for the year.  That is great that I am able to live within my budget to survive.  Now the harder part to talk about.  My family and I continue to fall prey to the consumerist beast.  While not as bad as other Americans it still caused us to go over our GFSM budge t by $1,067 .  While that is not a huge sum when you look at it for the year I had to give it a red cell in my spreadsheet. Where did I overspend?  About half of that went to pay for my daughters candy bar sale money.  Instead of saving the cash I got, I blew it on things like eating out and miscellaneous junk.  Then in the end I had to write the check to pay for it all.  My lesson learned from that is to track cash expenditures so I can see the effects on my budget as the month proceeds...

December seems to go by the fastest of all months for me.   There is so much to do preparing for the holidays and then traveling and spending time with families.   My wife and I always debate if we are doing too much with decorations around the house.   Putting it all up (which the kids enjoy) takes a few weekends.   Taking it down also takes up a few weekends in January (mostly me putting it all away).   The debate is always is it all worth it or would our time be better spent doing other activities.   My wife always has a good point that it is spending time with the kids.   They enjoy it and will hopefully have fond memories of the holidays.   My only point is that it gets a wee bit stressful for us parents trying to get it done and take care of several young children. There are always several things you can do to make the holidays less stressful.   This year I had a fixed budget and did 100% of my shopping online.   No huntin...