End of month review - September 2007
October 2, 2007A lot has changed this month and I suddenly had to keep track of both my personal finances as well as the expenses associated with the new flat I’ve just moved in with my boyfriend. I also returned from New York earlier this month and unfortunately couldn’t take the advantages of the weak dollar home with me.
If it wasn’t for a generous gift I received from my grandparents for my 21st birthday last month, my net worth would have been down again. With this gift however, I have actually reached my first net worth goal and the 31% progress you see on the right-hand side now refers to the next-higher goal of £50,000.
My emergency fund is steadily increasing by £50 a month. I realise this is a fairly small sum if I ever want to reach my 3 months worth of living expenses. However, I believe that my job at the moment is fairly secure and pretty much all of our appliances in the flat are brand new which reduces the likelihood of them breaking down and hence resulting in a larger one-off payment. Furthermore, since I haven’t bought a car yet, no repairs could force me to touch my savings in order to replace a gear box or the like. Therefore I think that small but steady payments are sufficient to build up the emergency fund.
I’ve reached about half of the sum that I owe my parents even though they don’t seem terribly concerned about ever getting it back. I have asked my Mum repeatedly (for months!) to tell me the exact sum I owe them without ever getting anything more than a ballpark figure. In any case, I do intend to pay them back in full (whatever I owe) so knowing that I have already accumulated about half of it within the last few months is a very good feeling.
Above and beyond my regular saving goals, I aggressively put money aside for a car last month and managed to double the savings intended for this purchase. In total I put away roughly 25% of my income despite all the expenses we were facing to fully furnish the new flat.
Unfortunately I can’t just report good news. 
The truth is that my last credit card bill from my trip to New York has just come through and currently still remains unpaid. I am obviously not happy about accumulating outstanding credit card bills but the fact that this particular card still remains with a German bank doesn’t necessarily speed up the process. I have already transferred money to pay for about half the balance - but it’ll easily be another week and a half until it will reach it’s ultimate destination.
Because I have now permanently moved to the UK, I cancelled this credit card and as soon as the outstanding balance is paid I shall not face these problems any more. Hooray! 
Finally, we have found our first site sponsor in Finweb.com. In my opinion, Finweb offers sound financial advice on a range of topics and products and was hence the ideal candidate to advertise on SimplePound. I would like to thank them for their support.
