Honestly, I was hesitating on even writing this post because I wasn’t sure if there would be much to share about how I saved money in Q2 2018. In my Q1 blog post, I mentioned that I have a pilgrimage problem of not being able to travel as much because I had already spent $3000+ on international flights using extra cash from 2017.
Again, I don’t have extra cash flow anymore so I’ve become way more interested in reducing expenses and saving money.
Just to rehash–I use two tools to keep track of everything: Mint and a spreadsheet. Mint lets me have a good overview of my cash and debts across all accounts as well as some budgeting. I use an Excel spreadsheet to map out my money flow.
April, May, and June kept me pretty busy because I actually went on two of those travels that were part of the $3000+ I spent. I spent a week in the Philippines followed nearly immediately by a long-weekend in Tokyo while being home in-between. Unfortunately, I had to return to the Philippines a month later due to a family emergency.
Because of these trips, I haven’t had much of a chance to review my budget line items.
Either way, here’s the one thing that helped me reduce my monthly expenses:
Mortgage Adjustment
This actually wasn’t even initiated by me, but rather my mortgage company. They periodically review and adjust what I pay depending on insurance, taxes, etc. I received a notification via snail mail saying that my monthly mortgage will be lowered by $41.20. That’s about $400 saved for the remainder of 2018, which is awesome!
Now, I actually did also attempt possibly refinancing my mortgage because it’s been a few years. One of my neighbors, I recently found out, is a mortgage loan officer so I reached out to her. Ultimately, interest rates have gone up, and it wouldn’t make sense to refinance right now. We both agreed to let my mortgage be for now. I guess I just mention this because I’m not sitting around doing nothing, but that I’m still actively looking for ways to save money! Haha. I tried.
Going Forward
After giving it some thought, I don’t think I will do these quarterly “how I saved money” reports anymore. I want to move to more of a monthly income/expense review. The reason why is because I want to be more transparent about the extra money I’m earning, how much debt I’ve got left to reduce or eliminate, and how many airline miles/hotel points I have. Of course, this is to help me see how I’m doing financially in order to fund future pilgrimages.
You can look forward to the first one at the beginning of August!
While I didn’t have too many money-saving victories in the past few months, did you? Let me know down in the comments!
JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.