April Wrap-up: No April Fool-ing Around

DannyB

So, this will be my last monthly wrap-up as we are now fully on a "fixed" income basis. We continue to make our transition into our retirement years still wondering "when do we start feeling retired?" 😄 Ah yes, it's that transition thing… Anyway, on with the show!

April came and went without any hick-ups and only a day or two of minor anxiety that we will no longer be receiving a regular paycheck from employment. Again, just part of that transition thing. Here's how it all went:

Income after bills and savings:

• Income: We received our first distribution from our retirement accounts. The amount of that distribution is based on our anticipated spending for the year/month minus other retirement and passive income we received, and all income was accounted for in our Spending Plan.
• Bills and Subscriptions: All bills and subscriptions were paid with no surprises. It's good to see our natural gas bill drop back down as we move into spring and summer. Our electric bill remains constant throughout the year since we only pay a service fee and that is covered several months due to credits we receive for solar production. Our water usage will increase some as things heat up around here but for now it remains low. I continue to work on how all our expenses are classified and categorized using fixed and flexible, monthly and non-monthly, non-discretionary and discretionary. This is a work in progress.
• Savings Goals: All funded at anticipated levels.

Planned Spending:

• We underspent in all Planned Spending categories in April! If you have been following these wrap-up posts, you may recall that I had overspent in groceries and household for several months and had to make adjustments to keep within our Spending Plan. I made some adjustments to various categories for April and moving forward and we ended up well within our budget. I'll continue to monitor these categories in coming months and make adjustments to our planned spending that more closely matches our actual spending.

Other Spending:

I had quite a few expenses that showed up in Other Spending in April. Some of these expenses simply needed to be categorized or recategorized and once done disappeared from Other Spending and appeared in the appropriate categories under Bills, Subscriptions or Planned Spending. Other expenses that Simplifi initially placed in Other Spending were actual expenses covered by funds sitting in various savings goals. I categorized these and marked them "Ignore in Spending Plan" and off they went. In the end I had $93 in Other Spending that I couldn't figure out how to "get rid of." But since I had some funds Available it was no big deal.

Available/Left at end of month:

Now I can fully appreciate this final piece of the Spending Plan. Our income is set according to our spending now that we are retired. I started April with a few hundred dollars "Available." When Simplifi closed out the month and I made final adjustments (i.e. "released" unspent planned spending funds) I ended up with a little over $1300 left at end of month. My financial advisor will be happy to see this especially if this continues to be a consistent result each month since he was a bit skeptical about our planned spending in retirement.

OK, that's it. Thanks for following along this past year with these monthly wrap-ups. Hope it was helpful.

Coach Natalie

Thanks for sharing these, @DannyB!

-Coach Natalie