November was an expensive month! I booked some travel for the spring, bought some new clothes, and finished nearly all of my Christmas shopping. Lots of fun stuff, but lots of money spent. Here’s where the numbers landed:
My overall net worth is up a mere 2% this month. I’m still getting very little help from the markets, and unfortunately I didn’t help myself much this month with my spending. Because of my high spending, my cash is actually down by 12%. This will go back up with my next pay check, but it’s still a bit painful to see it this low. Hopefully that will help me think twice before doing any more shopping for myself this year!
My non retirement investments grew nicely, increasing by 21%. This is largely due to me continuing to invest, though a small percentage comes from market growth. Lastly, my retirement investments are up 1% this month, due in part to new contributions and in part to market growth.
Looking at the minimal growth in my net worth this month, I’m feeling a bit torn. On the one hand, I know that much of my added expenses went towards gifts for people who mean so much to me. On the other hand, I wonder why I feel the need to spend so much to show my love.
I’m also feeling like I overspent on myself a bit this month – buying some new clothes and kitchen items while telling myself that they were my “birthday gift to myself.” I didn’t go too crazy, but the reality is that I probably didn’t need to give myself a birthday present. Oh well. I’ll use this feeling of frustration as inspiration to do much better next month!
Did you make progress towards your goals in November?
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Anything You Want - A Personal Finance Blog 
Haha I actually did something similar to your “Birthday gift to myself” thing. I played in a pricey poker tournament this weekend and posted a picture that said “Merry Christmas to me, courtesy of Young Adult Money.” November was a huge month for me because I finally submitted my book to my publisher! Still feels very surreal.
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Haha nice! I generally think giving yourself a gift is fine, I just may have been a bit too generous with myself this year!
Congrats on your book – very exciting!
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Any increase is better than none, right? At least it is still moving in the right direction…
I am considering tracking my net worth and investments in a similar way to you next year (I am still in love with your graph!), so I am curious to know what you consider “cash savings”? Do you have planned spending in there? Like my travel fund or my home reno fund? Or is it only long term savings?
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Yes, absolutely! I’ll take progress, however small!
For me, cash savings is basically for anything I plan to spend money on in the next 6 months to a year. Most things I buy, even bigger ticket items like plane tickets or minor home renovations, will come out of this fund, which will then be replenished with my paycheck. Anything that is more long-term saving is really in my investment account. Hope that helps!
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We made more than I thought we would. Assuming another bonus this year, we’ll just about hit our savings goal for the year.
Now if only it weren’t all going back out for oral surgery next year. Grumble grumble.
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That’s awesome – congrats!
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Self-birthday gifts are pretty great! And I like to justify them by saying they only happen once a year. The good news is you know exactly where you stand so like you say, you can buckle down moving forward.
I also find that budgeting a set amount to save each month for Christmas gifts helps at the end of the year when you are suddenly spending. Has made a huge difference for me.
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Yes, budgeting in gifts year-round (for other or yourself!) is a great idea. The challenge I have is that when it comes time to buy gifts for others, I always want to be more generous than I did when I was budgeting. Gotta work on that!
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