Let’s talk May monthly report, this month flew by in 10 seconds, it is incredible. May has been an incredible rollercoaster – and it was certainly not always easy, but it was a learning experience for sure.
I was in a weird kind of funk in May, but I managed to get out of it. Half of May I was just doing too much: writing on the blog, working out three times per week, getting up at 6 am mostly, working extra hours on the job, socializing with friends, doing some required education and learning a lot of new things for the job. It’s all good for the long term, not so much for the short term.
May Was Radical
One of the weekends I decided to stay in and not touch social media or Whatsapp for an entire weekend. I can tell you, it was amazing!
I never expected social media and communication apps to have such a big influence on my overall wellbeing. I have to admit that I love connecting with fellow bloggers and my readers, but that irrelevant group chats on Whatsapp or mindless scrolling through personal social media are what is sucking my energy.
At a certain point during that specific weekend, I was even bored. I haven’t felt bored in a loooong time, so I was happy about experiencing that emotion again.
Anyway, after that, I felt refreshed. Until life decided to throw another curveball at me. Last week someone hit my car. Twice. Without letting behind a note. I was unpleasantly surprised. I was at a friends’ place and didn’t notice it until I got home. Anyways, I’ll arrange this in June with my lease company, but it’s gonna cost me some money for sure.
I decided that it happened, it sucks, but I have to move on. On a happier note, my lease car company called me that I can pick up a new car on the 13th of June!
Let’s go into what you came here for, my monthly report and my passive income progress.
May Financial Update
May was a very pleasant month financially – car damages aside, those will be accounted for in June numbers. I got my holiday payment from my job – over €1300, yay! I also received a tax refund of €524. On top of that, I got a check from a Dutch survey company of €98 and I sold some things on the Dutch eBay for €18. That means I got some extra income going.
For my spending, here is the overview:
A rough breakdown of my spending:
- 280€ rent and utilities
- 55€ weekend trip
- 52€ groceries for the month
- 30€ gifts
As you can see, not too many exciting things going on in my spending category.
BUT, it means that I have a savings rate of 88.8% in May! This is my highest savings rate to date, and I couldn’t be happier.
As I told you in my April monthly report, I’m going to do a mini-retirement #2 in September-December. Despite that, I want to get a 60% savings rate in 2019. If I want to get to my 60% savings rate and spend around €3000 when we’re abroad, I need to save an additional €6.300 in June-July-August.
That means that I’ll really need to get creative in selling my stuff, getting extra income in general, and minimizing my spending. Let’s be real, I’m not going to cut all the life out of my budget just for this 60%. I will do my best, but living my life is also important to me.
Passive Income Focus
This month I also wanted to focus more on passive income, that was fun. I’ve found Mintos as a Peer-to-Peer platform and I enjoy investing with Mintos. It an easy to use platform that gives interest rates from 5-20.5%, with loan amounts starting at only €10.
If you want to learn more about Mintos, you can read my Mintos review here!
I enjoy learning more about different sources of passive income, I love to diversify my income, and it gives me a real motivation boost to see my income grow over time.
May On The Blog
Since life was making itself a priority, I couldn’t focus as much on blogging as I wanted. Despite that, it was a good month with some articles that I would love to share with you.
Most Popular Posts Of May
1. The Process Is Not Interesting – No One Wants To See It. We close our eyes for the process, but the process is what will get you to your end goal. If you want to get where you want to be, the process is crucial.
2. Dividend Investing 101 – Dividends Are Just Like Nachos. Double dip with dividend investing – gain dividends each period and enjoy your share value increasing over time. Dividend investing is just like nachos!
3. Why I Love Paying Taxes – And You Should Too! Taxes are a big part of our society, basically, it’s the price we pay for civilization. That’s why I love paying taxes, do you?
Fun fact: I’ve written all of these three posts in the same week.
If you haven’t followed me yet, you can go and follow me on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram!
Goals Setting – May Evaluation
Sell my study books – FAIL . I have sold one book plus my calculator, still a few more books to go! I take them off the list, as I will keep them for sale but only until the summer. Get 5% of my income from passive sources (P2P lending or dividends) – FAIL . Because my income was higher than anticipated, I only got around to 2% of my income from passive sources. eed to step up my game in June and find some more P2P platforms to invest in – diversification is key. Get ahead 3 posts for Radical FIRE – PASS. Read through all posts to check spelling and grammar – FAIL. I’ve read through a few that I’ve written in December, but going through old posts is not my thing. It requires a lot of my attention span. Adjust ads on site to liking – PASS . I would love to have your opinion, are there too many ads on my website? I don’t want to overdo it! Write email opt-in series – PASS. I’ve written them, now to find a way to get them out and sharing – if you have any recommendations, let me know!
Goals Setting – June Goals
- Get 5% of my income from passive sources
- Read through all posts for spelling and grammar
- Figure out how to distribute email opt-in series
- Get 1100 followers on Pinterest – if you haven’t followed me yet you can do so here
- Read 2 books
- Work out 3x per week
What was your month of May like?
Marjolein is a financial consultant who has built over €4,000 monthly passive income and saves over 70% of her income. Read Radicals’ inspiring story, from stuck in the 9-to-5 to loving life. Feel free to send Radical a message at the bottom of this page
Wow 88.8% in savings rate, that’s insane! Congrats on being able to achieve such impressive savings rate in May.
Hi Bob, thank you! I’m surprised that it was this high, but I don’t mind! 😉
Great work this month. Hope you will be able to keep the savings rate up. At least as long as you stay in your current place 😉
Thanks B, hope so as well, let’s see where we end up!
I would be really interested to know what you eat on a day to day basis to keep your grocery costs so low. I have cut our food costs over the past few months, but to nothing like that level. I think that we could probably save more money, but I find it involves eating too much carbohydrate to fill me up, which I try not to do. I am also not a fan of cereal and so eat eggs and some vegetables for breakfast e.g. poached eggs, mushrooms and spinach.
Hi Sam, thanks for mentioning that. I think it would make up for a great blog post, I will start writing one up! I only cook for one most of the time, so I’m not making anything fancy. I always eat oatmeal for breakfast, most of the times I eat veggies with a wrap for lunch, and my dinner varies depending on what I have in my fridge. It could be couscous, sweet potato, rice, or when I don’t feel like cooking I just eat bread.
If I were to write a post about it, what would you like to see covered?
I am interested in the variety of meals you are able to make for this budget over the month, including breakfast, lunch, dinner and any snacks. Do you have any certain tips for getting food cheaply – certain supermarkets, going at the end of the day when things are marked down, buying in bulk when something is on sale, etc.
Thanks for your input, I’ll schedule to write something about that for next weeks posts! I’m doing to do groceries for the week tomorrow, so I’ll consciously think about what I’m buying and what are my considerations. I might even go wild and share some recipes!
Very amazing and useful content! Thank you for making the effort! Look forward to more.
Thanks Hal, much appreciated!