March 2015: Monthly update and the results of tracking all my spending for a month

In March the worth of my portfolio increased by SGD 2,047 and I conducted a little experiment: For one month I would track all my spending down to the last cent and find out where my money goes. The results were quite interesting…


My portfolio gains in March consisted of fresh investments of SGD 1,803 and capital gains of SGD 244, not counting USD 95 received in dividends which are still waiting in my settlement account.

My  investment plan is going very well and I am glad that I planned properly at the beginning of the year:

Investment plan update

 

Portfolio value is increasing nicely and so far in line with my guesses at the beginning of the year:

Singvestor portfolio value development

Overall I am sticking to my designated asset allocation and ignoring my temptation to pick stocks:

Portfolio allocation

Now to a more interesting topic…

Results of my one month spending tracking challenge

I can really recommend this challenge to anyone wondering about their expenses. I just installed a spending tracker on my phone and tracked all expenses as soon as I made them. Rather troublesome, but it resulted in a detailed picture:

Spending report March

In March I spent quite a lot of money – SGD 2,641 on variable items such as food etc. and SGD 2,500 on rent.

The data is not too useful. For example I never buy clothes normally but tailored a suit and some shirts in Shanghai  in March. Traveling for business means lower costs for food and groceries this month.

The only surprise was the big web&games category. Hosting bills, domain bills and Steam sale all came together.

Could I save some more money? Certainly, but I feel overall it was more or less reasonable. Still some indicators for lifestyle inflation can be seen and I have to work to keep my costs in check.

 

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