Getting rid of my sinking funds?! & a Net Worth Rollercoaster! - YouTube

It's been a minute since i did this and  it's because i'm a massive procrastinator  

it's okay it's we're here now and we're  doing two months we got april and may  

so let's get in to my budget  report and net worth update  

hey friends i am sarah also known as budget girl  here on the internet and you might have realized  

by the name that i like to budget i actually think  it is one of the key tools to building wealth and  

to mastering your money and i do it every single  month even if i don't always i'm not always great  

at reporting it to the internet every month  i get there eventually however i track every  

single dollar that i make and every single dollar  that i spend and i put it all in this spreadsheet  

and it helps me meet my money goals if you need to  master your money or want to get better at it what  

you can do is actually purchase this budget from  me in my etsy shop i'll have a link down below  

they're just a couple of dollars each you can buy  my budget and you can find my net worth tracker  

and you can change your life they are endlessly  customizable there are no frozen cells anything  

like that and you can use it forever i've  been using this one for over seven years now  

and she works that said if you're not a  spreadsheet budgeter that's totally cool  

figure out what budget works for you use it so  we're going gonna try to blast through april  

and may expenses and then we're gonna go to the  net worth for tracker so in april i made eight  

thousand three hundred and sixty five dollars  total the split on that was i made about four  

grand on budget girl 3 100 at my day job and then  i actually didn't have jacob pay any rent because  

he had done so much to help with the renovation  the month before that that was worth far more than  

his half of the rent so that's where that went and  then i did make 12.50 from my renter because this  

was the first month that my new renter was  in i also spent 435 dollars on tax services  

and had 4 214 taken out in business taxes because  small businesses are taxed insanely and yes that  

is after my quarterly estimated which is now 500  bucks a month and my also my refinance mortgage  

started being paid this month so those are my  notes and uh oh and i also took a trip to arizona  

with my friends kelly and whitney you might know  them from the youtubes and the instagrams on the  

personal finance space and it was an absolutely  wonderful trip and i'll get on all the expenses  

there as well personal expenses pretty normal  here i went over in personal that was some  

planting stuff that was a new box spring for our  bed phone case some other miscellaneous stuff for  

travel and that's all fine and i also went over  a little in groceries the previous month we had  

our fridge go out and we're out of fridge for a  month and so we had to restock some necessities  

but we were only 15 over in a restaurant so i also  bought some clothes this month had an oil change  

and had some miscellaneous expenses including  getting a pedicure and going to the chiropractor  

down here you can see how i made my money for  my small business budget girl so on youtube i  

made two grand i made about 250 doing some money  coaching uh 29 from amazon associates 139 from  

adsense which was awesome and then i made 625 and  528 off of etsy uh oh and another 235 good month  

on etsy and uh made some affiliate money as well  that totaled out to 4 000. and then my expenses  

for budget girl were almost half that 500 is the  biggest one saving for quarterly estimated taxes  

and then i had to renew my po box i paid for some  articles and some templates video editor the tax  

prep uh business portion of my tax prep other  regular subscription expenses for budget girl and  

then for budget girl properties i actually only  spend an additional 35 bucks on some new smart key  

locks that i really like i decided to put them on  side b as well and i actually have a whole amazon  

shop of all of my favorite rental and house  tools that i use during the reno those videos  

are coming i swear they just take a while it's a  lot of footage and uh yeah i put all my favorites  

in that that'll also be linked below and then in  this final one this is actually the tracking for  

my future short-term rental property so i bought  just a couple of things totaling 59 bucks and that  

came out of just what was essentially my regular  budget for uh my future short-term rental airbnb  

unit a couple of things all second-hand kind of  stuff and then up here you can see where i tracked  

how much the airbnb and food and all that jazz was  for my grand canyon vacation and that totaled out  

to just under twelve hundred dollars which  i just cash flowed right here under travel  

costs i did actually have a thousand dollars  in a travel sinking fund we'll get to that in  

a second but i switched up the way i did sinking  funds actually let's do it now so as you can see  

last month i actually had seven sinking funds  in my budget it's been that way for a long time  

they were for rory medical care christmas travel  replace long-term save and of course my big money  

goal my future real estate investment property  sinking funds are an absolutely fantastic tool but  

i don't think i need as many anymore and i was  on a bigger pockets money podcast recently and  

it was really really cool they assessed my  situation i'll have it linked below and they  

actually recommended that i potentially move  some of my cash which i have large cash reserves  

because i came from a place where it's very  money insecure and they might be better used  

just kind of putting them in bigger buckets so  after much consideration what i decided to do  

was essentially have a long-term savings and  a short-term savings and i am keeping my car  

insurance sinking fund because that's a bill that  comes out every six months and i am keeping my  

youtube sinking fund because that is a  bill that comes out every four months  

and then i'm also gonna be continuing to save for  my future short-term rental our next real estate  

property in here but other than that i've deleted  the rest of my sinking funds because i can usually  

cash flow stuff like this now back when i had very  very little money i'd you know 1400 a month that i  

had to do everything with bills expenses debt all  of that syncing funding was the only way that i  

was able to prepare however now i have more money  so that i can generally just cash flow things  

so i used a thousand the thousand dollars in that  sinking bun i was able to just put the additional  

174 bucks into a new travel listing under  expenses that's not going to be something that  

i budget for every month but if i do need to do  something outside of my normal monthly budget i'm  

just going to stick a line in my budget and cash  flow it which is wonderful it's such a privilege  

and i just don't think i necessarily need  seven sinking funds anymore so you'll see  

how that looks in my net worth tracker now i moved  everything from those sinking funds either to my  

short-term savings which will take care of  anything that pops up that isn't like an emergency  

so the things that used to be there christmas i'm  just gonna cash flow travel i'm just gonna cash  

flow medical i'm just gonna cash flow rory  i'm just gonna cash flow and i put all of  

what was in those thinking fund accounts into  either my short-term savings or into my rei fund  

and now so my oreo if i got just a little bit of  boost and now i have fewer buckets but they're  

going to make a bigger impact i have fewer more  targeted buckets and i think that's going to work  

for me and it's very important to reassess your  personal finances every once in a while to see if  

something that you're doing is no longer serving  you i've had these thinking funds for seven years  

and it took a little bit for me to figure out no  they're not really serving me anymore it doesn't  

make sense for me to put stuff into a travel fund  every single month and then move it back when  

i travel when i can just cash flow it now which  once again huge privilege so yes now we just have  

future rei and short-term save and also i do still  have my emergency fund but that's not something i  

contribute to every month since it's full here's  all the things that i spent on during the vacation  

i just totaled those out and totaled them here  and then put what was left right here you'll see  

it happen again next month so my total income was  eight three six five my main expenses were 51.52  

my budgetable expenses 1638 property expenses  384 because jacob didn't pay this month and then  

short-term rental expenses 59 so total take-home  is 1130.93 that is what is left that is what  

i didn't spend of what i made and i decided to put  130 of that into the short-term new account and  

a thousand dollars into my rei fund so that is  what that month was let's bump over to next month  

so may i made nine thousand six hundred and  six dollars um jacob paid rent again and i made  

forty five hundred dollars on budget girl so let's  scroll down and i did have a vacation in tennessee  

with some girlfriends from college so here's  all of the money that was spent there this was  

less free stuff in arizona we did a lot of like  hiking in the grand canyon and free stuff in  

tennessee we did all like the touristy things  that's who i was with so that ended up costing  

280 for the flight 461 for the airbnb it was going  to be cheaper but one girl dropped out and then  

228 on food 48 on miscellaneous 27 on souvenirs  and 171 on activities and that is all broken down  

there so that is just coming out of my budget here  for travel as you can see i actually spent less  

this month than i did the previous month so all  these are normal i went over a little on gas just  

because i spilled more and we went over again  on a restaurant but you know what it's fine i  

spent 545 total on food some people i've seen  recently have been just combining their grocery  

and restaurant just like how we eat but i don't  know i still like to separate it just to keep  

a monitor let's go ahead and scroll down i  also had some like gifts this month that were  

a little bigger so i made 45 26 on youtube 16  on adsense and then 100 money coaching 49 on  

amazon affiliate 75 on website adsense i was  having some issues and hopefully it's back up  

now so go to budgetgirl.com you probably missed  some stuff etsy was much further down it's only  

362 dollars so again that's fine and then i made  some these are all affiliates and sponsorship  

payments so 1800 for two videos for skillshare  and morning brew and then some affiliates and  

then my expenses once again 500 for quarterly  estimated 74 internet canva flow desk newsletter  

my web guy video editor my hosting and all of that  so not a lot of fees on that here's where it gets  

a little less fun so as you know in april my  new renter moved in the place was beautiful you  

haven't seen it yet or i did post some pictures  on instagram but beautiful we spent a month at  

the very beginning when we came in there was smell  there were bugs the people i ran into previously  

weren't as hygienic as we would prefer we  even found like a mouse bugs but we used  

an ozoner which is supposed to like kind of kill  everything clear out the air get rid of the funk  

and then we repainted the entire apartment we  scrubbed the entire apartment we sprayed for  

bugs twice at the beginning and at the end weren't  seeing any when we turned over the keys but once  

my renter moved in apparently bugs lay eggs and  the eggs take time to hatch usually there's like  

an incubation period of like 20-something days so  towards the end of april she started seeing bugs  

in her kitchen which is horrifying so what we did  we immediately called organ out like professional  

pest services i don't mess with this kind of  thing and we got them to we sealed all the holes  

that they could be getting in we sprayed the  heavy duty stuff all that jazz and that cost 216  

and we did it on my side too even though we  weren't seeing any bugs over there and then  

we had them come out a week later because she was  still seeing some bugs but fewer what happened was  

they got like in the back of her fridge which is  disgusting and i would be so mad and i was because  

i didn't know they were there and we cleaned but  you don't like rip off the back of the fridge  

i hate this for my renter who was getting out  of like a bad renting situation i'm like and  

now you move in you've got bugs in your kitchen  like no we're going to take care of this until  

even if we have to get you like a new fridge we're  going to take care of this so organ came out twice  

everything's solved now but because she had to  deal with that for the end of april and may i  

gave her 200 off of her rent just out of pocket  as like a thank you for she was so reasonable  

and understanding and she actually told me  like i didn't have to do that but i thought  

it was important that she get something back for  having to deal with that because the house wasn't  

in the condition that i wanted it to be and i  didn't know i didn't know and i feel terrible  

but the bugs are gone everything is gone it's  clean and now i know for next time to get like  

the professional pest people in immediately and  maybe treat all throughout the vacancy month  

i didn't know now i do okay and also we did  lawn and i had the trees on her side trimmed  

and like branches taken off of her root from the  previous storm so that was 95 so we had 503.93 of  

expenses at the rental that were unanticipated  except for the lawn that was anticipated but  

that's fine i want to make sure that's as nice  a place to rent as possible and i don't want to  

have any bugs in our kitchen that's terrible i've  had to deal with that as a renter before and i've  

had to just deal with it on my own the place i  lived in in louisiana when i started this channel  

had little like little roaches in the kitchen  when i moved in and i had to use like borax  

and just try to kill them and seal everything up  myself because the landlords wouldn't do anything  

about it and i don't want to be that kind of  landlord we're good and then for the future airbnb  

i ordered a bunch of kiln pillow covers they're  actually really gorgeous off of etsy and they came  

in and those are going to be beautiful and then  i ordered a couple of blankets so that was 200  

and i just cash flowed both of those things  i didn't actually bother to take them out of  

the uh bg property savings account it's fine  so total income 96.06 oh 6019 i did spend more  

on main expenses minus 1018 in budget girl  expenses minus 503 in property expenses  

i'll figure out where i moved that a second ago  and i had 2065 left in my budget of income minus  

expenses which is great and i just threw all of  that at my rental property so let's move on over  

to my net worth tracker and don't be shocked okay  so for the month of april i'm hiding may so we can  

do a reveal i was actually down net worth for  4 232 part of that was taxes i had it saved but  

your savings are part of your overall net worth so  savings went down and i didn't quite make enough  

to make up for it also a lot of the expenses that  i had spent or a lot of the money that i had spent  

on the renault in march i used a business  credit card for the bills for that came  

in april and i have my credit card set to  automatically pay in full but that just  

overall knocked my net worth down a little bit so  it was paid for it was accounted for in my budget  

last month but it hadn't been taken out of my  checking account yet so last month was just a  

little bit artificially inflated because it hadn't  come out yet and i hadn't had that big of a thing  

happen before so because usually my spending  is very regular so these are just the reasons  

why it was down four thousand uh going back  up a little you can see how my sinking funds  

changed here so now i no longer have anything  here the amount stayed fairly similar 17 to 19.  

that's just because i had that two thousand  dollars left over this month that went to the  

renault fund or the the property fund but all of  these either went to uh what used to be long-term  

savings is now short-term savings and that just  has three thousand dollars in it now and that's  

gonna handle kind of these regular expenses so  i have my youtube savings card rental insurance  

and new home and those are just all of my regular  savings accounts now which is exciting it's a  

little bit less to deal with and then retirement  went up just kind of marginally yeah down four  

thousand but it happens i spent four thousand  dollars on taxes so yeah we're revealing may okay  

so now that we have uh may revealed um i have my  checking account is back up again so i put in a  

few invoices um so i've got about eight grand  in my two checkings my 10 grand emergency fund  

15 grand eve um duplex fund and three  grand in short-term savings totaling 27  

000 in cash savings and checking and then in my  sinking funds i have 19 000 in my next real estate  

adventure fund which is so exciting like you  can do something with twenty thousand dollars  

in the real estate world uh so who knows it's  probably gonna take a while longer but that's okay  

making progress 470 in rental and car insurance  and 2500 in youtube taxes then no other sinking  

funds however my total savings is 50 grand cash  liquid some people may think that's too much  

that's a that's a nice that's a nice little  security chunk for me i may make future changes  

but i um i'm pretty happy with the way it is right  now i mean 20 grand of that is for my next home  

purchase and or my next real estate purchase and  you're supposed to keep that in liquid anyway i  

don't want to invest that in case i need to  access it so all right next up i have forty  

thousand dollars or forty thousand four hundred  sixty six dollars in retirement funds twenty five  

hundred in other investments and my duplex and car  worth the same my mortgage went down marginally  

four hundred dollars and my new and my new net  worth is a hundred and twenty one thousand seven  

hundred and twenty two dollars which is up nine  grand from the previous month i know it see i  

checked this a couple of times now so i wouldn't  have another like weirdo thing where i make a  

mistake in the middle of it but yeah that's that  was just the swing there of down 4k and then up 9k  

as the bills fell and everything i am still moving  upwards nobody panic which is another reason i'm  

kind of glad i'm doing these two videos together  and yeah my net worth is continuing to grow so  

cash flowed some stuff as for the year i am up 26  000 and we are we're halfway in which is which is  

not bad that's how much i used to make in a year  and now it's that's how much my net worth has  

grown in half a year i'm really excited and it's  it's i hope you find it as fun as i do to kind of  

walk through this and see these slow steady steps  i'm taking towards wealth if you've been with me  

for the last seven years the last three or five  years or whatever you've seen how much progress  

i've made and i want to encourage you that this  is entirely possible i started this channel making  

1400 a month and had so much debt there's no  such thing as get rich quick most of the get  

rich quick things things are a scam you can do  it slowly marginal progress every single month  

tracking your money makes a huge huge difference  and i honestly believe that you can do it  

i did it i'm not a math genius i'm not amazing  at any of this it's entirely possible i believe  

in you and i want to root for you so if you  want to continue reading for me i would love  

it if you subscribed i'm trying to get to 100  000 subscribers here on youtube and also like  

this video if you like these if you want to get  my budget or net worth tracker and track your own  

money mastery you can get them at etsy  down below they're just a few bucks each  

and i will see you guys next time tell me your  money win of the month or the last two months  

i would love to hear it and root for you in  the comments i will see you guys later bye