I've been moving in the past month. This should due a large part to explain the lack of posting. Moving furniture is time consuming and expensive.Due to this, I've been thinking about the payback period on the amount I've expended to move. While there are a lot of quality of life differences (such as being a lot closer to Dianne), that only comes off in derived statistics.
Let's see what we can tell.
Previous expenses:
Rent: 1200
Groceries: The occasional trip to the store. If alone, it would be crap. If with Dianne, we'd go find stuff 3 or so times a week. My average monthly grocery store bill for the last year is $230. The above chart shows this spending pattern, if it can be called a pattern.
Electricity: Included in rent.
Internet: Municipal wifi that was unreliable.
Netflix: We used Dianne's, and I mooched. Free.
Total Monthly Expenses: Call it 1430.
Now:
Rent: 800
Groceries: We're getting $50 of groceries delivered each week, of which I'm paying half. I expect this to reduce my grocery store bill by at least half. Call it $100 plus the $100 of delivered groceries. $200 / month.
Internet: We're splitting FiOS, which should run around $30 each.
Netflix: We're upping to 3, and I'm going to pay half. Call it $10 a month.
Electricity: ~$25/month
ZipCar: $15
Total Expenses: $1080 / month
That is, each month I expect to save nearly $350 over how much I was spending.
However, merely moving is pretty expensive. We both paid an extra month's rent so that we didn't need to do it over a weekend. There's also the expense of needing to eat out more often, but my grocery store spending is so varied that I don't feel right making a guess as to how much I didn't spend there.
Even ignoring that, I've spent an extra $1200 this month for double rent. If that's everything, then the question becomes:
How long will it take me to repay the $1200 I spent moving, if I'm saving $350 each month?
The answer to this question is pretty obvious -- a little under 4 months -- and tells me that the move is cost effective, if we look at any considerable length of time. Certainly over the course of a year it will be incredibly effective.
My next question is: When do I reach my savings goals?
First goal: One months set expenses. The amount needed went down. I now have, in checking, enough for everything that comes through my checking account. Win.
Second Goal: 3 months expenses. This is a little harder. My spending over the last year has been 20546.58. However, this includes some outliers -- like purchasing all my furniture in one month. The giant peak on the chart is the Ikea trip.
If we ignore the months where I spent furniture, the average is around $1500. That includes the grocery store and other expenses that should be going down, so let's call it $1000.
To have 3 months expenses, I need about $6000.
When I started this job, I had $6000 and could last 12 months on it. That's lifestyle inflation.
So, this question reduces to the fairly simple: If I'm saving 350 dollars a month and already have a thousand dollars, how long will it take me to get to a total of $6000?
The answer is, of course, 14 months and about a week.
That's not so bad, but here's hoping I get a raise.
