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Dear all,

My parents are in town, visiting and enjoying their grandchildren. They insist in paying for everything. Absolutely everything. Of course such visits always result in a lot of extra activities that you otherwise wouldn’t do, but, I have to admit, it’s nice to give our bank account a bit of a “Sommerpause”.

After all it’s working 24/7, 365 days of the year: that massive shopping at DMs, the extra Flink order of stuff we forgot to get at the supermarket, the Wolt deliveries und so weiter und so fort. The list goes on.

For two and a half years now I have been tracking our expenses more closely by inputing them into an app. This as given us and our joint account a way more structured sense of purpose: we know how much we need for day-to-day spending and how much we can put aside for different savings (I will explain our “bucket” system in another mail) and, equally important, how much we can set aside for investing.

Understanding how much disposable income you have for investing is essential, as this is money you shouldn’t need neither short nor mid-term. You invest best, when you invest for the long run.

Piggy banks are a great, but the best start for an organised personal finance, is knowing how much you earn and spend each month aka running a household budget table. Do you use one?

If not, I you can make a copy of this one here.

Let’s budget 😉

Take care!

Your André

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