Money moves – new home new budget

Money moves – new home new budget

Money moves when we move. With a move and a new home comes a new budget too. For us at least it does.

As we have relocated to a higher cost of living city, but closer to our jobs there are a lot of changes to our budget. Some small, some big, some fixed and some variables. There will probably also be some unknown to us at this time.

For one, I expect our foodbudget to go down, as we will have more time in our day-to-day to plan out meals. Also time to make them at home even if we don’t plan in advance. On the other hand, we might be spending more on going out/events as there are more things happening in our new area.

If you’re curious about the moving costs and how much we earned on selling our decluttered items, feel free to read this blogpost.

Previous apartment versus our new situation

Let’s get into it in numbers. It’ll be just a breakdown of amounts and then I’ll get into what it means and why we’ve chosen to do it like we have. After all, we are still pursuing FIRE (slowly, mind you). We have no intentions of living very DIY and off the grid and tiny and what-have-we. But, to be fair, we did downsize from 110 m2 to 88 m2 and it also helps us maintain our belongings at a certain level. We simply don’t have excess space to fill with new things.

I’ll have to explain the above a little, as some are positive changes and some are not. We also have some variables that are still unknown to us. On top of that, some expenses will increase over time, where others will decrease.

Budget up or down?

So, our rent is going up, bad right? Not necessarily, as our rent had increased every year since moving in, and I’ve only included the number from when we moved in. In reality, the rent would be closer to the one we’re paying now. Especially with electric and heating bills rising so much, living in an old house just didn’t seem that cool anymore. It wasn’t as energy efficient as our new apartment, which is brand new. So for us, it’s a welcome upgrade and planned lifestyle inflation.

The daycare costs are insane to begin with, but in this HCOL city it is even costlier. Thankfully, this cost decreases as our baby gets older. Also, all meals are covered in this so we don’t have to think about lunch boxes yet. But really, we are looking forward to this number going down within the next few years. (School is free, and that’s about 4-5 years away for us)

Our train of thought

Transport is where it gets a little complicated, but this was the main reason why we moved. We are both saving great amounts of time on our commutes. For me, it’s a change from 2-3 hours of commuting a day, to a 5 minute walk to work (on office days). For my partner, it’s also a matter of a 1,5-2,5 hours of commute compared to a 20 minute drive.

Since we have moved closer though, we lose out on tax deductibles for transport. For me, it almost leveled with my commuter-pass for the train every month so I was at around $ 100 – 200 on transport really. But the hidden costs of commuting (for both of us) could easily amount to $ 90 – 150 a month per person! Think lattes and breakfast on the go, paying for a seat during rush hour, taking the bus from the station in bad weather etc. It quickly adds up and I know that I won’t miss all these expensive convenience costs.

The new budget

Money moves and will continue to fluctuate throughout our lives. So it makes sense that as our needs changes, our budgets do too. Since coming into 2023 I had been paying for a greater part of our shared expenses. We also didn’t have the finances to save very much, due to my partner being a student. Now, we’re both full time working parents, we finally settled in our new home and with that we come back to a 50/50 split on the budget. However, as some of our expenses have increased and we also want to make space for saving, sinking funds and investing, this monthly contribution have increased too. So now I’ll be paying more, even though my partner’s income increased too. (The amount shown is my contribution)

We are still debating whether or not we want to pay for a private parking spot in our building, as it’s near impossible to find a free spot close to our apartment. My partner really wants to, but I’m not sure it’s worth the extra money yet. I want to roll with our new budget for a while before we make that decision.

We also want fancy curtains that cost way too much, but we’re also saving up way more now than before, so who knows!