Sunday, April 03, 2016

March 2016 Report

Low spending didn't continue into this month... Moominmama (formerly Snork Maiden) is out and about and Moomintroll is in tow. We went to Ikea and spent more than $2,000. Before that, it was a low spending month. Even though everything seems to be cheap in Ikea, it somehow adds up into big numbers :) Costco is also like that and just across the road from Ikea. Yes, we went there too.

Here are our monthly accounts (in AUD):


So, spending was $6,355. The biggest single expenditure was $2,281 at Ikea. Doctors' fees totaled $1245, but we got a total refund from Medicare of $655. The latter is counted as income. Health insurance is $308 a month, BTW. The Australian health care system is a strange mix of public and private care and payments...

We earned $14.2k in salary and other current payments including those Medicare refunds. After taking into account the mortgage payment of $3,541, which shows up as a transfer to the housing account, we saved $4.3k on the current account. We made $3.6k of retirement contributions, and saved a net $1.4k in added housing equity. Net saving was, therefore, $9.3k across the board.

Stock markets rose strongly this month. The ASX 200 rose 4.73%, the MSCI World Index 7.48%, and the S&P 500 6.78%. The Australian Dollar rose from $US0.7152 to $US0.7676. We gained 2.46% in Australian Dollar terms and 9.96% in US Dollar terms. So we under-performed the  Australian market and outperformed international markets. The best performing investment (in total dollars not RoR) was the Colonial First State Geared Share Fund, which gained $25.8k, followed by Unisuper with $3.2k, and Medibank with $2.8k. I sold my Medibank holding during the month, but Moominmama is keeping hers. The worst performing investment was the Winton Global Alpha fund losing $3.2k. All asset classes apart from commodities gained this month with Australian and U.S. stocks leading the way.

As a result of all this, net worth rose $37k including housing equity ($US103k) to $1.470 million ($US1.128 million).

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