Age of Money - Twenty-twenty!
Hey, in my variant of English it rhymes!
Starting up the AoM challenge for the new year!
----RULES----
1. Choose a day every month that you will post your AOM to the google spreadsheet (link below).
Be consistent on the day that you have chosen to post your AOM. (Your metrics will not help you or provide you with useful data if you are not consistent.)
2. Post your AOM.
3. Comment below that you have updated the spreadsheet.
If you want, you may post a screenshot of your AOM. This will be fun and will help keep the thread alive. It's not required however.
4. Try to keep the thread on topic.
Changes to the Spreadsheet.
If you see any minor changes that ought to be made, go ahead and change it.
Cheating
Cheating is posting a number that is not your actual AOM, or changing your number because your AOM increased the following day.
We are following the the honor/honour system.
You do not need to cheat, but if you do, everyone will ask how you've become so awesome with money and then you'll have to live with yourself. It only hurts you.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mqceQ-S1F_brlUyQmjplJ6LrclPn-MrwzG6hFDqzMo8/edit?usp=sharing
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I hit a new milestone. You won't hear from me again until I break 400. This is what 10+ years of YNABing can do for you. I was negative when I started using YNAB. [Note: There was no AOM when I started but I know how it's calculated.]
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Superbone This is fantastic - congratulations! Must feel incredible to have this kind of security.
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Krys Thanks. Yes, it does. When I started my YNAB journey, I was living paycheck to paycheck, had loans, no savings, and every month was very tight. I've had an incredible transformation.
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Superbone Wow. Those numbers are impressive!
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MsTJ Thanks, but I have to admit that I'm cheating in a way. One doesn't normally have their taxable investing account in their budget, but I do. I just love knowing exactly how those dollars are categorized as well versus being in one lump sum that I'd have to track separately in a spreadsheet or something. For example, my next car fund is in there. You need to be able to withstand large market swings in order to do this. I have all my known and unknown expenses covered and then on top of that, I have what I call my Freedom Fund. This category balance dwarfs my next largest category and can absorb large negative swings. It goes both ways from month to month.
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Back after a long woe-is-me hiatus, but doing well now.
AOM goal: 150
AOM now: 204
woo!
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Checking in one day early. October stats AFTER paying mortgage:
AOM: 206
DOB: 289
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xgirlmama Wow! Very impressive!
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It's a couple days early, but I doubt this will change:
OCT:
AOM: 206
DOB: 289
Nov:
AOM: 211
DOB: 310
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Dec:
AOM: 223
DOB: 329
not bad considering I spent ALL THE CHRISTMAS MONEY in November ;)
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AOM 149 DOB 148
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Sept 1st AOM: 75! 🤩
2020 Original Goal: 30
2020 Stretch Goal: 60
I am going to keep my goal at 60. I'm still waiting for the financial fallout of a month of Urgent Care/ER/Ambulance/Hospitalization/Medical Tests/Surgery issues. I am on the mend but am still waiting to see what damage the bills do to my savings. 🤞
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Oh boy...AOM looks really bad on Sept 30th, BUT...
I decided to take a big chunk of my savings to pay off my car (no more car payment 🤓) and made my last payment on my only remaining loan that isn't a mortgage. Afterwards, I did a fresh start, decluttered my categories, and revamped my goals for the extra $1000/mo available to budget.
I'm looking forward to what should be much faster progress towards my December 2020 goal!
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So AOM at the end of September is 263 days, and buffering is 849 days.
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AOM for September 198 so +9 since August. My goal of 250 seems closer but still far off at this rate.
DOB 345 so +10. Also +10 last month. 🙂
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Superbone said:
I have all my known and unknown expenses covered and then on top of that, I have what I call my Freedom Fund. This category balance dwarfs my next largest category.Very impressive. Congratulations!
I will get there one day.
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MsTJ It only took me a little over 10 years. 😄
You WILL get there. I have no doubt!
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AOM up from 228 and DOB up from 193.
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At the start of the year, I was hoping for 110 days AOM. It still seems to be going up!
Although, now that I'm retired, and drawing from my nest egg, the DOB is really that source's buffering. My financial analyst does repeated stress tests, and so far we have seen a DOB of ~infinity at a 99% confidence in bear market simulations.
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Just found this topic, and thought I'd add my statistics in the spreadsheet. There is a lot of variety I see. AoM is not necessarily a number I focus on much, but it's always nice to see growth :) Started in April 2020 and my AoM rose steadily to 89. In september I did a mini clean-up of my budget and now I'm back to 32 (Oh, and we had two big expenses on our house bankaccount).
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October:
AOM 107
DOB 94
That will probably drop a bit when my last big camera gear credit card statement pays in a few days and when I crush the rest of the car loan...hah!
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My new record. 411 but I don't need assistance. 😉You won't see me again in here until I surpass 500.
YNABing since 2008.
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Superbone Congrats on the milestone! See you at 500!
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AOM for October 222 so +24 since last month. My goal is now within reach. 🙂
DOB 353 so +8. Down from +10 the last two months.
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So close...
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End of October/Beginning of November: 100 AOM! 😍
Far surpassed my original goal of 30 and my stretch goal of 60!
Now let's see if I can keep it through the end of the year.
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Peripherie I love seeing even stretch goals be stretched! Nicely done!! 🎉
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Climbing back up faster than I expected! Started at 290, made it to 371, dropped to 110 (after two very large purchases) and now back up to 181. 😊
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86/105. It's going up and down a bit...
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Astro_Geo What do you have set for Days of Buffering in the settings? I know if you select different settings you can get a different number. Just curious as to what people have it set too.
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AOM: 82
DOB: 57
The large projects, as well as ordering a bunch of parts for a client over the weekend, have caused things to trend down the past few months.
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TechieM2 What do you have set for Days of Buffering in the settings? I know if you select different settings you can get a different number. Just curious as to what people have it set too.
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VoltaicShock I have Days of Buffering Metric On and Days of Buffering History Lookup All.
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VoltaicShock The various settings may increase or decrease Days of Buffering depending on just how consistent your expenses happen to be over time. I keep mine at 'All' as the other settings seem just too volatile. 1 year or shorter might be good in a transition phase if your expenses change radically and you don't want to make a fresh start.
All: 369
1 year: 383
6 months: 430
3 months: 456
1 month: 368 (this month seems very average so far?)
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Sept -Nov Update
So my Age of Money has been steadily going up. Currently, it's 133 Days. This still surprises me because money I was saving for car repairs had come to pass. I think I get how AOM works, it's just weird for me to see it going up when my money is going down. But, I do see the drop with my buffer days as it's now at 52.
I also decided to do a Fresh Start with my budget, that makes me sad because my AOM and Buffer will reset for the new year. I guess I'll get to see what a new year does and how it differs from this year. But I'd like to see what it means having numbers in the hundreds, like some of our fellow Ynaber's have. 😄-
ISuckatMaths, I am one of those people as I have had AOM over 300 for numerous months, and it seems I'm getting there again.
The two numbers should correlate somewhat. Higher AOM than DoB would mean that you over time (or recently) spent much money which you've had for some/a long time while still keeping some "old money." Which seems like what you did? DoB will rise again if it rose in the past, and your expenses go back to "normal."
If you make a fresh start every year, you limit max AOM to 365. If you make a fresh start every two years, your maximum AOM should be 730 (365*2), which I haven't seen on this forum so far. 😉
That said - high AOM means you keep much money on hand in budget accounts, which might not be the best course of action? Consider talking to a financial advisor rather than maintaining a very high AOM over time.
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Finally back at YNAB. Have been dreading to put time in it because of an unforeseen debt. (Which is actually the opposite thing you should do, lol)
Back to saving!
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Alice Blue Lion I completely get it. Avoidance somehow makes it worse, though. Glad you came back.
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Alice Blue Lion We're rooting for you! Way to jump back in. 🙌
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So I am still on 283 AOM which is the same as last month, so I seem to have maxed out. I assume this is because I am now transferring all of my excess funds each month to "off budget" accounts. I am likely to continue that until my home sale/purchase in January after which time I'll be starting over.
Days of buffering is 757 days.
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Ticked over 30 last week, but back down to 29 today. Getting there!
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November AOM 212 (-11 days) and DoB at 322 (-31 days)
The AOM and DoB decline mainly stems from a new investment opportunity I signed up for which required some fresh funding. 💸
