March 2025: A Busy and Sunny Month with Valuable Lessons
- J+A
- Apr 2
- 4 min read
March has been a busy and sunny month with many trips and great learning moments. Our goal for March was to be much more mindful of our spending and increase our savings rate. Here’s our update!
If you did not read our last update, click here.
Savingsratio
The first two months of 2025 didn’t go as well as in 2024. But luckily, we managed to turn things around in March.
Spending Awareness: Major Savings
By being very conscious of our expenses, we saved a lot on groceries and especially on impulse purchases. We like to think that we are good with money, but unfortunately, our financial records still show that we regularly make unnecessary purchases.
Fortunately, we were able to limit this significantly in March, and April is also expected to be much better than last year (when we had a negative savings rate due to purchasing a laptop).
This month, we paid closer attention to our spending, which made a big difference:
Lower grocery expenses: By planning our meals better, we wasted much less and also took advantage of special discounts.
Fewer impulse purchases: We postponed some expenses and, in some cases, canceled them altogether.
Home maintenance: This remains a significant cost. Thanks to a critical approach and a cooperative contractor (who explained a lot to us), we can do a lot ourselves, saving us thousands of euros. Some of our fascia boards were rotting and needed to be replaced. We replaced the first section with Keralit, which also reduces future painting work. It’s more expensive than wood, but since we did the replacement ourselves, it turned out to be much cheaper.
Our home will require a lot more maintenance in the coming months. Some parts of the house need replastering, and components on the roof need to be replaced or repaired. The house (and garden) keep us busy, and we slightly underestimated the costs. But thankfully, our four "left hands" (lack of handyman skills) are getting more experienced!
In the coming months, we also have some major purchases planned, primarily aimed at reducing our monthly expenses in the long run to increase our savings rate further.
The two most important ones will be an additional heat pump (for the part of the house where our parents live) and an EV charging station.
Investments in Sustainability (and Our Wallet): Heat Pump & Charging Station
New heat pump: We decided to purchase a heat pump for the part of the house where my parents live. Our section is already heated with a heat pump, but we wanted to see if it was truly worthwhile. After two winters, we are convinced and will buy another one. This will help lower energy costs in the long term. [Read our review of our current heat pump here.]
Charging station: We also decided to install an EV charging station. This will allow us to use our solar energy more efficiently and charge my lease car at home, which is financially beneficial for both my employer and us.
We are considering lowering our grid connection from 35A to 25A. Our home consists of two households, so managing this within a 25A connection is challenging, especially with two heat pumps, two kitchens, and an electric car. However, after installing the charging station with load balancing, we will carefully analyze whether this is feasible using the P1 meter. This could save us €100 per month. It would be a missed opportunity not to try.
Options we are considering:
Energy management system in the fuse box or on devices. However, few electricians have experience with this; it's mainly used in commercial settings.
Home battery: These are very expensive, but with €100 in monthly savings, the business case starts to make sense.
Investments& cash income
This month, our net cash income from investments rose to €560, slightly below our planned €577. This is mainly because a significant portion of our recent income came from cryptocurrencies (staking/earn), which we have been reducing.
Sunny Times
March was an exceptionally sunny month—so much so that we usually only see these energy production levels in May and June. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been great for nature, as the plants in our garden are drying out.
However, we generated a lot of electricity this month: 1,674 kWh (943 kWh with our SolarEdge system and 731 kWh with our Enphase system).
Our self-consumption is still not optimal, as we currently have a single-phase charger. As a result, we only use 34% of our solar power directly, and the rest is fed back into the grid. We hope to increase this significantly once the new charging station is installed.
Real Estate: Hungarian Apartment Almost Rented
Last weekend, we listed our apartment in Hungary online. We’ve already received some inquiries from potential tenants and hope to find a renter this month. This will strengthen our income stream and help us get back on track financially.
Crypto: A Learning Month
Our attempts at crypto trading haven’t yielded the desired results yet. We invested in a coin that soon after announced a controversial plan, potentially causing its value to drop. In a panic, we converted a large portion into BTC and XRP. So far, this has neither gained nor lost value, but we remain cautious. Now, we’re waiting (and hoping) for an increase in value, as we plan to sell a large portion and reinvest in stocks. Over the past year, our portfolio has become unbalanced, with too much in crypto compared to stocks.
Conclusion: Focus on Efficiency and Growth
March was a month of optimizations, investments, and conscious choices. Through smart energy savings and spending awareness, we are steadily moving closer to our Barista FIRE goals.
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