Spending Roundup for July
I can’t believe July is already over! I feel like it should still be spring, not time for back-to-school shopping. It blows my mind. You know what else blows my mind? All the money I spent this month. I will admit, I didn’t keep track as closely as I should have and it totally shows.
Here’s the breakdown of where my money went in July:
Fixed Expenses
These are the easy ones. My car payment, car insurance, AT&T bill,cable/internet, and CC payments fall into this category. I budgeted $750, but since I paid off my last CC (HOORAY!) and the CC charges from last month, I actually spent $1250.
Groceries/Household
Budget was $250. I spent $275.40. I have no good reason why this happened - I just bought whatever and didn’t pay attention. Fail!
Gas
Gas is currently $3.83/gal. in my area. I budgeted $250 and somehow only spent $202.50. I must have paid for gas with cash or something, because I have driven more this month than I have all year! This is definitely not accurate, but it’s what my bank is showing.
Roth/Savings
I contributed $200 to my Roth this month and $228 toward savings.
Utilities
Budget was $150. I spent $157. Now that my electric bill is on the levelized plan, I guess I need to change this to $160.
Restaurants
Budget was $150. I spent $223. This is ridiculous! Why can’t I stop don’t I stop doing this every month? Frustrated. You know, I don’t know how I can spend so much at the grocery store and still spend this much eating out.
Cigarettes
Budget was $100. I spent $75. This includes some Cigotine refill cartridges, but I still haven’t completely stopped smoking the real cigarettes. Working on this.
Miscellaneous
Much like last month, July was kind of a disaster. At least I didn’t use credit cards this time! Still, I kind of bought what I wanted without thinking about my budget. Keep in mind, my budget for this category is supposed to be $100 per month.
- $56 for my Depo Provera injection, which is not covered by my new insurance plan. Dammit. That will come up every three months.
- $60.61 for clothing.
- $10.59 for a Kindle book.
- $44.93 for business card design and stock photos for the site.
- $24.72 for business cards (thankful for coupon codes, or this would have been way higher).
- $65.11 for accessories for my home office, which is finally functional after 20 months of my desk sitting in the basement waiting to be refinished.
- $200 for a desk chair - my old one got ruined because it was in the basement for so long. We’re talking fuzzy mildew stuff that looked like it might kill me in my sleep.
So I spent $461.96, or $361.96 more than I was supposed to. FAIL!
Overall, July looks like this: I had a budget of $2150, income of $3102.87 (primary job + second job + ad income), and I spent or saved $3072.86. That leaves $30.01 in my checking account. At least I ended in the black, I guess.
August will be an interesting month - my first paycheck should be normal plus 60 hours of vacation time. The second check will absolutely SUCK because I’ll only have 1 week of billing (and part of that is the first few days of school, when I won’t be able to pull kids out of class for therapy unless they have an emergency). I’m prepared, but it’s going to hurt to see that dip in my e-fund. However, my restaurant and gas spending should go WAY down to balance things out a little. We’ll see how it goes!
It could have been worse, budget-wise.
Eating out though will kill the budget.
$75 for cigarettes is pretty steep…. May I suggest cigars as an alternate vice
$75 is actually an improvement - I was spending $110 before. If I can ever switch to the electronic cigarette full time, I'll only spend $45 a month. Never tried cigars, but I can't picture them being any cheaper! (Or do you know something I don't?)
Food is always an absolute fail for me as well. Don't let it get you discouraged. What can we do we love food LOL.
True story! I'd rather eat than just about anything. Notice I never spend money going to the movies or anything else!
On the bright side, even after all these over budget or spending, you were still able to save money towards your Roth and regular savings account, so it's not as bad after all. Most people spend a lot and having nothing left for their savings.
The only reason that was possible is because I save immediately via automatic transfers when I get paid. For a long time, I tried the "if I have anything left" approach and never had anything left. So now I save first, then pay bills, then see if there's anything left. And there's still never anything left, but I don't miss the money since it's gone before I see it.
Number 1 kudos to you for contributing to your Roth! Most people don't even do that to give yourself a big pat on the back! Number 2, don't beat yourself up in budgeting mistakes, adjust as you go even if it means not making such frantic cutbacks.
I know I budgeted for austerity and failed so many times I gave up, so be kind to yourself and do it bit by bit! Make milestones so that you have goals that are feasible but still challenging, I think you will achieve more in the long term. You're doing great, so don't worry about the little mishaps!
I always go over my eating out budget and it gets me so mad!
But I guess the good thing is that at least I know that I am eating out a lot. I know that I used to eat out more and think that I didn't eat out that much. Pretty scary, once I think about it.
DANG but office chairs are expensive, aren't they?? I shipped — no joke — a broken one with the movers, banking on my husband being able to fix it. I can't even blame the packers — it broke right before they came. And when my husband complained, "Why don't we just get a new one?" I showed him some price tags — and I did shop around, b/c it's not like I wouldn't like a new one myself. Sure enough, he fixed it — with parts left over. We got a chuckle over that one, but hey. Now if only we weren't spending so much in other areas that completely negated the savings of keeping the broken office chair…
They're ridiculous. The chair that got ruined was this tacky upholstered chair my dad bought when I was in middle school. I actually considered having it reupholstered for a minute to avoid paying for a new one!
I stopped at Office Depot yesterday and they had one VERY similar to what I bought on sale for $99. I was infuriated.
Why don't you have a savings category? Even if you are paying down debt, you should also be putting some money away each month, even if it is small. Just wondering.
Um… Please see the category called "Roth/Savings." Fourth one down.
So sorry, I totally skipped right over that.
No worries!