Well December was loads of fun. We had a great holiday season, a fantastic time with family and lots and lots of delicious food! Now January is upon us and we are back to basics: cleaning, organizing, working and enjoying some beautiful snow.
Every month I will provide a breakdown of our spending in detail, as well as some analysis of where we kept spending down and where we needed to improve. Our goal each month, is to keep our monthly spending to $3500 or less, which includes $2550 of fixed costs, $200 of savings and $750 of non-fixed expenses.
The Money Breakdown for December, 2012
In total we spent $4,132.59 (which includes $2550 in fixed expenses and $200 put away into savings). This includes $1,387.59 spent on non-fixed expenses.
Of the $1,387.59 spent on non-fixed expenses:
- $544.60 was spent on groceries
- $173.78 on gifts for the holidays
- $147.95 on running shoes and a race entry fee
- $111.84 on dining and eating out
- $107.99 on a wine shipment that should last us for the rest of my maternity leave
- $81.39 on some miscellaneous items (some books for each of us, cocktail glasses and some stationary)
- $65.00 on health car (a co-pay and prescriptions)
- $61.95 on transportation (basically gas for the car)
- $54.09 on household goods (a christmas tree and a snow shovel)
- $35.00 on some personal car
- $4.00 on a coffee shop run
This month we really slacked and spent $1,387.59, about $640 more than our goal of spending $750.00 (or less) on our non-fixed expenses every month.
Analysis:
Where we saved:
Honestly, we didn’t really save anywhere this month. All of our expenses were up, and we spent way too much on “extras.” In doing so we almost doubled what we should have spent.
Where we spent:
Like I mentioned last month, our budget of $750 doesn’t leave any room for “extras” like wine, new running shoes, etc. However, we bought those things anyway. We knew that was probably going to push our budget over the edge, but we didn’t really think it was going to be this bad this month. Also, this month the G-man and I made purchases without mentioning it to each other. This isn’t a big issue – we don’t need to inform each other about everything we do. But, it did matter this month when we both splurged on some extras without realizing the other one was too! We took a hard look at our spending at the end of this month and we are really done with “extras” for January. We are going to keep it close to home with meals from our kitchen, once-a-week grocery trips and minimal household goods. We hope that by doing this we can get back to our budget. We are also going to busy around the house with some serious cleaning! I am on a “minimalist” kick and I’m getting rid of all kinds of things that are taking up space at our house. Maybe in the process we’ll make some money on Craigslist – who knows!
