Monthly Spending Report: January 2016

Jan­u­ary was a nice, calm month. It was great to get a chance to step back and recov­er from the crazi­ness of the hol­i­days, although I did take part in a num­ber of events and activ­i­ties. I start­ed to play dodge­ball every Wednes­day (cheap, fun, and great exer­cise!) which has led me to meet­ing a num­ber of new peo­ple. I also had a chance to meet new peo­ple at a few events host­ed by my local Young Pro­fes­sion­als Con­nec­tion. We went rock climb­ing and to see the local hock­ey team play. In addi­tion to those events, I “met” new peo­ple online, to include but not lim­it­ed to Julie from Mil­len­ni­al Boss. We had a real­ly great time on a Skype call. It’s rare to meet some­one whose path is so sim­i­lar to mine. Not many of us young mil­len­ni­al females aspir­ing to retire ear­ly out there!

Why do I do a monthly spend­ing report?

I find it best to do a month­ly spend­ing report for a few rea­sons. One, it helps me eval­u­ate how I did the pre­vi­ous month. Did I hit a tar­get reduc­tion in spend­ing or did I go way over bud­get for a par­tic­u­lar cat­e­gory? Two, it helps keep me account­able. How can I make an extra pur­chase know­ing I’ll have to explain myself to all of you? Talk about awk­ward when the blog­ger can’t walk the walk and talk the talk. Three, I want to prove this crazy thing called finan­cial inde­pen­dence works! Fourth, it pro­vides an exam­ple of real world bud­get­ing and expens­es. Some of the peo­ple I talk to haven’t ever seen a prop­er bud­get or seen one put into action, and part of the pur­pose of this blog is to lead by example!

I use Mint to help me track my spend­ing and keep an eye on my accounts. Some peo­ple use Per­sonal Cap­i­tal and oth­ers use You Need a Bud­get (YNAB). What­ever tool works best for you and your needs is the best one for you, since every­one and their bud­gets are different.

So, with­out fur­ther ado, I present my spend­ing (for bet­ter or for worse) for Jan­u­ary 2016.

 

Auto & Transport	Super low gas prices are once again amaz­ing. I paid $15 for a full tank of gas! Only $1.48/gal! I haven’t paid that since I start­ed dri­ving in 2006.
Mobile Phone	So low. I love Project FI! See my review here: http://www.fierymillennials.com/google-project-fi-review/
Util­i­ties	Much bet­ter than the $225 I spent this time last year.
Food & Dining	Still pret­ty high. :/
Sup­port	I’ve start­ed help­ing out my sis­ter with a month­ly donation.
Rent	Nor­mal spend­ing here.
Pets	Mr. Mew got fixed! It was a hefty vet bill, but with the rollover I haven’t gone over (despite what my messed up Mint bud­get says).
Enter­tain­ment	I bought some cred­its for my favorite app when they had a sale and went to see a movie. The Big Short was great!
Misc	Any activ­i­ties I did (bowl­ing, rock climb­ing, hock­ey game, etc).
Shop­ping	I was sick, so I bought a humid­i­fi­er and some med­i­cine. Saved my life. I also spent a gift card (and a bit more) on some clothes to refresh my wardrobe. I’ll have a post about that soon.
Trans­fer	No idea why it added my CC pay­ment in this. Also took out some mon­ey to repay a friend.
Trav­el	Paid for part of a hotel for a friend’s birth­day, and bought my tick­et to Camp Mus­tache! I can’t wait for Memo­r­i­al Day!

 

This month came in at an even $2800. Not the best month, but also not the worst. Hav­ing incred­i­bly low car costs, util­i­ties, and phone bill helped out a lot. I think only $800 in non-bud­get­ed expens­es was ok, but I def­i­nite­ly could’ve done bet­ter. Espe­cial­ly as I’m try­ing to save up for a down pay­ment for a house. I’ve nev­er had this much cash on hand, so it’s a rough bat­tle to not run out and spend it all on some­thing.… like all the things I’ve got planned for Feb­ru­ary. It’s already start­ed off with a bang! The list of activ­i­ties increas­es by the day. New mee­tups, sports start­ing up, Super­bowl par­ties, a trip to Chica­go (so far includes drink­ing, Dead­pool and a Mon­ster Truck ral­ly), and a friend com­ing to vis­it are just a few of the things on my cal­en­dar. The chal­lenge will be to keep my spend­ing as low as I can while still hav­ing a good time.

Com­ing up on the blog, I’ll have a post about my search for a duplex, the strug­gle with clothes, and more! Have a great February!

What did your month look like? Did you stick to your budget?
Note: This post does con­tain affil­i­ate links. This helps me keep the blog run­ning and pro­vid­ing new and great content.