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Snapshot:
~ $400 over budget
Car loan got paid off
Only a $257 decline in net worth!
Eating out:
I got lazy in the last week. I stopped preparing lunches and cooking dinner and ate out a lot. $121 or 55% of eating out for the month came just in the last week alone.
Irregular expenses:
Irregular expenses for the month totaled $445 and primarily include: highlights $85 (every 4 months), clubhouse deposit $200, and the quarterly water bill $132. The irregular expenses basically account for the $400 over budget balance. Following my best friend’s bridal shower, I will be refunded $150 of the clubhouse deposit.
Personal expenses:
I also did not anticipate spending $103 in hair supplies this month. Vanity is expensive.
Summary:
This was a very good month and the best spending month in almost 6 years. I decided to stick with the Kelly Blue Book trade-in value for my auto to be conservative but I also added in my vested pension balance and restated my net worth. Now my net worth is ($57,208) as opposed to ($68,350). =) My car loan is now paid off so that means $500 in extra cash flow each month. I already committed $200 in extra cash to help pay down my HELOC in the coming months. Next month, I hope to curb the eating out expense even more and expect at least a $3000-3500 decline in my net worth since I have to pay for my summer class and books.
Go Chitowngirl…Improvement is in the works!!! =)
2 comments:
Man... those student loans are a killer. I'm glad I never applied to grad school - I had enough trouble paying off my Stafford loans.
How much do you budget for eating out vs. groceries? I tend to view this the way I view excercise - you're better off setting a more modest goal you can achieve than getting demoralized because you can't meet your idealized target. It's more a psychological trick than anything tangible, but it's effective.
Another technique I use is to withdraw my weekly cash budget with my groceries. If I run out of cash, then I stop eating out for the rest of the week. Any leftover cash gets shoved into the piggy bank. It's also a good way of isolating my weekly living expenses from my (weekend) entertainment expenses. It also changes a variable expense (eating budget) into a fixed expense ($50 at the checkout line).
Ooooh...I love the suggestion for taking out the weekly spending money along with the groceries. I think that I will give that one a try and report back on how it goes.
I budget $150 per month on groceries and whatever eating out I do comes out of the $300 that I allot myself to spend on whatever I want.
I also try to allocate $200 for irregular expenses such as gifts and any other unexpected expenses...Mother's Day this month for instance is going to eat up the majority of that $200.
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