I most definitely spent more money this month than I made. I wasn't exactly eager to share this with all of you, but here's what went down. We had a lot of big expenses this month - I did holiday shopping, including ordering holiday cards; our VW needed new tires and some other work; and Hannah's health is Hannah's health. Just to give some comparison, last month, a more typical month, we spent roughly 44% on groceries and this month it comes to 10%, despite the dollar amount changing little. There was a lot of money spent is what I'm saying.
Bills (8%): I paid for car/home insurance, the water/sewer, and for the plumbers when they came to take care of a blockage in our main drain.
Cars (22%): This was entirely taking our VW in for routine maintenance that turned into more. I will say, however, that this is the first time we've spent a substantial amount of money on the car and it is more than two years old.
Communication (2%): I paid for stamps, a Zoom subscription, and some Thanksgiving Day cards. I did not include our holiday cards, which I included under holiday spending.
Eating out ($33, which is 0%, but is actually dollars): I had lunch out twice and coffee out twice. A girl has got to have some vices, I guess.
Gifts (1%): Two birthday presents for nephews.
Groceries (10%): Bog standard grocery bill this month. Next month it will go up because I'll be going to the winter farmers' market and stocking up for all winter with root vegetables and honey.
Health and fitness (11%): I got some bad news and still have to pay for the stupid yoga pass I'm not using in December. November includes that yoga pass, a yoga class I'm actually attending, my running app, and new eyeglasses. The eyeglasses will come out of my HSA, so it's not coming out of my checking account, but it is money I put in there!
Holiday spending (27%): Presents, cards, and our annual ornament.
Other ($15.49, which is 0%, but is actually dollars): I paid for a meter in Milwaukee and bought a few Kindle books.
Personal care (1%): Hair cut.
Pets (20%): Hannah. Poor Hannah. Food for both of the girls this month, several prescriptions for Hannah (allergy, antibiotic, anti-fungal), and her seemingly endless vet appointments. I hate to admit this, but the first entry I made in my December spreadsheet was hundreds of dollars for some tests for Hannah, so this is not going to end any time soon.
Savings (2%): Ha ha. Whatever was in here was immediately taken out, right?
This was not a great month, but I'm really liking about this exercise of tracking all money all year is that I can see there are months when I spend very little and months when I don't. I'm hoping I can make a sort of yearly budget for myself for 2022 so these expensive months don't take me by surprise.
What were your big expenses in November?
Big expense in November - home renos. I found it so hard to write the first cheque...and there are lots more invoices to come.
ReplyDeleteWhile some of the updates are aesthetic, it really is mostly maintenance stuff (our house is from the 1970's so while the windows could, technically, have stayed in for longer, our home is definitely going to be a lot safer/more energy efficient with new to-code windows). So it feels like necessary spending, but it's still hard for me!
I also bought almost ALL my holiday gifts in November. We have a spreadsheet where I track our expenditures. We don't actually "budget" per se, just monitor where we're spending money (household, groceries, kids, travel, clothing, health, meals and entertainment, charitable and gifts/misc). Our gifts/misc figure was MUCH higher than usual, but I think I'll spend almost $0 on gifts in December, so that feels nice!
I LOVE seeing these sorts of posts. Not sure why, but I find them riveting to read and like compare notes on how our own spending percentages work out.
http://elisabeth-frost.com
I clicked on your link about the yoga class and WHAT THE WHAT. I wouldn't patronize that studio either! Yeeeshhh.
ReplyDeleteI love that you share your spending. This is a good example how spending can shift depending on the month... and I am "happy" to hear that someone else has a larger grocery budget during a regular month, haha. I don't know what it comes to in actual numbers (would you share?) but we definitely spent more than 10% of our expenses.
ReplyDeleteI always find it so interesting how percentages change like this based on how our spending goes. Like how your grocery percentage went down by a lot even though you didn't actually SPEND less - you just spent more in other areas.
ReplyDeleteSucks to still have to pay for that dumb yoga pass. UGHHHH.
Biggest expense: the down payment on my new car! Wahoo!