As a reminder, my husband pays the "big bills" like mortgage, phone, and electricity. I pay for groceries and the pets and that somehow evens things out.
In what continues to be a weird summer of spending, this was a weird month. I was in California to start and had to go to Michigan, too. It was unsettled and weird and it took a lot of fortitude for me to sit down and figure out how all this worked out. I honestly don't know how people who travel a lot do it. I found this so stressful.
Entertainment ($4, <1%) - I paid for parking once.
Eating out ($33.39, <1%) - This is actually more, but Dr. BB paid for a lot of meals when we were in California. And J bought lunch. And my BIL bought us dinner once. It turns out I owe a lot of people meals.
Gifts ($45.02, <1%) - I bought our cat sitter gifts for both times we were out of town and my neighbor a small gift for taking in our trash bins while we were gone.
Cars ($75.30, 2.2%) - Filled up our clunker twice and a rental car twice.
Personal care ($112.26, 3.2%) - Two random trips to Walgreen's. One of those was to buy cortisone cream because the mosquito situation here is OUT OF CONTROL.
Bills ($133.33, 3.9%) - Home and car insurance.
Savings ($200, 5.8%) - The personal finance people out there are rolling their eyes at me.
Miscellaneous ($303.25, 8.8%) - Look, for boring reasons I took out a bunch of cash when I was in Michigan. I used this to pay for tips for flower deliveries, when we got our nails done, and for random coffees I got when I just needed something to get me through the day. I have not tracked this money and I still have some of it.
Travel ($376.12, 10.9%) - This was what I paid for a rental car when I went to Michigan.
Health ($381.63, 11%) - This is the bill for when I went to see the orthopedist about my leg and for some prescription toothpaste.
Groceries ($736.82, 21.3%) - Despite all of the chaos, we still HAVE TO EAT.
Pets ($1061, 30.6%) - Why so much, you say? Well, we boarded Hannah TWICE this month. Which is TWICE MORE than we have in literal years. We found a place in
northern Illinois that has separate kennels for each dog, so she didn't have to hang with other dogs. So $650 of this is just boarding for Hannah and the rest of it was the usual mess of food, probiotics for both of them, and Hannah getting a Seresto collar (that lasts for eight months).
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Outside of bills and food, what was your largest expense last month?
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Been there with the pet spending! I'd love to find a friend who I could trust that would love to spend time with a sassy Shepherd, but until that day comes along the boarding fees are worth the peace of mind to know that Doggo is in a good situation when we're away.
ReplyDeleteI dunno who qualifies as a "personal finance person" but being able to save anything in a weird and spendy month always gets a round of applause from me.
It is so unfair that the need to plan, prepare, and eat meals doesn’t pause when life is chaotic. $300 in cash for miscellaneous stuff sounds really really reasonable.
ReplyDeleteTell me more about the cat sitter please. Is this a person you know? Do you also pay them? Do they stay with Zelda while you are away or take her home or come visit her? If they visit, how often? What kind of gift does one get a cat sitter?
(This is Suzanne.)
I'm pretty sure most personal finance people would say great job on managing to put something I to savings in a month a crazy, unexpected expenses.
ReplyDeleteOur biggest expense was bathroom renovations- my husband did most of the work. He hired a plumber to make cuts on scary pipes and then had him do a few other little things as he wanted to use the full hour he had to pay for. And the really spiffy new rainshower shower head with a hand help part as well. And the 17 extra trips to Menards for the things that cropped up.
Oh lord, dog boarding is SO expensive. We did that only for a couple days earlier this month because we went to Calgary and couldn't take Rex, but he's going to the "country club" as they call it for three weeks and I am NOT looking forward to that expense. It's crazy! But I don't have a better option so $$$ it is. (Jake could technically look after him but he's currently working 11-12 hour days so that isn't a good option).
ReplyDeleteOh wait, I just realized we are talking about August. Well. Other than groceries...let's see...I guess my expenditures were gifts, theatre and dinner with the girls, replenishing my greeting card stash (I got that idea from you!), hepatitis A vaccine for me and Rob at the travel clinic, my annual substack subscriptions came up, omg I spent a lot of money. Also my Nutrafol, which I get delivered twice a year to save the shipping. That was pricey. Sheesh! What an expensive month!