Thursday, December 5, 2013

Where did all of the money go - the November Edition

November was an unusual month - I got my first two (complete) paychecks, as well as my sign on bonus.

Net Income for the month:
Standard income (both me + M) = $12,800
Sign on bonus = $10,080
Total income = $22,880

Total spending for the month = $11,990

The other roughly $10,000 went to our savings account, to save for our anticipated 2013 taxes.

Spending categories (note that for this month, I'm not including our $5,000/month rent in California, as it's our last month of getting reimbursed for our relocation. I'm also not including our rental income from our Seattle house, as the first month mainly goes towards property management fees). Slight errors due to rounding:


  • Seattle house mortgage - $4,124
  • Vacation house mortgage - $2,250
  • Child care - $1,167
  • Seattle house utilities/yard service - $703
  • Christmas - $619
  • Groceries - $499
  • Utilities on our current/California house - $434
  • Cleaning service - $360
  • Gas - $324
  • Boys clothes - $322
  • House - $266
  • Insurance - $231
  • Boys - $194
  • Liquor - $170
  • Dining out - $150
  • Health - $95
  • Personal - $76
  • Car - $24
  • My clothes - -$13
  • Gifts - -$7
Commentary on the spending:


Highlights:

  1. We stuck to our grocery budget!
  2. We spent nothing on vacation house utilities (billing cycle) & boys activities.
  3. I returned a shirt, and spent $0 on clothes.
  4. I used a Nordstrom reward to buy a birthday gift for a friend.
  5. Christmas - we're on track with our spending.
  6. Not noted on our spending, but I managed to max out my retirement. (Most of it was done earlier in the year, but I put $3,500 in to hit the IRS max with my sign on bonus.)
Lowlights:
  1. Seattle house utilities. I can't believe how high they were! I can only imagine that the construction crew had all lights blaring 24x7 all day, every day for months at a time. Luckily, our renter has now taken over everything but $160/month, as we're including yard service in the rental arrangement.
  2. Lest you think we're lushes, the liquor budget included an expensive bottle of champagne, & two bottles of wine - all of which we brought to the Thanksgiving we attended.
  3. Boys clothes - we had to buy both kids two new pair of shoes each, and my older son outgrew his entire wardrobe. Underwear, socks, jeans, jackets, you name it.

I think that pretty much sums it up! Lots of areas for improvement in 2014, but we finally have renters for our Seattle house. That should tidy up our cash flow quite a bit.

How about you? How did you do with your November spending? Which categories are you hoping to change in 2014?

7 comments:

  1. What a relief to have renters in Seattle now that you have to pay your rent in Cali!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We are super excited about it! It's going to make a huge difference in our cash flow. We actually have a great relocation package & get to deduct three months of taxes, interest & insurance in our Seattle house as well. But, don't let anyone ever tell you that moving an entire family at the same time that you have to remodel a house to get it ready to rent - no relocation package can even touch the costs associated with that!!!

      Delete
  2. Wow.. you guys are lushes... :P ;) lol!! My budget lately has been a flop, but now we REALLY need to tighten our belts. Everything cost soo much though, i'm having such a hard time making ends meet lately. *sigh* Tis the season...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For a minute there, I forgot about the expensive wine & champagne, & started to worry about us. ;-) We definitely have a couple of glasses of wine on weekends, but we're not big partiers or anything. Promise!

      Delete
  3. I need to do a post about our November spending yet. We were good except for groceries. My husband took over the shopping after baby. Oh well, like I'm going to get annoyed with him for doing everything?

    Contractors always use the electricity where they're working but that doesn't really seem fair to me. You have to pay them and pay for their electric cost on top of that.

    Yay for staying in your grocery budget. That's never an easy feat.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's awesome that you could set aside a nice sum towards taxes.

    Our November budget went down the drain... Now we are just trying to survive through the end of the year and expect the unexpected in 2014 :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Tis the season to imbibe, no regrets on some lushiness :) You definitely are a budgeter and saver otherwise would be hit with high tax bills.

    ReplyDelete