Categories where we were over:
- Boys (misc) - we bought our older son a bike (used, on Craigslist) as he grew out of his. We also bought the boys bike locks, so they could ride to school & securely lock up. Over by $163.95.
- Childcare - I paid for & booked all of our summer camps. Crazy expensive. I bid on two in the school auction, so I saved $150, but all in all, the childcare costs will go down for the summer. Thank goodness. It's mostly just prepayment of future costs. Over by $3,016.
- Dining out - over by $16.2. Mostly from a lunch out at Great America at Easter. I won't even get into the food prices. And, we ordered two sandwiches from Subway - this wasn't exactly fancy. INSANITY.
- Entertainment - over by $346. We bought season passes to Great America, & expect to use the water park passes regularly during the summer. It's already 95 here! This also included our Easter visit, and parking. I do need to figure out how to keep the food costs down, so we can afford to go semi-regularly. I also feel compelled to confess that I got really into a series & bought & read 9 books! I'm a little ashamed - I rarely pay for books.
- Gas - over by $83. This is unusual for us. I guess this is driving to more soccer games.
- Groceries - over by $15. I'll take it! :-)
- Liquor - over by $58. My wine was on sale, so we stocked up.
- Mortgage - over by $25. The insurance went up slightly, so I'll be over every month until the end of the year, as I measure the yearly budget against actual.
- Vacation house utilities - over by $14. We're paying a yard guy to mow, and keeping the house warm for showings, both in the goal of eventually reducing our expenses. :-)
- Toiletries - over by $11.
- And, the grand daddy of expenses. We paid $15,038 in taxes.
Adios, April. I won't miss your expenses at all!
On the plus side, we came in under a few other categories. Net/net (minusing the taxes), we were over for the month by $500. Not terribly shabby.
We are setting a goal of actively trying to pay down our second mortgage on our Seattle house (and of course, selling our vacation house), so that we can eventually figure out the housing situation here. We owe just under $150K on it, so it's going to take some creative thinking to get it paid off.
How about you? How did your April turn out?
What series of books are you reading?
ReplyDeleteOuch to the expenses....especial taxes. OUCH.
Our taxes were a pretty good hit as well. Not only ours as a couple. but as I am the executor of my Mom's estate, and we cashed in a lot of assets during the past year (she died in Jan. 14) because she was in assisted living, enhanced assisted living, and then nursing home care. The tax hit for her estate was fairly substantial too, even though I was expecting it. Almost had a cash flow problem with the estate---the bills come in quickly and the cashing in of assets is a slower situation. I know I have to keep the bank account open for a set amount of time, but I really thought for a while that I might have to be lending it some of my own money. I already did that in order to file the will, although I can pay myself back any time now. Crazy things happening in my world. Next on our agenda is putting her house up for sale as we have most of it cleaned up now. Still some furnishings to be sold/donated, but we're almost there.
ReplyDeleteWow, what a lousy tax bill. That sucks. And childcare - so high! I think season passes are such a good idea. We once bought a seasons pass to the Canada National Parks and loved going to see the buffalo whenever we wanted (near Edmonton they roam free on a very gigantic piece of land) Very peaceful. If you had that kind of month and were only $500 over - well done. We went over a couple hundred on spending money, approx $300 on our trip mostly due to eating out more than we planned. I hate to be too cheapo on holidays. That is for home lol.
ReplyDelete