April budget review - how did we do?

Every month I try to recap our budget, and learn from areas we were over. As I can. Some categories are continual challenges. ;-)

I break our spending into two categories - yearly expenses (travel, house, car repairs) & monthly expenses. All told, we were over by a total of $355. Not too shabby, given our budget size. 

Areas where we were over:

• Dining out, by $204. This was due to: me traveling (M tends to take the boys out for at least one dinner), about $40 on dining out for my girls trip, and a date night. 
• Groceries, by $198. Every. month. Yes, I realize this means that I need to raise our grocery budget. I'm just sort of in denial. ;-) 
• Alcohol, over by $188. More fancy wine
• Utilities, by $31. I think this is because our quarterly water bill was due. 

And, areas where we were under:

• Cleaning, by $180. Used some saved cash to pay for this instead.
• Gas, by $70. Just less driving & spending in this area. 

Almost every other category was pretty much right on the money. We were under in childcare by $3, entertainment by $9, Insurance by $5.

I still need to do a recap of where our spending stands on the yearly budget categories, as the year is 1/3 over - time to check in! What about you? How did you do with your April spending? Overall, our net worth dropped in April for the first time in a long time - down about $13K thanks to our taxes. (We actually paid much more than that, but also made money in April, so they offset each other somewhat). Let's hope for a big upswing in May!!