Wednesday, February 5, 2014

January Financial Recap - where did all the money go?

Each month, I attempt to recap how we spent our money, and categories where we were over or under.

Here are the highlights (& lowlights from January):

Income (note that this doesn't include retirement, charitable donations, or healthcare, all of which is deducted automatically before we ever see the money):
Standard pay - $21,700
Bonus pay - $8,400
Total income for January = $30,100

Highlights:
We were at or below spending targets in the following categories:

  • Boys (general bucket category) 
  • Boys clothes
  • Boys college
  • Boys lessons
  • Childcare (saved cash in December to pay for January's date night)
  • Cleaning (the cleaner was on vacation, so we cleaned & saved $180)
  • Gas
  • Gifts
  • Health
  • Insurance
  • My clothes
  • Rent
  • Liquor
  • Vacation mortgage
  • M's clothes
  • Personal
  • Seattle house utilities
Lowlights:
Areas where we were over our spending:
  • Boys birthdays. Over by $7. Bought both boys a present (an organizer for their Rainbow Loom bands, which have taken over my house.) :-)
  • Car - over by $967. :-( Major repair needed on my car, which is 9 years old.
  • Dining out - over by $204, mostly due to my work trip. I had no idea I would have to pay for my own meals. Groan.
  • Dry cleaning - over by $19. We've primarily switched to Dryel, and had to restock our supply.
  • Entertainment - over by $90. We added this category for 2014, and ended up going on a day trip to Monterey. We'll balance this out by not doing anything similar in February.
  • Groceries - over by $15. So close!
  • House - over by $120. These were for our legal documents. Doesn't really belong in this category, but this is my "placeholder" category. ;-)
  • San Francisco utilities - over by $109. The insulation in this house sucks big time, and the windows don't even seal. On "cold" nights, the heat runs forever.
  • Vacation house utilities - over by $400. We have a yearly pay for a handyman/watch service that checks on our property weekly. Critical since we're not in the area.
  • Toiletries - over by $56. We were out of everything. Hopefully we're stocked up & can lower this substantially in the next few months.
  • Travel - over by $170. I purchased my mom's ticket to fly out and watch the boys in April.
  • Seattle house mortgage - over by $17,748. Not really. ;-) We transferred $15,000 from savings to our HELOC, to reduce our interest. Our December payment also cleared in January, so two payments cleared during the same month. 

In total, we spent $20,662 (removing the $15,000 transfer, as that's mostly just shuffling money around). Our planned expenses were $19,098, so we were over by $1,600. We average out all of our yearly totals, so there are some totals that don't make sense on a monthly scale. In general, the only anomaly that concerns me for our yearly budget is the car expense of $1167. That will definitely put a dent in our yearly budget. 

How did you do with your January spending? Are you on track? If not, how will you adjust your spending to get back on track? 


3 comments:

  1. I think you did good. reducing your mortgage always feels nice, right? :)

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  2. I just calculated our January spending. I didn't have any goals to start the month with and we haven't been tracking - so not a lot of comparisons to make right now.

    I still can't believe you had to pay for all your own meals on a work trip! No reimbursement??!! I would be so irritated.

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  3. That’s a lot of expenses. It’s difficult to handle all of this, but looking at the areas that you’re covered with like car major repair, birthdays, utilities, and more; it’s relieving. Just keep your spirit up, and for sure things will get better soon.

    Taleen

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