Wednesday, July 2, 2014

June spending recap - where did all of the money go?

At the end of each month, I review our entire budget & share where we went over our targets, and any learnings from the month.

Here goes!

Areas where we were over:

  • Boys activities - They both were selected for a competitive soccer team (lots of $$). Previously, expenses for their lessons were lower than expected, as the payments are due twice per year. Over by $375.
  • Groceries - over by $120, thanks to our fridge/freezer outage. 
  • Vacation house utilities - we're now paying for regular yard service, to keep the house "show ready", so over by $130.
  • Taxes - this is the longstanding dispute over our 2011 taxes and an employer error. It's over now, but we had to pay $5600. I'm not bitter. . . 
  • Travel - over by $550. Bought all tickets for summer travel, which pushed us over the standard budget. 

With all of the overages, and a few small underages, we came in over our monthly budget by $2,550. Yikes!!

Total spend for the month = $21,650
Total income for the month = $19,317

NEVER a good month when you're spending exceeds your income.

Learnings from the month:

  • It may make more sense to consider some of these expenses as yearly (ie. boys lessons, taxes, travel, etc), and track them separately. Good action item for me to rework this, because the monthly model doesn't make sense in each category.
  • Restocking a fridge & freezer is expensive!
  • I'm SO overwhelmingly happy to have the 2011 tax situation behind us. And, in related news, we're meeting with a tax planner next week to help us get up to speed on 2014, and start planning! It's been a goal for several years to hand this off to someone who can help us better prepare and maximize our situation, and we're finally doing it.
  • Still no bites on our vacation home. We need to reconsider what we're doing with this, as keeping it on the market is expensive from an upkeep perspective.
And, that's it! That's how our June went. How about you? Did you stay on track & on budget in June? 

4 comments:

  1. Yes, you are NOT bitter and that makes you a better person than I....... ;-)

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  2. What does your realtor say about your vacation house? Vacation houses are really moving here. Maybe the economy is still lagging there? Are you just trying to break even? I hope you are able to sell soon.

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    1. The market is extremely small (I think they sell around 20 houses per year), so it very much depends on a small number of buyers & what they are looking for. We are asking for slightly under what we paid for it. We have paid off a bunch of the mortgage, so while we won't break even, we are not asking more than we paid for it.

      The realtor just says that it takes a long time to find the right buyer. We're about a mile off of the main drag, and those houses have been selling reasonably well, but if you're not directly in town, it takes a bit more time.

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