Saturday, September 5, 2015

August budget wrap up

I'm finally getting around to taking care of all my month end activities. :-) Here's a quick look at how we did on our August budget.

Short story, we were over by $353. 

The good news first. We were under in the following categories:

  • Childcare, by $300. Our nanny didn't start until the 2nd week, when school began.
  • Entertainment, by $50, which is our entire monthly budget. We had a lot going on this month, so didn't get around to spending this.
We were over in the following categories:
  • Dining out, by $162. Bleh. We had one expensive date night, plus a bunch of smaller meals out when I was at my event last weekend (I treated everyone to breakfast) & M took the kids out multiple times when I was gone, as he was juggling multiple soccer games, etc.
  • Groceries, by $341. I'm frankly just embarrassed by this one. M does the majority of the grocery shopping (the bigger, Costco sized trips). I know that August had one more Saturday in it (we do all of our shopping weekly, on Saturdays), which made a big difference. We also bought fresh fish twice to grill, which is pretty far out of our normal budget.
  • Rent, by $200. Our rent is now $200/month higher, but I still have a set monthly 2015 budget. I'll officially increase this category in 2016, & figure out which categories to reduce accordingly.

We had a few other categories where we were over or under by smaller amounts, but nothing notable.

So, what am I going to do about being over budget? :-) The real question, right? Getting down to brass tacks, how am I going to improve? Here are my ideas for the month:

  1. No grocery shopping this weekend. Should be easy. The fridge has plenty & I want to eat down our existing stores anyway. This should save $85-100 (average trip)
  2. Minimal dining out. This could be trickier. I have a work trip coming up in a few weeks, and M tends to eat out more with the kids when I'm gone. But, if we don't have a date night, that should still work out okay.
  3. No planned spending in some of our other categories: liquor, toiletries, etc. 
It still may not make up the gap, as our childcare is increasing & we have the rent increase. Soccer practices & drop off schedules just generally mean our nanny this year is working about 15-30 minutes/day longer than last year, which adds up quickly. 

How do you adjust when you go over budget? What is your go to plan to make up the difference? How did you do with your August budget?

2 comments:

  1. I just found your blog from your commenting on mine-very nice to read your post. It is hard to stay on budget with work trips. My husband did the same. I like to force myself to "use it up" to try and get back on track. Also double cooking for planned leftovers is a help.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I've been reading your blog for a while - it's great. :-) I've been using up a lot of mini items (not quite a full meal for four, if you know what i mean) from the freezer, fridge & pantry this week to free up more room for freezer stocking & money savings!

      Delete