February Financial Wrap Up

Rather than posting every last nitty gritty category, I thought I would try out a hopefully more visually compelling/easily digestible version of our February financial wrap up. :-)

Here goes! (The first number listed is the budgeted amount, followed by actual spend).

Categories where we were on track, or under budget for our monthly spending:

• Groceries!!! Finally. :-) I increased our budget for the month, knowing that we would be entertaining family one weekend. We were right at goal, for the first time ever! Budget $650/spent $648
• Boys lessons. I predicted that we would spend $0, and we did.
• Gas. $400/335.
• Utilities. $875/555
• Personal. $50/30
• Boys. $50/5
• Primary mortgage. $4850/$4669. I think my budget number is off - need to adjust this for March.
• Insurance. $320/320.
• Vacation mortgage. $2600/$2600.
• Boys birthdays. $400/337.

Categories where we were over:

• Dining out. We came very close, & I'm pretty pleased, given that it was my birthday, Valentine's Day, my son's birthday, & we had company in town over a weekend. $400/$421.
• Boys clothes. Already described, but needed to replace two winter coats. $0/76.
• Clothes for me. $0/37 (minusing the $100 of gift money I received).
• Gifts. $0/$191. I was reimbursed for some of this, but lost track. Maybe $100?
• Travel. We have a yearly fund, but I didn't anticipate paying for anything this month. We bought tickets for our trip to San Diego in May. $0/735.
• Childcare. We cancelled a vacation due to a work conflict, and ended up having to enroll the boys in a winter break camp. $1675/1915.
• Health. $0/120. Registered for a couple of runs.
• House. $25/136. We were out of a bunch of stuff for the house (laundry soap, etc).
• Car. $25/860. This was the category where we were the most off track. Mostly unexpected expenses for my car.
• Liquor. $0/60. Bought extra beer & wine for the family gathering we had.
• College fund. $0/326. Half of this was funded via birthday gifts.
• Cleaning. $400/560. Switched to a new cleaning service, & did a one-time deep clean.
• Skiing. $320/327.

Total spend for the month = $14,615.

Total income for the month = $13,225*. (*Note that I put 15% of my net salary into an investment account that returns a fixed quarterly amount, and save that for the bigger expenses like travel, etc. Since I only get the money quarterly, I count in the month received.)

Sources of income:

• $20 - sold a pair of kids ski boots my youngest grew out of.
• $100 - birthday money for me. I went shopping & bought a few sweaters & a dress.
• $170 - birthday money for my oldest. Used to fund college account.
• $1645 - FSA (preschool/after care reimbursement).
• $11,268 - standard monthly paychecks
• $22 - Ebates

My goal for March is to be under $13,000! Assuming we have no major car expenses, or other random expenses, I think we might be able to pull it off. Fingers crossed.

How did you do with you budget in February?

January Financial Wrap Up

January is coming to a close, & I'm planning to call this month - The One Where We Spent Less than Budgeted. Definitely a shocker, if you've been reading my blog for any length of time. :-)

Our budget for the month was $12,679, and we ended up spending $12,557. Of course, we spent more than expected in some categories, and far less than expected in one notable category. The way our refinance on our vacation property played out, the first payment is being withdrawn tomorrow (2/1), instead of 1/31 as expected. This meant that $2600 that was allocated for that mortgage was not spent. Given the "slush", I reallocated some funds & purchased each kid two tuition credits, and made an additional $1000 payment on our HELOC. (The HELOC will now be the focus of our additional mortgage payments, as it's currently at the highest interest rate.)

Here's our income for the month:

• Employee stock purchase (it's taken out of my paycheck each month & then sold quarterly) - $1,993
• Stock dividend from an investment - $490
• Reimbursement from my dependent care account ($5K is taken out of my paycheck during the course of the year, & I get reimbursed for daycare spend - up to $5K) - $1645
• Paychecks - $11,268
• Total income for the month = $15,396

I am coming closer & closer on groceries each month, but have never actually hit our goal of $600. Maybe I should just raise to $650 & find another category to trim? Decisions. . .

Categories where we were over:

• Groceries. My nemesis. Budget was $600, and we spent $651.
• Dining out. Very ambitious goal was $100, and we spent $383.95. When creating the budget, I forgot that we were taking the kids to an overnight water park, and would be eating out for four meals in a row.
• Boys lessons. All of our normal adventures were covered, but I didn't know that baseball sign up happened in January. Lesson learned. Budget was $0, and we spent $320.
• Vacation house utilities. I inadvertently forgot to set up bill pay for a bill in December, so I owed double the amount (plus a small fee, so annoyed at myself) in January. This month's budget was particularly big because we pay a yearly fee to a maintenance/home watch service. Budget was $650, and actual spend was $742.57
• Travel. Again, forgot that we were going to the water park. The deposit was paid some time ago, but this includes tax on the room, the locker rental, etc. Budget was zero and we spent $50.
• Childcare. We ended up having to pay for extra care when schools were closed a few weeks ago, but we still had to work. Couldn't be helped. Budget was our standard $1675, and we spent $1765.
• Health. I registered for two races. I don't have a very big line item for this category, but if I get into running, training, and races as I hope, I'm going to look at raising this permanently. Budget was $0, and I spent $146.10.
• Makeup. Goal was to spend $0, but I brought a eye brow pencil (which I'll say is AMAZING - brand = Anastasia) & spent $14.78
• Liquor. My goal was to spend $0, but I ended up buying beer for M a few times. He likes beer after skiing, and our house was stocked on wine, but beer-less. We spent $18.29. 
• Charitable donations. We didn't have any money line itemed this month (we have everything auto-deducted from our paycheck), but ended up donating $100 to an auction at my son's school.
• Clothes for M. Budget was $0, but he needed jeans. Total spend = $97.35
• Boys birthdays. I picked up a few items, and I had budgeted for these categories in February and March. Total budget was $0, and I spent $137.54.

 Categories where we spent less than anticipated, on track, or paid down more than expected on a loan, etc.

• Primary residence mortgage. Typical payment is $4850. We applied extra principal, and came in at $5835.
• Boys college. We had nothing budgeted, but ended up using some of our extra funds to buy two tuition credits per child, so total spend was $652.
• Gas. Budget was $450, and we spent $404.
• Primary residence utilities. For some reason, not very many bills have come in yet this month. I'm sure next month will be larger as a result. Total budget was $675. Total spend was $390.
• Boys clothes. I returned a few things I bought in January. Budget was $0, and we came in at -$45.96. Yeah!
• Clothes for me. Same as above. Budget was $0, and we came in at -$108.76.
• Personal. Budget was $75, and we came in at $34.
• House. Budget was $75, and we came in at $56.67.
• Car. Budget was $50, and we came in at $9.71. We did, however, buy a 2011 Audi SUV, but that came out of cash & wasn't part of our regular monthly budget. Love it!
• Boys (misc). This is my catch all category, since we don't have an entertainment line item. Budget was $25, and we spent $17.25 for two movie tickets on New Year's Day - took my son to see Alvin & The Chipmunks. :-)
• Insurance. Exactly at our budgeted amount of $199.50. :-)
• Cleaning. Budget was $380, and we spent $300. The cleaner couldn't make it when it snowed.
• Christmas. Budget was $0, and we spent $0. Haven't started stocking up yet.
• Vacation residence. Budget was $2600, and as noted, we spent $0.
• Skiing. Budget was $200, and we spent $154. We didn't get to ski last Sunday, as it was raining.

If you made it all the way through that laundry list, you deserve a prize! Focus for the month ahead is to find a few categories to trim back, as our car insurance is going up substantially with the addition of a new car. We'll be removing our third car at some point, but haven't made any final decisions on that.

How did you do with your January spending? On track? Over? Under?

November Financial Wrap Up

I feel like I'm finally getting a better handle on our money, and how to adjust it monthly to cover variances. Tracking our spending has been *incredibly* eye opening, and we've now completed our third month of budget tracking.

First up, a summary.

• Our regular income for November was $14,088
• Stock awards that I was granted years ago finally vested, and totaled  $6,862.65 (this is a "bonus" from my employer, based on performance)
• M received an $80,000 (after-tax) bonus

Total income for the month was $100,950. Obviously, this was an odd month & our standard income is usually the $14K number.

Total spend for the month was $16,021.12. This is approximately $3,647.12 over our intended spend for the month. That said, $1956 of that overspending was intentional, and we used some of the stock award money to fulfill our 2011 goal of balancing out our kids college funds. (Our older son's fund was substantially higher than our younger son's GET account, due to a huge rise in tuition costs.) The accounts are now even, and both funded at 40% completion (tuition credits only). That leaves $1,691.12 that we overspent & didn't intend to. . . Oops.

The rest of the stock vest will be used to cover closing costs next week, as we're refinancing our vacation mortgage from a 30 year to a 15 year, at a better rate.

The planned spending for the $80,000 bonus is as follows:

• $35K to M's 401K loan payoff. (We took this loan out a year or so ago to buy down our own primary mortgage to get us under a jumbo loan and greatly reduce our payments.)
• $5K for a spring break trip to Hawaii. I'm still working to see if I can fly four of us to Hawaii for a reasonable amount.
• $5K to the boys college accounts.
• $35K to our savings account, earmarked for a replacement for M's car when the time comes.

Back to our regular budget. . .

We spent less than planned on the following categories:

• Gas. Budget was $600 (I bumped it up from $500, as we drove to our vacation house 2x this month) & we spent $493.71
• Utilities for vacation house. This is likely because we weren't there in October using power/heat/water, so November's bills were lower.
• Gifts (excludes Christmas). I was able to use gift cards and a store credit to purchase the two birthday gifts that I needed.
• Travel. I budgeted $50 for parking when I had my girls trip with my mother & sister, but parking turned out to be free.
• Primary mortgage. I think I must have just made a typo in the number of what we typically pay, because I know we paid our full payments, but it's $50 less than I was expected. I'm guessing this is my own math error. ;-)

We spent as planned in the following categories:

• Boys lessons. No bills were due this month, as most of their activities/lessons are paid quarterly. I was able to predict this (through the magic of budgeting & tracking!)
• Personal. I budgeted and spent the amount expected on the tip for my free massage & M got his hair cut as planned.
• Charity. Our donations were scheduled via our standard payroll deductions. I did pick up a few angel tree items, but those were purchased with a gift card, so not out of our income.
• Insurance. Our car insurance remained the same.

We spent more than planned in the following categories:

• Groceries. AGAIN. Grrrr. I'm definitely a work in progress on this one. The good news? I spent less than last month! :-) $687.95, and my budget was $600.
• Dining out. I knew this month would be expensive for dining out, but didn't predict appropriately. In addition, M & I ate out for lunch a few times as mini-dates, even though the bulk of our eating out budget was used up by other things. This included: lunch, dinner, drinks, & breakfast on my girls trip. I'll be getting back $95 from my sister for her portion, so recalculated base on how much I spent . . . budget was $300 & we spent $490.25
• Primary residence utilities. I was double billed by our garbage company, so I should be under next month. Budget was $700 & we spent $736.70
• Boys clothes. I took advantage of a few Black Friday deals, to stock our vacation house with clothes and pajamas in the next size up. They will need shoes next month, but should be good to go for clothing. Budget was $0, and we spent $251.23
• My clothes. I had to buy a few items this month (trouser socks, a pair of flats) in the ongoing saga of finding appropriate footwear. I have a broken bone in my foot & can't wear the vast majority of shoes that I own. Budget was $50 & I spent $131.14.
• Child care. I was almost correct with my predictions on this one, but ended up taking the boys to our gym one Saturday to get in a work out when M was out of town. My gift to myself. :-) Budget was $1710, and we spent $1718.
• Health. N had the unexpected dental work, which set us back $195.58. Budget was $0.
• Cars. M's car needed a few things (standard repairs), but I foolishly forgot that November is the month I have to renew my registration. Budget was $200, and we spent $258.20
• Boys (misc). M has a bad habit of picking up toys/gifts for the kids when he's out of town. Budget was $0, and we spent $51.96
• Liquor. I'm actually kind of embarrassed to put this out there, but what's a little shame among friends? ;-) Budget was $40, and we spent $211.57. I had to replace two items in our standard stock, which was the bulk of this. We did not actually consume this much alcohol, & I feel compelled to point out that we typically have 1-2 glasses of wine or drinks on weekends, and that's it. We did bring wine to a few holiday events as well.
• Boys college funds. As noted, I had zero budgeted for this, but decided to complete our 2011 goal & add $1956 to my younger son's account.
• Cleaning. We pay weekly, and November had more Wednesdays than a typical month. Budget was $346, and we spent $400.
• Christmas. I picked up our Christmas cards yesterday, & came in under budget. All that's left are a few stocking items for M, the treat I will plan for N's preschool class, & postage for the cards. Yeah! Overall, I'm under budget for this. However, the way I created the budget, I divided the total into October, November, & December. I will not need the December funds, so while October is over, I'm under for the holiday as a whole. Clear as mud, right? ;-) I spent $872.28, but will be getting $323 back from others, making my total spend $549.28. My budget for the month was $350.
• Vacation mortgage. I made a small extra principal payment, and our insurance has gone up, so our escrow/total payment is higher each month. Budget was $1950, total spent was $1973.54. We are actually mid-way through refinancing this to a 15 year mortgage, so I 'll be completely re-doing the numbers again for December.

Wow, if you made it all the way through that, you deserve a prize! How did you fare in November? Any big wins, or areas that you'll focus on in December?

October Financial Wrap Up

First off, I'm nervous posting this. I realize we're in a different financial situation than many other personal finance bloggers (we make more/and spend more) & I am a little anxious posting our budget and income. My goals in posting are to keep myself on track, share how we allocate our money, and get feedback from all of you savvy folks.

Okay, with that said, here goes. :-)

You'll note that our expenses were higher than our income this month. While not typical, we do have months where we go over. We have standard income (the same every month) that I use for our regular expenses. We also have non-standard income that we use for things like: travel, the boys college funds, savings, and months where we're over our budget. The non-standard income generally comes in the form of bonuses (I get this 1x/year in September, M is eligible for a bonus 4x/year + stock awards from our employers.) We save this non-standard income for various specific line-items (college funds, travel, house repairs) & the also keep a more general savings slush fund for unexpected expenses.

Tracking our expenses has been extremely helpful! This is our first month of tracking everything (before I only tracked "variable" expenses) & we're going to be making a lot of adjustments going forward as a result.

Income: $14,088. (Typical monthly income from our employers. M also won $700 at a casino that we used to offset some of our anniversary trip. That $700 isn't included in our income number).

Total Spent - $16,859.24

Where did all of that money go? I've listed out all of our expenses, grouped by budget item & also where we're over. As noted, we had some extra money leftover from September (that's when I receive my bonus & stock awards) that I used to: make extra payments on our vacation house, & fund the boys college accounts). We typically have charitable contributions taken out of our paychecks automatically, but I made several extra donations this month, which is why it has no budget allocation.

Fall 2011 Budget	Budget	Actual	Over/Under
Groceries	600	756.42	-156.42
Dining Out	200	458.63	-258.63
Boys Lessons	200	465.5	-265.5
Gas	500	404.71	95.29
Vacation Utilities	200	244.87	-44.87
Primary Utilities	700	803.7	-103.7
Boys Clothes	50	167.21	-117.21
Adult Clothes	50	-281.35	331.35
Gifts	100	790.35	-690.35
Travel	0	1149.37	-1149.37
Child Care	1675	1715	-40
Personal	100	543.57	-443.57
Health	20	18.43	1.57
House	100	360.99	-260.99
Car	50	17.7	32.3
Boys (Misc)	50	26.38	23.62
Liquor	100	168.85	-68.85
Primary Mortg	4850	4800	50
Boys College	0	978	-978
Insurance	200	199.5	0.5
Cleaning	346	320	26
Charity	0	245	-245
Christmas	333	194.54	138.46
Vacation Mortg	1950	2311.87	-361.87
	12374	16859.24	-4485.24

Highlights:

• I was able to pay an extra $361 towards our vacation mortgage, & have now paid off 7.25% of the overall loan. Yeah!
• I put close to $1000 in college accounts for the kids ($978, to be exact.) :-)
• We were under on gas for the first time in A LONG time.
• I returned a few clothing items that I bought in September. It's kind of a highlight, but I overspent that budget item in September, so not sure that it's a net budget win. :-)

Lowlights:

• We're over on groceries. Again. This month included a bunch of random grocery purchases: the treats that I made for a Halloween party we're more than $25! It was my own foolish mistake that made this happen. I was also in charge of soccer snacks for two separate games, made meals for several families that are struggling, and brought a few meals to family get togethers.
• It's our first time to separate alcohol from grocery spending, and the goal is to understand where the money is really going. We typically stock up on wine when Costco carries it, as they don't carry it regularly.
• Boys lessons - this wildly varies month to month depending on when we have to sign them up for a new session. We are thinking of cutting this back a bit, as it feels crazy high!
• Gifts. Wow. I will be getting reimbursed for $300 of one gift, but we had a ton of events to buy for in October. We'll see how this category stacks up month after month & whether our budget needs to be adjusted and/or our spending needs to be trimmed.
• Travel. I'll be getting reimbursed about $250 in this category, as I booked a room that my sister & I are sharing. The rest was our anniversary trip. We had a great time, but it was extremely pricey for one night, & we likely won't be doing something like that again. We'll either do a 3 day weekend & spend a bit more but go somewhere, or just do a fancy dinner at home.
• Personal. I had several appointments fall in the month of October, and the rest is actually my personal training expense from September - the billing cycle if funky. (I've canceled my training going forward).
• House. We're over on the house because we had to have our oven repaired. It was leaking gas!

So, that's where we netted out for October. I'd love your input - is the way I'm tracking income confusing? Do you want to see our irregular income included? Anything else that I can add so this makes sense? Questions? How did your October go?