Each month I like to put together a “spending report” to keep myself accountable for how much money I’m spending and saving. January is always a tough month, because I’m trying to get myself out of the holiday spending mode. Surprisingly I’m actually pretty pleased with how the year started. Thanks to my trusty excel spreadsheet, I was able to stay on track and on budget. Here’s how my expenses looked by category:
| Grocery/Misc. | $241.56 |
| USPS | $29.25 |
| Web Hosting | $123.56 |
| Cell Phone | $126.08 |
| Storage | $114.96 |
| Rent | $900.00 |
| Total Spent: | $1,535.41 |
My goal each month is to spend less then $1,500 on all of my expenses, so I can save $1,500 for my house down payment fund. As you can see, I was a over budget this month by $35.41. But I actually sold a few things on e-bay and received my ebates rebate check, dropping my total monthly spending below budget! If you don’t have a budget or are curious how I make my budget, check out this budgeting post. Want to know my monthly target budget amounts by category? Find them here.
Do you have a Budget? How did you do last month?
2 comments
Michelle
February 14, 2012 at 7:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Such discipline–love it!! Last month, we just started really budgeting, so we don’t have a lot of historical data. Our biggest saver so far has been groceries, consolidating credit cards, and getting rid of stuff we didn’t need (like cable!) Good luck on saving up for a house!
Kari
February 15, 2012 at 9:18 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hi Michelle, cutting back on things you don’t need is a good way to start. I’ve always been a natural budgeter (just didn’t have any money to budget since I was in school for so long). My real “crazy budgeting” as my friends call it, started after I watched a news clip about an extreme couponer in MA (this was several years back before that TLC show extreme couponers). It’s amazing how much I’ve been able to cut my grocery bill just using coupons and following the sale cycles.