November closed and in the books! Last time we shared our budget summary it was a mid-month look. Now we are sharing our budget as of the end of a month to give you a better idea of how our budget is managed. As mentioned before, most of our category amounts roll over month to month (unused or overused). Rolling amounts allows us a little more flexibility to save up for things that we want to purchase at some point in the future, and handle variable or infrequent expenses like utilities or car repairs.
Category
|
Monthly Budget
|
Amount left
|
Tithes/Charity
|
750
|
47
|
Rent
|
1150
|
0
|
Electric
|
65
|
68
|
Water
|
40
|
103
|
Gas
|
70
|
33
|
Phone
|
10
|
4
|
Internet
|
35
|
-5
|
Groceries
|
230
|
10
|
Restaurants
|
120
|
89
|
Clothing
|
60
|
184
|
Cleaning/Laundry
|
10
|
132
|
Gas & Travel Expenses
|
135
|
-64
|
Repairs & Tires
|
120
|
185
|
Car Replacement
|
70
|
1480
|
Other Medical
|
80
|
-335
|
Entertainment
|
70
|
105
|
Vacation
|
70
|
50
|
Auto Insurance
|
167
|
0
|
Toiletries
|
10
|
68
|
Cosmetics/Hair Care
|
15
|
25
|
Gifts
|
140
|
678
|
Furniture/ Household
|
75
|
285
|
Tyler Pocket Money
|
50
|
27
|
Nicole Pocket Money
|
50
|
181
|
Nicole Student Loan
|
197
|
4
|
Tyler Private Loan
|
322
|
1
|
Tyler Federal Loan
|
194
|
0
|
Car Loan
|
1100
|
0
|
Miscellaneous
|
165
|
122
|
Fitness
|
5
|
288
|
Baby Things
|
50
|
42
|
Daughter’s Health Insurance
|
87
|
0
|
Water
|
40
|
103
|
Gas
|
70
|
33
|
Daycare
|
750
|
10
|
Yay! We ended the month favorably in most categories. A couple points I’d like to highlight based on our performance this year through November: First, let’s get the thorns in our side taken care of, Other Medical and Gas & Travel Expenses. As mentioned in our previous post, Other medical is negative because we underestimated our need for the year and ran out of FSA funds earlier than anticipated. We have been hit with more medical expenses for the last few months then we had originally budgeted for. Next is our constant struggle, Gas & Travel Expense. We took a trip out of state to visit family over Thanksgiving so we were obviously putting more gas in our vehicles, but even without that figured in, it is one account we have had difficulty managing appropriately even with some mid year revisions. Since our current budget software backs up individual transactions we are planning to dig into our spending data in this category to see what we can do to better manage this account in the future.
Some of the areas that we are doing well on have to do with our assumptions starting out. Two areas I’d like to highlight relate to life changes that we experienced in the recent past: utilities and baby expenses. We have been in our house a little over a year now, but coming from a one bedroom apartment we knew things would change, but just not how much. We did our best to estimate our need for the year and turns out our budget in our utilities category was greater than our need. Same can be said of our Baby Things category. With our daughter is coming up on 1.5 years we are still relatively new to this whole parenting and keeping another little human alive thing. As a result we budgeted a little higher than we actually have used so far.
With most things in our budget, we would prefer to have at least a little wiggle room for the unexpected. We do not try to budget so carefully so that every single dollar we have will be spent in a given month; we have several categories that serve as mini savings accounts (clothing, repairs & tires, car replacement, vacation, gifts, furniture/household) . We have those accounts so that we have money allocated for bigger ticket items we are saving for or for expenses that can’t necessarily be planned (car or home repairs being prime examples). It’s all about knowing what your financial goals are but not being so hung up on them that you don’t allow yourself any margin for errors (Gas & travel!) or the unexpected (Medical!) that is bound to occur.
We know our budget isn’t perfect and we have areas we need to understand better so we can budget appropriately for them in the coming months. We also have some sizable financial changes coming up for 2018 so keep an eye out for more posts on how we develop our budget strategy and financial goals for the upcoming year!
November closed and in the books! Last time we shared our budget summary it was a mid-month look. Now we are sharing our budget as of the end of a month to give you a better idea of how our budget is managed. As mentioned before, most of our category amounts roll over month to month (unused or overused). Rolling amounts allows us a little more flexibility to save up for things that we want to purchase at some point in the future, and handle variable or infrequent expenses like utilities or car repairs.
Category
|
Monthly Budget
|
Amount left
|
Tithes/Charity
|
750
|
47
|
Rent
|
1150
|
0
|
Electric
|
65
|
68
|
Water
|
40
|
103
|
Gas
|
70
|
33
|
Phone
|
10
|
4
|
Internet
|
35
|
-5
|
Groceries
|
230
|
10
|
Restaurants
|
120
|
89
|
Clothing
|
60
|
184
|
Cleaning/Laundry
|
10
|
132
|
Gas & Travel Expenses
|
135
|
-64
|
Repairs & Tires
|
120
|
185
|
Car Replacement
|
70
|
1480
|
Other Medical
|
80
|
-335
|
Entertainment
|
70
|
105
|
Vacation
|
70
|
50
|
Auto Insurance
|
167
|
0
|
Toiletries
|
10
|
68
|
Cosmetics/Hair Care
|
15
|
25
|
Gifts
|
140
|
678
|
Furniture/ Household
|
75
|
285
|
Tyler Pocket Money
|
50
|
27
|
Nicole Pocket Money
|
50
|
181
|
Nicole Student Loan
|
197
|
4
|
Tyler Private Loan
|
322
|
1
|
Tyler Federal Loan
|
194
|
0
|
Car Loan
|
1100
|
0
|
Miscellaneous
|
165
|
122
|
Fitness
|
5
|
288
|
Baby Things
|
50
|
42
|
Daughter’s Health Insurance
|
87
|
0
|
Water
|
40
|
103
|
Gas
|
70
|
33
|
Daycare
|
750
|
10
|
Yay! We ended the month favorably in most categories. A couple points I’d like to highlight based on our performance this year through November: First, let’s get the thorns in our side taken care of, Other Medical and Gas & Travel Expenses. As mentioned in our previous post, Other medical is negative because we underestimated our need for the year and ran out of FSA funds earlier than anticipated. We have been hit with more medical expenses for the last few months then we had originally budgeted for. Next is our constant struggle, Gas & Travel Expense. We took a trip out of state to visit family over Thanksgiving so we were obviously putting more gas in our vehicles, but even without that figured in, it is one account we have had difficulty managing appropriately even with some mid year revisions. Since our current budget software backs up individual transactions we are planning to dig into our spending data in this category to see what we can do to better manage this account in the future.
Some of the areas that we are doing well on have to do with our assumptions starting out. Two areas I’d like to highlight relate to life changes that we experienced in the recent past: utilities and baby expenses. We have been in our house a little over a year now, but coming from a one bedroom apartment we knew things would change, but just not how much. We did our best to estimate our need for the year and turns out our budget in our utilities category was greater than our need. Same can be said of our Baby Things category. With our daughter is coming up on 1.5 years we are still relatively new to this whole parenting and keeping another little human alive thing. As a result we budgeted a little higher than we actually have used so far.
With most things in our budget, we would prefer to have at least a little wiggle room for the unexpected. We do not try to budget so carefully so that every single dollar we have will be spent in a given month; we have several categories that serve as mini savings accounts (clothing, repairs & tires, car replacement, vacation, gifts, furniture/household) . We have those accounts so that we have money allocated for bigger ticket items we are saving for or for expenses that can’t necessarily be planned (car or home repairs being prime examples). It’s all about knowing what your financial goals are but not being so hung up on them that you don’t allow yourself any margin for errors (Gas & travel!) or the unexpected (Medical!) that is bound to occur.
We know our budget isn’t perfect and we have areas we need to understand better so we can budget appropriately for them in the coming months. We also have some sizable financial changes coming up for 2018 so keep an eye out for more posts on how we develop our budget strategy and financial goals for the upcoming year!
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