I am a little late in putting up my monthly balance others things do get in the away at times, my cat is doing fine until his operation on next Wednesday to have his teeth removed so far its only two of them.
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As I work on 28 day cycles, my dates may be out to a calendar months so here are the figures for my last period.
It’s time to start again on reviewing my monthly daily living allowance.
These are the categories for this challenge.
Items === Approx Budget===Spent
Eating out===$35.00=====$38.05
Groceries===$135.50 ==== $77.51
Non-Food===$17.00=====$18.75
Clothes ====$35.00======$17.90
Grooming===$15.00=====$6.49
Gas======$25.00 ======$25.30
Pets====== $50.00=== ==$4.14
HH items===$42.50=====$44.64
Fares== ====$9.00
Entrainments= $12.00 ====$26.00
Garden =====$10.00
Gifts & Donations =$35.00===$71.50
Medical =====$15.00======$25.00
Diabetes Expenses====$50
Misc ======$9.00
Personal Allowance =$85.00 ====$138.89
Note only one amount is a no spend
Budgeted for this period $580 spent $495.17 so under budget by $84.83
No Spending days over the 28 days = 15 days in total.
Personal allowance covers confectionery, lotto, books, stamps, craft & hobby supplies.
Eating out including meals out with family and friends, we all go Dutch.
As for medical this is the extra out of pockets amounts that came up this month just on medicine. Vitamin D 250 capsules saving on these was $19.95 on the bottle I first bought.
As for my medical visits out of pocket expensive if they are related to Diabetes then I will class them as Diabetes Expenses will come under this new category. Diabetes Expenses – nil
A most will be one off items or once per year expenses. But I need to track these items on my small budget and pension. Each time I pay for some thing in this category I will need to cut something in other categories.
My credit cards are still paid in full each month.
My one big over spend this month was on books as one of the bookstores had a closing down sale Borders here and non- fiction books were going for 75% off so I stocked up on a few that were on my wish list to buy! Spending $100.74 for the month including 4 papers.
I had to buy a birthday gift this month a watch, now I will have to pay for it to be engraved out of next month budget.
I do keep my bill money separated from this summery. This year I will be budgeting around $650 per period month to cover all my bills. This month bills were around $177 so balance banked this month. These funds do cover all my fixed bills for the year if I can stick to this schedule as I have done for the past ten years or so. On my budget excel modelling chart I can pay the full amount this year.
As for food out, I dined out 4 times this month costing between $5 & $9 a time most were around the $9 mark as I can no longer eat at fast food outlets. That $9.00 meals at casino is still looking the healthiest and best deal in the city for now.
My grocery bill came in normal for this month and I was stockpiling a few items both food items and non-food items.
Most of my social outing are dining out this is part of my social outings money and spending allowance.
If any changes to my spending habits will need to come out of my daily living allowance categories of my budget as my bill categories are very tight now. Still need to work on a few categories as you can see but over all I had a good month.
Strategy: - Track your daily spending down to the cent by writing it down daily.
7th Monthly Financial Summery for 2011
August 7th, 2011 at 08:20 pm
August 8th, 2011 at 01:31 pm 1312810299
August 8th, 2011 at 09:46 pm 1312839975
August 9th, 2011 at 03:28 am 1312860499
August 9th, 2011 at 08:17 pm 1312921043
I will see what I can do about protein buying here in over time in this blog.
I am big on portion control and limiting amount a dishes served in a each meal. I normally will eat well when dining out but have very little food at other meals that day. As you are from Australia some of my ideas may work for you. So just watch this blog. If you are a member of Simple Savings then check out they downloads and forum. If not either join or try reading ‘The $21 Challenge’ by Fiona Lippey and Jackie Gower. You can view some of the chapters in the downloads.
Simple Savings
August 11th, 2011 at 12:19 am 1313021973