Lucy, you've got some 'splainin to do!
I hope has everyone had a great October! Can you believe that tomorrow is November? Yippee! This is my favorite time of year and I'm going to eliminate (or table for now...) several things from my project to-do list for the next month so that I can get outside (with my camera) and take advantage of this beautiful time of year! I have several scrapbooking, painting and sewing projects that I'd hoped to complete, but I think I would rather wait and get those done in the winter months when I want to be inside. So...I'll take a look at my to-dos and think about what I really want to accomplish in November and then write more about that in another post.
For today, the one thing I wanted to get done is to wrap up our October finances . Why? Because I desperately want and NEED to go shopping for some new clothes and shoes and I need to see how much money I can spend! Nothing like a little motivation. I want to make sure I'm armed with the right amount of money when I head out! AND - I also need to take inventory of my closet. I'm quite certain that I have enough sweatshirts and not enough church clothes!
Looking at our 2011 budget, I can't believe there are only 2 months left. Folks, this is the FIRST time ever that I've tracked our money for more than 4 months straight. I've diligently written down everywhere our money has gone for the last 10 months and I'm quite proud of myself. We've gone over in some areas and are under in others. This will all help me in planning our 2012 budget. Groceries continue to be a source of overspending. The tree removal took a hit to savings but I expect to make it up in the next 2 months and reach our 4th quarter goal of saving $6,000.
So - here's how we did.
| Budget | Actual | |
| Birthday gifts (not including the boys) | 25 | 53.95 |
| Guitar | 25 | 0 |
| Subscriptions | 25 | 21.15 |
| Dry Cleaning | 30 | 18.9 |
| Boy Scouts | 75 | -40 |
| School lunches | 50 | 50 |
| Boys Commissions (Potential…) | 80 | 35.5 |
| Restaurants | 100 | 235.93 |
| Sha Blow Money | 100 | 131.16 |
| Entmt/Rec | 100 | 93.72 |
| Date Night | 100 | 25 |
| Haircare | 100 | 132 |
| School expenses | 100 | 38.7 |
| Pay for grades…at the most… | 125 | 55 |
| Christmas gifts | 200 | 177 |
| Gasoline | 350 | 214.54 |
| Clothing | 500 | 860.04 |
| Boys Birthdays - parties & gifts | 500 | 516.12 |
| Utilities | 800 | 825.71 |
| Groceries, household & toiletries | 1200 | 1434.63 |
| 4585 | 4879.05 |
So, here's my 'splainnin!
Groceries: No good excuse...it shouldn't be this high.
Scouts: We got a refund from our trip that we weren't able to go on back at Labor Day!
Restaurants: Add this to the groceries and we spent A LOT of money on food this month!
Date Night: We actually had 2 dates this month! One was a lunch date and we used a gift certificate we'd received last year. Our total bill for lunch was $15. Our second date was with Mr. Steady's boss and another couple from work. When the check came Mr. Steady's boss "treated" all of us and so we only had to pay $10 to my son for "babysitting"!! Both were wonderful dates with some great food and company!
Boys Birthdays: This included my youngest son's party, gifts for both of my son's birthdays (#1 son's B-Day is in 2 weeks), cake for the party, a cake for the family, cookies for his class and cupcakes for the football team (all but the cupcakes were homemade). Lots of celebrating going on! My budget was $500 for the boys together, and I'll end up going over a bit. My oldest is going to have 3 friends come sleep over and we'll just order pizza or make burgers.
Christmas Gifts: I got a slight start to my shopping and planning. I stocked up on gift wrap and ribbons and ordered a bunch of flavored popcorn from my son's Scouts fundraiser that will be given as gifts to the school bus driver, crossing guards, mailman, trash men, and recycling men. I normally give $$ to the mail/trash/recycling men, but am giving food this year instead.
Clothes: The boys got stocked up with winter PJ's, jeans, sweatshirts and my oldest needed new shoes. I got a much needed new pair of tennis shoes. And my husband needed new work clothes.
I think that's it for October! How did you do? Just two more months for finish out the year and reach our overall goals! We can do this!!!!
Will sit down later today and knock out November's budget! I don't anticipate it being a spendy month!
5 comments:
It warmed my heart to see you spent $1400 on groceries and household...now I know I'm not the only one who does that!!
Good for you for tracking. I was good until September. I don't know what happened. I'll be back at it in November!
You should be proud of all you've achieved. Tracking is the start and now you can plan for a great future!
How's the snow?
Sft x
You didn't do too bad. Don't beat your self up..
Food, toiletries, etc are going up too much.
Awesome job keeping track of this. I start the month tracking things and then leave off of it...I'm going to use you as my example!
Again, love the blog.
you didn't do so bad!
Tracking is so helpful (and a ton of work!), so nice job! I just started & have figured out where our money is actually going. Go figure. :-)
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