We went over budget in January pretty horribly, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that we took a trip. I would tend to be discouraged that we started out the year on the wrong foot financially but there is hope around the corner that I am clinging too! Tomorrow we should find out how much of a raise my husband will be getting this year, as well as if and how much of a yearly bonus he will be getting. Those will both be on the February 15th pay period, so we are only a few weeks away from financial help. Also, we have already turned in our taxes (we pay a guy to do them for us, always have) and hope to find out soon how much our tax return will be. We are e-filing, with our return being direct deposited into our account, so that process is fairly quick. Anyway, I hope you did better than we did in January! There is always next month...
Groceries
$350 budget - $420.69 spent = $120.69 over budget (Even after increasing our monthly grocery budget by $50 we still went over a lot. Am I being unreasonable in my expectations? How much does a typical family of three spend on groceries every month?)
Gas
$300 budget - $164.17 spent = $135.83 remaining (I have figured out why the last two months we haven't spent all our gas money when we haven't been driving any less. My husband signed up for a new credit card last month, with a $1,000 limit. He has been charging things on it instead of using the debit card and that credit card is now maxed out. It is so hard to keep our family on track when only one of us is participating in our financial goals!)
Medical
$85 budget - $144.80 spent = $59.80 over budget (I went to the dentist last month for my cleaning, which caused us to go over on medical)
Gifts
$40 budget - $0 spent = $40 remaining
Utilities
$150 budget - $525.10 spent = $375.10 over budget (Once again we had to pay for the owner's gas and electricity bill, which was $300 this month. We did get a reimbursement check from the landlord in the amount of $356.03 for the time that she was here, so that is a wash. We also had to pay a $40 deposit to our new garbage company to sign up for garbage pick-up, which they will reimburse us after one year.)
Car Maintenance
$40 budget - $0 spent = $40 remaining
Out to Eat
$50 budget - $326.92 spent = $276.92 over budget (Yikes!)
Kids Allowance
$6 budget - $6 spent = $0 over budget
Household
$100 budget - $58.32 spent = $41.68 remaining
Other
$0 budget - $204.44 spent = $204.44 over budget ($115 Sales and Use Taxes for my photography business, $33.85 3-month weekend paper subscription, $28.92 cable bill over budget, and $26.67 renter's insurance over budget.)
Total
$1,121.00 budget - $1,844.44 spent = $723.44 over budget (We covered this overage a couple ways: with the electric and gas reimbursement check, and with money from our savings account.
Keep in mind that these are just our variable expenses. Our fixed expenses are in our budget as well but since they are fixed we rarely go over or under budget on them. As always, I hope we do better next month!
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