2015 Spending goals chart

Two posts back I wrote about my spending goals for the rest of the year. I broke down each of the eleven spending categories that encompass the average daily spending you hear me going on and on about here and I assigned each category an end goal. I've left myself a cushion because boy oh boy do I need one. Now I am just going to try my hardest to stick around the plan.

I do all of my budgeting, try to budget out for about a year ahead of time in Microsoft Excel so of course I've made an Excel spread sheet to track the category spending for the rest of 2015. I have the appropriate formulas plugged into each column so that I don't have to actually do any math myself. Believe it or not me and numbers aren't actually buddies. This spread sheet is super handy because now each time I make a purchase I just plug it into the appropriate column and I can see how much I have left in that category for the rest of the year.

The numbers at the very top of each column are the goals I set for remaining spending in each category for the rest of the year. The bottom numbers in red show how much is left to spend. The numbers in the middle are what's been spent since I sat down and set the goals in place.

As you can see, three of the eleven spending categories are already maxed out. There's a good chance I'm going to have to put some of the allotted "toiletries" budget into the "cleaning" column. Some of the remaining "stuff" monies might end up in the "groceries" category. We'll see. I'm cutting it really close with pets and probably with Christmas too. I know I'm cutting it close with groceries but a goal is a goal. I'm just trying to put something out there to aim at. And right now this is it.