Here is a breakdown of my expenses for September.
|
Household |
$28.74 |
| Entertainment |
$84.19 |
|
Transportation |
$169.73 |
|
Food |
$130.19 |
| Van Payment | $1000 |
| Debt | $5.00 |
| Phone |
$26.81 |
| Health |
$117.24 |
|
Total |
$1561.90 |
My expenses were down a bit from August. I made three extra payments on my van or my expenses would have been way down. If you take away the van payments, my expenses would have been only $561.90. My goal was to keep my expenses other than the van payments below $1000 so I’m very happy with September’s total expenses. I’m finally starting to see the savings from living in a van. It was one of those rare months where there were no unexpected expenses and no semi-annual/quarterly expenses. I’ll be hard pressed to keep my expenses as low this month.
Transportation was where I had the most savings. I went from spending over $500 in gas in August, to spending $169.73 on gas in September. It would be nice if I could keep my gas expense that low again this month.
I doubt I’ll be able to make 3 extra payments on my van again. I’m hoping I will be able to make at least one extra. All my other expenses will probably be about the same.
Great job on the extra payments!
Thanks!
Not bad at all! When do you expect to have the van paid off? Then, you can really save some money!
I should be able to pay off the van in the next couple of months.
Nice job on keeping your expenses to a minimum!
Things worked out well for keeping expenses to a minimum last month. It will be tough to match.
Wow, great job on making those extra payments and living on a bare bones budget! Have you had any success finding employment (law firm or no law firm)?
Thanks, I’ll have an employment update in my weekend links post.
Awesome job on sticking to a bare bones budget and the payments as well.
Making the extra payments kept my available cash pretty low which helped me not spend much.
Absolutely amazing – I am jealous! Now that you have the part time job getting paid to sleep you can break up the monotony of sleeping in the van, which hopefully will make it more tolerable. What do you plan to do with the excess once you get the van paid off? Try to stay at this job as long as you can so you can build up some funds for a rainy day.
I plan on saving money like crazy once the van is paid off. My savings are a lot less than they were a couple years ago.
Nice work Andy!
Quick question – How do you keep track your expenses? It looks like you are monitoring them down to the last cent.
I use the free spreadsheet from Pear Budget. You can find it at pearbudget.com/spreadsheet
Does the van payment include insurance?
It doesn’t include insurance. That will be coming up next month.
Nice, our expenses are about $1300 a month and that includes rent. However as we work to increase our income, I do not plan on a spending inflation but to keep things low and simple. The lower your needs,the less you really have to make to meet those needs.
You are doing great, it will be a great feeling to get that van paid off and be able to save all that money!
Keeping your expenses at $1300 for multiple people is great. Good luck on increasing your income.