May Expenses – $1598.31

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for May.

My expenses in May were down from April but still not quite as low as I would like.  This total is an approximation since my records were wiped out when my computer crashed.  I was able to figure out most of my expenses by looking at my credit card and debit card records but I’m sure I missed a few cash purchases.

May medical expenses were high because I had a large medical bill but now that that is paid off they should be normal for this month.  Transportation expense was also higher than I would prefer.  We spent over $300 on gas.  A lot of that is travel for mystery shopping though so we will be able to deduct it.  Since gas is cheaper and we don’t have any long trips planned this month we should at least be able to get this figure under $300.  All other expenses should be pretty much the same.

I’ve been trying to keep track of the expenses by breaking out my portion of my wife and I’s expenses but I’m going to switch to reporting both our expenses.  This will eliminate having to determine what expenses to include and which ones to leave out.  Now the monthly expense report will need to be compared to other married couple households rather than to a single man household.  I’m going to up my budget target from $1000 a month to $1750.  I think that is reasonable but we will see.