| Household | $245.89 |
| Entertainment |
$53.10 |
|
Transportation |
$376.17 |
|
Food |
$176.01 |
| Travel | $113.85 |
| Phone |
$26.81 |
| Health |
$120.97 |
| Electric |
$26.51 |
|
Total |
$1139.31 |
My July expenses were a little higher than I prefer. I was hoping to get my expenses way under $1000 for the month which I didn’t come close to doing. I did at least keep my expenses under my other goal of $1274 a month.
My transportation expense was way too high. This was a result of driving from Harrisburg, PA to KC and getting my A/C fixed. The gas from PA to KC probably should have been counted as a travel expense, but it was simpler to count it all as a transportation expense.
The travel expense of $113.85 isn’t too bad, especially considering I was gone for 9 days. The total is somewhat deceiving though since some of the travel expenses were absorbed by the food and transportation categories.
Food was way too expensive. I’m not going to worry about my overall food bill in August. I’m just going to make a goal of keeping my dining out portion of the food bill under $50. Since I count dining out with my girlfriend or friends as entertainment this goal shouldn’t be too difficult to meet. It will be a major adjustment to my usual spending though so I expect it to be somewhat of a challenge.
I hope to keep my August expenses a little lower. That may not be possible since I will leave on another trip at the end of the month. I’ve gotten a little lazy with my spending and plan to tighten up my spending this month. Even if my overall spending isn’t much lower, hopefully I will at least get more value for my spending.
Yeah, but look at that household and transport drop from last month. Definitely can be happy about that, right?
The transportation drop was good and hopefully it will stay down. The household drop won’t continue though.
How is your year-to-date expenses? Are you meeting or exceeding your budget? You will always monthly variances, but you should not go over your YTD budget.
For the year, I am just barely over. May and June were bad months but I’m getting back on track now.
Hey Andy,
How do you keep the electric costs so low? Mine were 10x that for an apartment. Also, what about rent/mortgage as a monthly cost?
My electric costs were always low in that apartment. The $26 was with using A/C. In the winter my bills were only about $15. Not having a dishwasher or washer and dryer helped. The hot water was from a central boiler so I didn’t have to pay for that either.
Wow, still amazing to me. My rent alone is significantly higher than all your expenses..
I make it a point to keep my expenses as low as I reasonably can.
The travel is amazing for ~10 days. I know you hiked but how did you keep it that low? This consists of camping, food?
Overall it is great your expenses were much less than last month. The household expenses being half of what it was last month seemed to have helped a lot.
The travel expense is a little misleading since the plane ticket out was paid for in a previous month and some travel expenses were put in the food or transportation category. The rental car and one night’s hotel stay were also free as part of a credit card deal.
That’s still a significant decrease from last month, and very admirable!
Well, it is at least a step in the right direction.