June Expenses – $2459.05

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for June.

My June expenses were very high. This was due to a combination of having a couple of car repair bills and paying a lot on my student loan. Without those two expenses my monthly expenses would have been under the $1000 mark. Of course, there are almost always some kind of unusual expenses like these so it isn’t realistic to subtract them from the budget.

My monthly food expense was too high again. For the first time ever it went over the $200 mark. That is way too much for one person to be spending on food. I’d be okay with that total if it was for healthy food. Since it is mostly for junk food and fast food I can’t justify my food expense being this high. This month I am going to limit myself to eating out once a week. That will result in a much lower food expense and whatever I eat at home is likely to be healthier than fast food.

My transportation expense was high due to needing two car repairs and getting a parking ticket. I paid a repair shop to install the struts I bought online since I didn’t have full confidence in my ability to do so.  They also replaced my sway bar link which I wouldn’t have realized needing replacing and the entire cost was $140 so I feel like paying for the installation was a good deal. I still saved a lot compared to what the original repair shop wanted to charge me for struts and installation.

Unfortunately, about a week after my struts were installed my brakes started squealing. It turned out I needed new brake pads and new rotors since my rotors were warped. The last time I had my brakes repaired I was warned the rotors were warped and would need to be replaced soon so this repair wasn’t a total surprise.

My gas expense was also quite high due to traveling to southern Missouri and back, driving for Uber, and the commute to my job. I will continue to drive for Uber this month and will be commuting another week or two so this month’s gas expense will also be high. Hopefully, there won’t be any repair or ticket expense so the transportation expense should be much lower this month even with the higher gasoline bill.

The student loan expense was high because I was using my unemployment proceeds to pay on my student loan. Now that I’m working the unemployment checks will stop which will result in much less being paid on my student loan. I do also earmark all blog earnings for student loan payments and I will get paid by Adsense this month so there will be at least a little paid on my student loan.

I don’t anticipate any big expenses this month. I think I have a good chance at having less than $1000 in expenses this month.