July Expenses – $1890.18

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for July.

My July expenses were a little high. This was due to paying $839 towards my student loan. Without that expense my monthly total would be just a little over my target of $1000.

Starting with this post I am going to provide more detail on what expenses were incurred in each category. I just started using the everydollar budget app which should help me keep track of what exactly I spent my money on. Although my expenses are already pretty low I think the budget will help me tighten them up a bit.

My household expense consisted of roughly $2 for a can opener and $34 that I have no clue what it was for. I don’t buy most of the things that are common household expenses so my household expense is often used as a miscellaneous category for items that don’t fit in any other category. I think the $34 was probably for a miscellaneous expense but I can’t remember what it was.

Rent is self-explanatory. Utilities are included with my apartment rent. I don’t have to pay for them separately.

Entertainment was almost completely for movies and for food at the movies. I also bought a couple of newspapers. I need to stop getting food at the movies since it is a terrible value.

Transportation was entirely for gasoline. My current job is about a 30 minute commute each way which results in a larger than normal gas bill.

Food consisted of $63.40 spent on groceries and $143.65 spent on fast food. I need to shift the fast food expense over to healthier groceries since the fast food is terrible for my health.

Phone was about $26 for my usual Google Fi phone bill and a little less than $40 for a cheap prepaid phone with airtime. My Nexus 5x died on me. Although it was out of warranty, it died from a known issue (bootloop) so it was repaired free of charge. A little web searching saved me a lot of money since otherwise I would have just bought a new phone. It did take a little over a week for the phone to be repaired. Not wanting to go without a phone for a week I bought a prepaid phone to use for the week. That was a bit of a frivolous expense.

Health included $43 for a dental bill, $34.55 for three prescription refills, and $15.50 for about a month and a half fees to a fitness center.

The student loan expense was for a voluntary payment on my student loan. I’ve now paid the $2500 amount of student loan interest that is tax-deductible for a year. I’m not sure if I will make further payment this year.

This month’s expenses should be a bit lower since I won’t make a student loan payment. I’ll probably spend some on travel preparing for my trip to Asia. The other categories should be roughly the same.