February Expenses – $723.24

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for February.

Household	$0
Rent	$321.68
Entertainment	$17.38
Transportation	$29.51
Food	$74.81
Travel	$0
Phone	$23.89
Student Loan	$132.58
Health	$123.39
Total	$723.24

My February expenses were extremely low. I easily managed to get my expenses under my target of $1000 for the month. This month I tried to be extra frugal and had very little unnecessary spending. Having a shorter month helped too.

Rent was low because I’m paying my mom’s utility bill as rent while I’m staying with her. Since January was pretty cold electric was about $100 higher than the previous month. This amount also includes the water and sewer. They all come on one bill from the city. I expect this month’s bill to be about the same.

Transportation was for one tank of gas for my car. I went to Springfield (which is about an hour away) twice during the month. Without those two drives I wouldn’t have needed to put any gas in my car. Since I’m working at home I don’t drive at all most days. Living in a small town, when I do drive everything is close. I might not need to buy gas at all this month. I’m probably going to pay for six more months of car insurance this month so that will make this expense category quite a bit higher this month.

My food expense went down a lot. I cut way back on my meals out. I also had three free meals due to gift cards. I actually spent more on groceries than on meals out. I think that is the first time I’ve done that since starting this blog. There are no free meals this month so this expense will likely increase a bit.

This was the rare month where I didn’t have any travel expense. I’m probably going to buy some travel medical insurance this month which will cost about $260. I’ll also buy a plane ticket from Bangkok to Chiang Mai or elsewhere in Thailand. The plane ticket should cost less than $30. Those two expenses will result in a significant increase in this expense category for the month. Last year, I didn’t have travel medical insurance when I went to Thailand. If I’d had a serious illness or injury that could have cost me a lot of money. I’m playing it safe this year and purchasing the travel insurance. I hope I don’t need it.

Phone was for one month of Google Fi phone service. This is about as cheap as it gets. If you sign up for Google Fi through my referral link we will each get $20 Fi credit after your account has been active for 30 days.

Health was for my March premium on my health insurance. This month I might have a dentist visit which would boost this expense quite a bit. If I’m unable to see a dentist, then this expense will remain exactly the same.

My entertainment expense was for one trip to the movies. Since it was the end of the month and I hadn’t yet spent anything on entertainment I splurged on a large popcorn to go with my matinee ticket.

February was a super low expense month. March will be a higher expense month and I will likely go over my monthly target of $1000 in expenses. It will probably still be a pretty low expense month by most people’s standards though.   How was your month?