budget

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for June.

My expenses this month were higher than my goal of $1000. I also have a goal of having only $10,000 in expenses for the year and my pace so far this year is well in excess of that goal. Things should change in the second half of the year as I have some low cost months hiking and living in Guatemala.

The entertainment expense was high for June because it includes my round-trip ticket to Guatemala. I should probably create a new travel category rather than lumping my travel expenses in the entertainment category because they are inflating my entertainment expenses. I did great on food this month buying just three meals out and a couple of snacks. It helped being in-house for the study the last few days of the month and not having the option of buying any food. That will go up next month as I will be on my own for food the last half of the month.

Transportation expense should go down slightly next month as I won’t be driving half the month. I will have a bus fare though. Medical expense will be about the same since I have a doctor bill to pay. Household expense will go down since I won’t be home half the month. Overall I expect my expenses to go down by about a third this month and even more the next month.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for May.

These expenses were higher than I would prefer.  The transportation expense was up because I bought all the gas and got an oil change for my GF’s car since I’ve been using it daily to get to the medical study.  My entertainment expense was high because I bought my plane ticket for my hike and spent $80 gambling.  Even without that it would have been too high.  Both these categories should go down this month.  Food should go down a little also because it represents what I spend on lunches out and snacks  which are things I need to cut down on.  The debt category will go up.  Last month I somehow didn’t have a payment due.  I would have sent in a payment anyway if I had realized that.

My goal of having my yearly expenses under $10,000 is looking unlikely.  Once I start hiking my expenses will go down but I don’t think that will be enough.  I might be making a big purchase soon which will completely blow my expenses out of the water but will result in much lower expenses in the future.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for March.

My expenses were up a little from the previous month due to purchasing a plane ticket to Atlanta to start my hike next month and school expenses. My food expense was too high last month and I’m going to cut that back down this month.  My entertainment expense was also a little high even without my plane ticket so I’ll look at those expenses a little more closely this month.  My school expenses should go down this month since I don’t have any graduation expenses or books to buy this month.  Everything else should be about the same.

I barely met my goal of keeping my monthly expenses under $1000.  To meet my goal of having my yearly expenses under $10,000 I need to cut my monthly budget even more.  That should happen once I start hiking.