October Expenses – $1432.16

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for October.

Household

$378.33

Entertainment

$285.37

Transportation

$468.93

Food

$100.25

Medical/Dental

$57.44

Utilities

$97.52

Debt $30
Bar Expenses $14.32

Total

$1432.16

My expenses for October were a little higher than I prefer.  This was due to my entertainment and transportation expenses being high.  The entertainment expense was high mainly due to out trip to Omaha and should be much smaller this month.  The transportation expenses was high due to the trip to Omaha and my trips to St. Louis for the medical study and I had to pay for six months of insurance.   I will be able to deduct the mileage to St. Louis and some driving I did for mystery shops so this expense isn’t as bad as it looks.  Transportation expense should be down substantially this month.

I came pretty close to hitting my target of $100 a month for food.  This amount is roughly half for groceries and half for eating out.  I plan to adjust this down to $75 a month with most of that amount going towards groceries.  Dinner dates with my wife are included in the entertainment category  and I get several opportunities a month to eat for free from mystery shopping so cutting back to $25 a month for eating out shouldn’t be hard.

I plan to pay more on my debt this month and the other expense categories should remain about the same.