by Tricia
It took me a little while to get all of the information to complete March’s income and expense report. I was able to find all of the receipts I needed, but I couldn’t find the last paystub my husband received for his temporary job. The net effect is basically the same because the income in my report is gross income and I have an expense for the taxes withheld. I will revise the numbers once he receives another paystub which should be Friday. Yay!
So, here is March’s spending. As always, my comments are below.
Income: The gross income for March was still fairly strong, but lower than February. I see February’s income, and it makes me want to try to have a goal of making that much per month because if we made that much every month our debt would be paid off way ahead of schedule.
Auto:Insurance: I have been thinking about possibly taking off the collision and comprehensive coverage on our car. That would save us quite a bit of money per month. Seeing as our car is still worth around $5,000 – I’ll hold off for a little while longer and keep the extra coverage.
Cigarettes: The spending for cigarettes is down. It is still the monkey on my back to get rid of!! But, that’s something I am going to tackle over at Blogging Away Fat.
Donations: I’ll be the first to admit that we do not give all that much monetarily. Slowly, I am trying to give more to causes that I believe in. A reader’s debt story reminded me that I should make another contribution to Modest Needs so I did.
Finance Charges: Finance charges are still under $100, which is great. In June I lose the 0% offer on one of my cards and who knows what my rate will be after that (probably around 16%). Nothing real promising has come my way in terms of transfering that balance to a new card. We’ll see.
Food: Lots of money going out for groceries in March. I can’t help but think it’s because we spent so little (compared to previous months) in February. Perhaps we normalize at around $400/month. We’ll have to see. I am planning to get some coupons for the products we normally use (so far, I’m batting 100% for writing and getting coupons!). Dining is going down, though, and that is awesome.
Gifts Given: March is a month of birthdays for us, mine as well as my mom’s. Giving gifts has always been a spot for overspending for me.
Household: The household category holds many things related to house and home.
The biggest spending here was for furniture. My husband’s computer chair broke and he had been using the rocking chair from our living room. That broke as well after a few months so we went to Walmart and bought a new chair and guess what? You guess it…it broke too. He’s being stubborn and living with the broken chair for a while. No more chairs from Walmart.
Interest Expense: This is the cost of interest for our mortgage and school loans. Not pretty. Once our credit cards are paid off we will definitely be paying off some of our student loans.
Medical: Here’s the new big expense. Our health insurance policy that we pay out-of-pocket. I do have the next bill, and it raised to $800 every two months because my husband and I are both 30 now. Yuk. The Medical:Other category is for everything else like over the counter medicines, bandaids and the like.
Taxes: This category takes into consideration all taxes paid from income, as well as sales taxes and property taxes. There’s not too much that can be done here.
Utlities: No, I didn’t go crazy and get a mega cellphone plan LOL. I decided to get a yearly plan for our Tracfone instead of paying every other month for a recharge card. So, the $106 is for the entire year. Breaking it down, it is a savings of approximately $21/year.
Electric isn’t the greatest but our Gas wasn’t too bad. The water bill actually went up due to a rate increase. Month and month again, we have never went over the minimum water usage level. So, we cannot decrease that bill any more than it is.
FINAL THOUGHTS
March wasn’t that bad of a month. My husband still had income from his temporary job which was nice (by the way, just this week he did receive a few more hours after weeks of nothing). I hope he continues to get some hours for a little while at least.
I think what I am going to do when I have time is look at the first quarter of this year and compare to last year. If I do, and I see anything interesting I will post it on here.
Oh, and I receive this question often…Where is my mortgage? My mortgage payment is $323/month and it includes a payment towards principal on my mortgage as well as interest and the amount that goes to escrow to pay taxes and insurance. I track my finances like a business so the only thing you will see on these expense reports is the interest expense. Since my mortgage is young, we pay a lot in interest right now. The rest of the payment goes towards the asset account (escrow) and the liability account (mortgage). Changes in the escrow and mortgage show up in my Net Worth Report.
As always, I welcome questions/comments.
Congrats on another great month. Your ‘Automobile-Fuel’ category makes me jealous. I’m probably burning through that much gas in a week of commuting. Once I am done with my regimented early morning workouts, I will be taking the bus to work at $0.00 per gallon.
Just curious about your grocery bill. Are you buying mostly healthy foods these days? Since changing my lifestyle to a healthier one, my grocery bills have gone up quite a bit. I am finding that it is much more expensive to eat healthier. Just curious what your experience has been.
Just curious what method you use to keep track of this all–Quicken or just a basic spreadsheet? I have a budget which I adhere to somewhat well, but I don’t track down to the dollar, and I’d really like to.
BTW I love your blog–read it pretty much every day.
It’s probably good to keep collision on your car if you rely on it. If you don’t have the money to replace it, saving that money won’t matter if it’s gone. Plus, if you’re hit by someone who has insurance with a bear of a company (American Family is the worst if you have to fight with them, IMO), you can make your insurance company do that if you have collision, but not if you drop to liability only. We keep liability only on our 10 year-old Civic, mainly because it isn’t worth anything to anyone but us. But we have a backup in our truck should anything happen to it. The minivan is still collateral, so it’s on comprehensive.
My father pays cash for his vehicles, and used to keep only liability on them. Then his car was torched by people who had tried to steal it and failed. That experience had him keeping comprehensive for a while longer than he had before.
fellowes – yes, our fuel costs are low. I work out of my home and my husband does too with his temporary job. He does have some summer jobs/projects that will require him to drive more.
As for the grocery spending, the last part of March I did go on a fresh fruit kick. The problem is that fresh fruit can be very expensive out of season. May will be the big test to see how our grocery spending goes.
c – I use Quicken to keep track of everything. For the reports that I put on here, I export the report to Excel and then add formatting to it so it looks nice.
Thank you for the complement 🙂
Well, where I live is often referred to as God’s Country 😉
Real estate is very reasonable where I live. My home only cost $35,000.
Your mortgage is only $323 a month? Are you in heaven?
Hello – Long time reader, first time commenter! Just curious, have you tried returning to Wal Mart their crappy chairs that do not seem to withstand a person actually sitting on them? Can’t hurt to try, you may get your $$ back. You won’t get what you don’t ask for.
Tricia, good job! It is interesting to see how much things vary in different parts of the country. I’m in the Houston area, and my water bill (minimum) is $30/month (which includes trash); I don’t have a home phone (just use cell) because the minimum for that is $30+/month; and cable – wow! I pay about $50 monthly for extended basic which includes a $10 credit for the first year! And yes, I spend alot on groceries to eat healthy. I’d say it is nearly double! I do have a huge mortgage but with all the energy savings I get (double paned windows, hi eff A/C, ceiling fans in all rooms, and very well insulated), I save a bundle on utilities. My recent gas bill was $19 and electric $53. I’d rather buy myself a nice home rather than give my money to utility companies!
I would recommend keeping your full coverage, unless you’ll be saving a LOT of money. If you cut your full insurance, what would it save you per year? Sock that away each month for a ‘car replacement’ fund. How long would it take that fund to reach the full value of the car you own?
But you still have small savings, and if you did perchance get into an accident and weren’t covered, how would you pay for another one?
For my computer chair I once used a plastic folding chair (with metal frame) from Walmart with a couple old pillows duct-taped to it. It lasted over 2 years and only cost $3!
Tips for eating healthy: Buy things on sale in bulk and freeze, including in-season fruit and vegetables (check the web to learn how to freeze all kinds of veggies – they will typically last 3-5 months). Make sure you cut out other expensive foods like prepackaged meals and high-priced meats. Anything processed gets the chop. Increase your portions of cheap foodstuffs like pastas and rice (real not prepackaged!). Avoid the soda/snack aisle, juice can be had for cheaper in the frozen concentrate form. Invest in a faucet filter and dedicate yourself to a glass of water over dinner. Tofu is a great source of protein and is not too pricey. Buy cheese in blocks instead of sliced or shredded. Calculate price-per-weight on everything you buy and compare the products, buy all your non-foods (including spices) at Walmart.
Hi,
Thanks for putting your monthly budget up. Its wonderful that you’re keeping track of everything.
I was looking over it and I just had one comment. Do you think it might be possible to sell one of your cars? It looks like automobile expenses are at least 10% of your budget. Trimming auto expenses might help you reach your debt reduction goal more quickly.
Also, congrats on loosing weight and quitting smoking, your quality of life will be a whole lot better!
Best,
James
Cheryl – you know, I didn’t even think of returning the chair. I threw away the box shortly after we got it. Maybe I’ll give them a call because I still have the receipt. Thanks for the idea!
Karen – our water bill is actually for two months, but it doesn’t cover trash. We have to pay for that separately. The telephone (I forgot to mention this in my notes) will actually be going up a little. Work reimburses some, but not all because we will use the long distance for personal. April’s bill is pretty high (over $100) because of the switchover in plans.
You bring up a good point about the groceries going up. I’ve been trying to get our spending down, but it is so hard. It will be interesting to see how it changes now that we will be buying healthier foods.
I would love to have your electric and gas bill! My home is inexpensive but it is also very old. It has blown in insulation and it fares fairly well in the winter for a home of it’s age. But we could really use new windows and doors.
Thanks for giving some of your spending, it was interesting to see the figures for Texas 🙂
Chris – if we got in an accident and didn’t have coverage, we’d be going to the bank for a loan for a new (used) car. I’ll have to get back with you on how much we’d save. I wrote it down, I just have to find what I did with it. Thank you for all of the tips!
James – we technically have two cars. One is running and the other is not. The non-working vehicle is in our garage and we do not have any coverage on it so no expenses show up for it. As soon as I get a chance it is being sold to the highest bidder or a junkyard. It’s taking up valuable real estate in our garage.
You may also consider donating the non-running car to a charitable organization. They’ll come and pick it up from your house and you can get a tax deduction up to $500.