Another month has rolled by, so it time to see if February looked any good for our finances. If you are not entertained by this, feel free to return tomorrow for something not quite so "blah" for you. =) If this entertains you, feel free to comment and let me know what you think.
INCOME: Our income is still lower than it was when Chip was working (duh!), but HOPEFULLY he will get the paperwork that allows him to rejoin the National Guard soon. I have started my etsy shop but my startup costs are currently more than my profits (although not by much!). Soon I should start seeing profits, but I'm taking it slowly since we don't have that much to work with start-up-wise.
UNDER BUDGET:Doctor: No spending this month, so that put us $25 under budget for the month. Since we had lots of sickness earlier this year though, we're still $50 over our rolling budget. Hopefully we will stay well enough to let that roll on out over the next two months!
Pharmacy: Same deal as the doctor. But that still leaves us $53 over our rolling budgdet. And in March we'll have to pay the bill for the nebulizer that we got for Abigail a few months ago when she was borderline developing pneumonia.
Home Services: $5 under budget...nothing spent.
Baby Supplies: $20 under budget. I will be so glad when diapers are out of our lives and we can delete this budget item!
Hair: $25 under budget. No spending this month. March had some spending though, so some of the rolling budget will be used to eat that up.
Toiletries: No spending this month, but the rolling budget is $2 over from earlier spending. This will roll out for March.
ON BUDGET: Auto Insurance: Our insurance was right on target, but here's the good news...it dropped from $88/month to $45/month because we finally dropped full coverage on our old cars. =) So that will be saving us over $500/year. Hooray!
Mobile Phone: On budget. I wish we could cut these costs, but honestly, we have a reasonable plan so I can't complain too much when I hear what some people spend in this area.
Television: On budget. No real news here.
Life Insurance: Same old.
Alarm Monitoring: As usual.
Mortgage/HOA: As expected.
OVER BUDGET: Gas/Fuel: $150 over budget. Ouch. But honestly, it is attributed to the price of gas as well as Chip traveling to rehearsals and performances with an orchestral group he plays with from time to time.
Auto Parts: $73 over budget. This was for a tire when Chip had a flat and had to have one replaced. The overage should roll out of the budget within a few months.
Water/Electricity: $82 over budget. We'll be over again this upcoming month due to a very warm March. Sigh....
Eating Out: $169 over budget. Wow. And we were doing so well at the beginning of the month! You know what though? This entire amount can be contributed to one night out on a really nice date. It was something that we planned to do with some of our tax refund money because we have not been out on a real date in over one year. So, I don't guess it is as bad as it looks. We still could have done better through the rest of the month, though.
Groceries: $59 over budget. Not too mad considering we fed 4 additional people for 7 days (see additional comments section for info about visitors).
Childcare: $25 over budget. We had to buy Abigail a naproll for school. It's required, so that was this overage.
Clothing: The rolling budget finally paid off here! I have $40/month budget, but rarely buy clothes for anyone. Well, this month, I actually spent $153, but that only put us $2 over our rolling budget. Hooray!
That, my friend, is how an annual budget is supposed to play out. =) ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:
- Miscellaneous Charges not in the Budget: $113 for vet (grrrr); $34 for "amusement" when our company was here...not bad for a family of 4 over a week; $25 for Chip's membership to the American Legion; $4 for parking; $5 for photos ordered at a great deal; and $1.40 spent on a game worth $20 that will be a Christmas gift for Patirck (Yes I think ahead).
- We used the credit card a few times when we needed get to the next paycheck. So we paid that off. And we paid above the minimum on the two we're paying off.
- Etsy shop is underway. I spent about $60 during February on start up costs. I have cleared about $50 after fees and supplies. Once I make a few more sales, I will be ordering my business cards and hopefully will be able to make some more profit after that. I may start tracking that venture as its on entity on this updates in the near future.
- Had some friends and family spend several days with us during March (a total of 7 days between two sets of visitors). So our groceries were higher than normal, but that's to be expected. I'm proud to say that we spent most of that time cooking at the house and eating in instead of out, which is a big change for us with visitors. It was a nice change.
Debt Paid off Since February 2011: $1004.26.
Debt Paid off Since October 14, 2009: $20,163.66
Change in Networth since February 2011: -212.00 (bad month for my 401k so although we made headway on debt, we suffered in retirement funds)
Change in Networth from October 14, 2009: + $40,795.55
This week the round up is going to be short.
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