May has been a very busy and costly month with my son’s First Communion, my daughter’s two year old pictures and Mother’s Day. In addition, I found a great deal on canning supplies and decided to snatch it up even though it wasn’t in the budget. (I’ll share a post about that later in the week.) Here are the damages:
Monday, May 7th:
$15 son’s school expenses
$19 Jewel ($11 thank you and Mother’s Day cards, $8 groceries)
$14.95 Mother’s Day gift
Tuesday, May 8th:
$9 Whole Foods ($5 dessert for son for school event, $3 groceries)
$2.50 post office
$41 organic delivery
Wednesday, May 9th:
$4 flowers for son’s teacher
$30 babysitter
$13 Target (toiletries)
Thursday, May 10th:
$4 Jewel
$7 prescription
$31 plants for the garden
$7 Whole Foods
Friday, May 11th:
$17 Jewel
$7 husband out for lunch with coworkers
$22 daughter’s 2 year old portraits
Saturday, May 12th:
$7 Whole Foods
Sunday, May 13th:
$100 canning supplies (13 dozen jars in various sizes & a canning pot)
$72 dinner out
$24 Japanese grocery store
$5 son’s allowance
Total for the week – $449.45
Total for the month – $1,001.65
By category, our spending broke down like this:
Groceries–$111 this week/289 for the month
Gas—$0 for the week/112.20 for the month
Toiletries/Diapers–$13 for the week/52 for the month
Husband’s spending–$7 for the week/$16 for the month
My spending–$0 for the week/$10 for the month
Clothing account–$0 for the week/$47 for the month
Son’s allowance–$5 for the week/$15 for the month
Babysitter–$30 for the week/$140 for the month
Miscellaneous–$284.45 this week/$321.45 for the month
What did I learn so far?
I am finding it tedious to track our every expense, but I find that it is keeping me aware of our financial situation. I am actually going over the budget in the middle of the month to see where we stand rather than waiting to calculate the damages at the end of the month.
While the last two weeks have been pricy, and we are wildly over in the miscellaneous category, we are under in several other categories, so if I can curb our expenses for the remainder of May, we should be right on track.
How are you doing? Feel free to link up your weekly expense report or to leave a comment.
Lots of spending on the wedding front this week. Also, by being aware of transactions, I found a fraudulent charge on my credit card the same day it was made! New card should arrive today.
Great! Your diligence paid off. Imagine if you hadn’t found it!
Congrats on keeping track of all of your expenses and more importantly buying a Mother’s day gift a whole week in advance 🙂
We have been doing this too! 🙂 I am amazed at how much we are saving! I doubt I will ever stop doing this. I have a notepad option on my cell phone and I just plug in every single purchase as well as keep ALL receipts in my purse in an envelope per month. No surprises and I know exactly what we spend. Great idea!