Last month was a good month. I had one budget surprise, but, otherwise, things went pretty well.
January 2020 Budget Recap
Where I overspent:
| Groceries | Budgeted Amount: $200 | Actual Spent: $221 |
| Doctor Visit | Budgeted Amount: $0 | Actual Spent: $80 |
| Do It Scared | Budgeted Amount: $15 | Actual Spent: $25 |
Where I spent less than allocated:
| Gas | Budgeted Amount: $175 | Actual Spent: $108 |
| Dry Cleaning/Shoe Repair | Budgeted Amount: $90 | Actual Spent: $31 |
| Pocket Change | Budgeted Amount: $100 | Actual Spent: $68 |
| Chicago Trip | Budgeted Amount: $450 | Actual Spent: $341 |
A couple of notes on where I overspent and spent less than allocated:
- Doctor Visit: This was the surprise expense. Though I knew that I had appointments to see both my general medicine practitioner and my gynecologist, I didn’t expect to have to make any payments for either visit. Under my insurance plan, when you go for the purpose of an annual, preventative exam, no co-pay needs to be paid. What I learned when I got to my general practitioner’s office, however, is that if you discuss anything other than what is related to the annual exam, there will be a fee. If you get a prescription filled (for me it is Albuterol because I’m a mild asthmatic), you’ll pay a fee. So, anything at all that goes beyond the limited scope of an annual exam will push the visit from being an unpaid one into a paid one.
- Do It Scared: This is a subscription program by Ruth Soukup, the woman who created the Living Well Spending Less Planner. When you purchase the Planner, you are given a 30-day free trial of the program – a program designed to help you crush the goals you’ve set out to achieve. I didn’t engage in the program enough during the initial 30-day trial, so I wanted to try it for an additional month to learn more about it and see if I found it to be valuable to me. When I registered for the program online, the sales materials stated that the monthly fee was $15. Once in the program, however, I found that they charged me $25.
- Chicago Trip: The Chicago trip was made to support my friend in her graduation from a coaching program and to celebrate her birthday. She paid for my plane ticket as well as our hotel room, however, I budgeted to have travel money and to be able to get her something for her birthday. For her birthday dinner, she chose a super sexy Asian restaurant, Tao (loved it!). The restaurant serves in a family-style manner. Though there were 7 of us who ate, we only split the bill 3 ways because there was one couple there and my friend’s minor son and twenty-something Goddaughter were there. My friend wanted to pay for her son and Goddaughter, but the rest of us didn’t feel that appropriate for the circumstances. So, myself, and two other people (the married couple counted themselves as 1 person) split the $519 bill. I also paid for parking, for lunch for me and my friend’s son and an appetizer at an event for me and my friend. I’m glad that I budgeted enough to accommodate whatever she decided to do. I’m delighted that I came in under budget on that item.
I’ve written here about what I do with what I don’t spend in each budget category.
February Budget Breakdown
I’ve based the February budget on income of $9,000.
I use Dave Ramsey’s EveryDollar software to do my monthly budgeting. Instead of using the premium version (EveryDollar Plus), I use the free version. The free version doesn’t connect with your bank and credit accounts, so I am intentionally forcing myself to really connect with my numbers, instead of being able to simply drag and drop imported expenditures. This forces me to manually capture every single amount spent each month.
According to the summary of spending that appears in EveryDollar, here’s how the percentages of planned spending breaks down for the month:
I’ve got a lot that has to get done this month and, as a result, the budget is higher than last month. One would think that the increase in the amount available for the budget would automatically translate into a larger amount being paid toward my debt snowball. It doesn’t.
Note that I don’t have any funds allocated to a “Romance” category, even though Valentine’s Day is this month. I do have Valentine’s Day plans, however, I don’t have what I would consider to be a Valentine – at least not one on which I will be spending any money.
The increase in the budget will be used toward (1) taxes for 2020 and (2) medical expenses. I’m looking at spending an additional $1,200 between the taxes and the health-related costs. Saving $500 toward taxes is me being proactive in preparing to address the tax bill that I’m likely to have for covering my 2020 tax liability.
I’ve stated that I pay myself from my business via two different forms of income – W-2 employee income and owner distributions. With the W-2 employee income, taxes are automatically withheld through the payroll system I use (ADP). The distributions, however, don’t include withholding. So, I need to be prepared to pay whatever taxes I owe when it’s tax filing time.
It’s a short month, so I need to make every day count. How are things looking for you for February?