May 2018 Expenses & Financial Update
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This is a new series I started a few months ago, sharing a report of our monthly expenses. At the end of the year I shared a recap of our 2017 spending, which showed graphs and percentages that we spent in each category. I decided to take the transparency up a notch and start sharing some monthly numbers. You can check out last month’s expenses here.
Sharing our expenses involves vulnerability, but after contemplating it for quite some time it seemed important. The goal with these expense reports will be to keep ourselves accountable as we continue on the road of being mindful with our spending. It’s also my hope that it will help spark conversations and encourage others to examine their own budgets.
We use Mint to budget and track our expenses. You can check out my writeup about how we use Mint for our budgeting here.
Without further ado, here’s where we spent our money this month:
May 2018 Expenses
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | $2337.89 | Includes rent + water/trash/sewage. The price of living in a high-cost of living area. |
| Renters Insurance | $14.00 | |
| Utilities | $17.87 | The benefit of living in an apartment! |
| Auto Payment | $274.89 | |
| Auto Insurance | $268.10 | |
| Gas | $123.42 | Gas prices are getting expensive again. |
| Mobile Phone | $111.91 | Bill much lower since our phones are paid off, will now be exploring cheaper companies. |
| Internet | $29.99 | |
| Entertainment | $104.96 | Dave & Buster's outing, baseball game. |
| Groceries | $175.91 | Even lower than normal, made a big Costco run on June 1st. |
| Restaurants | $147.79 | Includes a birthday dinner and a dinner with friends to celebrate a graduation. |
| Pets | $0 | |
| Shopping | $351.78 | Includes birthday present and home/personal supplies. |
| Travel | $260.59 | Airbnb for our trip to Denver in June. |
| Gifts | $88.69 | |
| Wedding | $398.41 | My wife and I were in a wedding this month, so this includes renting my tux, buying her dress, altering her dress, and her hair/makeup. |
| Misc Expenses | $48.54 | |
| Fun Money | $69.34 | |
| Total | $4638.22 | Doesn't include extra debt payments, investments, and giving. |
- Dividend Income: $24.73
- Interest Income: $20.39
- Side Hustle Income: $612.44
These past few years on our financial journey we’ve challenged everything and trimmed down our expenses, but our spending is still very much a work in progress.
Overall, we continued a positive trend and kept our expenses relatively low this month. Nothing too out of the ordinary, other than booking our Airbnb for our Denver trip (recap coming soon), and being part of our friends’ wedding. Travel continues to be an area we value highly, and it is reflected in our spending. It was nice to see our cell phone bill lowered due to paying off our phones in full last month. Now that we own them outright we have more flexibility to shop around for an even cheaper phone plan.
We continue to look to cut back on the areas that don’t matter as much, so that we can put money towards the areas we truly value. Mindful spending is a big focus for us and we continue to improve at it.
Other Financial Updates
My side hustle with a minor league baseball team is back in full swing, so we had a nice amount of extra income come in this month. We split this money between contributing to our Roth IRA and paying down our car loan. We were in a minor car accident last month (no serious injuries and completely the other person’s fault), which was a hassle and involved being without our car for a week while it was being repaired at a body shop. It also led to a settlement check, which we put entirely towards our car loan. We’ve got about $1,200 left on the loan, which means it should be fully paid off in the next couple months. Paying off that loan will make us completely debt free!
Thanks for tuning in to this months expense report, and I hope you’ll check back again for next month’s recap!
Related Reading: Reviewing Our 2017 Spending
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