Spend, spend, spend, spend, spend… We overspent this month… again…
It’s not the end of the world, we aren’t going in to debt or anything, but I really want us to get this under control and start saving more.
Here are the results:
| Category | Funds (Mar 1) |
Budgeted | Actual | Funds (Mar 31) |
| 1. Mortgage & Property Tax: | n/a | $ XXXX** | $ XXXX** | n/a |
| 2. Utilities & Home Insurance: | $0 | $ XXX** | $ XXX** | $ XX** |
| 3. RRSP & TFSA Contributions: | n/a | $ XXX** | $ XXX** | n/a |
| 4. Planned Spending: | $ XXXXX** | $ XXX** | $ XXX** | $ XXXXX** |
| 5. Life Insurance, Medical & Family Expenses: | $0 | $ XXX** | $ XXX** | $ XXX** |
| 6. Cable, Cell Phones & Internet: | n/a | $ XXX** | $ XXX** | n/a |
| 7. Car Insurance, Maintenance & Gas: | $0 | $ XXX** | $ XXX** | $ XXX** |
| 8. Groceries, Eating Out & Liquor | n/a | $ XXX** | $ XXXX** | n/a |
| 9. Household Goods & Toiletries: | $0 | $ XXX** | $ XXX** | ($ XXX**) |
| 10. Fitness & Sports: | $0 | $ XX** | $ XXX** | ($ XXX**) |
| 11. Clothing & Personal Care: | $0 | $ XXX** | $ XX** | $ XX** |
| 12. Misc. Others: | $0 | $ XXX** | $ XXX** | ($ XXX**) |
| Total: | $ XXXX** | $ XXXX** |
And in pretty graph format (because pie charts are pretty):
So I guess I should go over a couple of the over budget categories…
First up is #4. I’m not exactly sure I’m showing this right on my tables here… but in any case, I spent some money on travel that I hadn’t planned for because the trip isn’t until May, but we bought tickets and stuff ahead of time (makes sense when you think about it… )
And then for #6. This comes down to the timing of my cell phone bills… I have automatic payment, but for some reason, the timing this month is that I had two bills in March. Since I am cancelling my phone pretty quick here (I’ve got a post coming up about that), that shouldn’t happen again.
And of course #8 is over budget… Still can’t seem to get our food spending under control. This split out to 43% groceries, 45% eating out and 12% liquor purchases. We may have to try and do another no eating out challenge or maybe a limited eating out challenge…
#9 is over budget because we did some gardening projects that required some supplies and we also went to the closing out sales at Target and got a few items for around the house. We didn’t plan to do that…
#10 is over because of me. I paid for my summer sports and also had to finish paying some fees for my fall/winter leagues that I had forgotten about. Oh, and I registered for the half marathon. Sports are $$$!
And finally #12… I had to go back through the numbers to remember this one… but it was a concert that I went to with some friends. I bought all the tickets, and then got paid back with food and drink and a ride to and from the show… So I guess the full ticket money shouldn’t have gone in here, but it just would have added to #8 anyway…
So there we have it. Overspending everywhere! It’s not too big of a concern because I budgeted on us making less money than we actually did, and we have a decent slush fund, but we need to get our spending in check if we are going to make serious headway on savings.
I’ll be posting tomorrow about our budget for April, and my plans to get us on track.
How did your March spending work out? Did you go over budget on any category as much as we did?
**Edit: I have decided that I don’t want to share my actual numbers on the blog, so I have removed them from this post… Sorry if it makes it a bit confusing or unreadable… Hopefully it isn’t unbearably so.
All-Round Better Me 