It’s a little later than I’ve been normally posting my budget reviews… but here it is… Oh, and that means that there are already expenses put in to the August budget… but oh well…
Before I get started, I have to share a little epiphany that I had this month while playing in my YNAB software… so maybe a bunch of you know this already… but I’ve been doing it wrong all along when I’m using the YNAB software… okay, maybe not “wrong” but I found out in the chaos of being spendy this month, that if I budget for a certain amount in a category, and I go over… it uses up everything from that category, and then just takes my “over budget” spending out of the following month’s money… so I didn’t have to do all that crazy moving stuff around that I’ve been doing… or at least not to the same extent… Anyway, I already did all the moving around this month (and there was a lot of it), but for August, I’m going to try to be realistic (I try every month) but then deal with the overages (if they occur) using that feature and see if I like it…
It will mean that I won’t have to go back to the budget post from the month before to check how much things have changed… But alas, I didn’t do that this month… so back I go to the July Budget to get my original numbers…
But first up the pretty graph of spending that we did in July:
Spend spend spend… Not quite as bad as last month… but I don’t have a purchase of a roof in there to elevate the spending… instead it is just too much summer fun!
And here are the final numbers (plus the beginning of August numbers):
And now let’s just quickly discuss where everything went…
1. Mortgage: Always a boring category… Originally $ XXXX**, brought it down to $ XXXX** to save $ XX** for another category… I was desperately trying to balance everything…
2. Utilities & Home Insurance: I had originally budgeted $ XX** for this one… but decided to take some out of those “funds” to pay for our extra fun in July… Probably not the wisest decision, but the July fun was really really fun! And then for August, I’m hoping that what we have left in the “funds” will cover whatever comes up…
3. RRSP & TFSA: Like normal, I had originally budgeted $ XXX** for July, however, I learned something in July… My fiance’s RRSP contributions are every two weeks, not just twice a month… so his contributions came out 3 times in July… which of course required some moving around… budgeted the regular $ XXX** for August…
4. Planned Spending / Saving: The outflow from this category just keeps coming… and will be coming all through August… I had originally put that I was going to add $ XXX** to the various planned spending categories in here, but I ended up actually taking more out of the the “funds” to move to other categories… just means that I have to work extra hard in the next few months to fill those back up if I am going to meet my goals… starting with $ XXX** in August… we’ll see…
5. Life Insurance, Medical & Family Expenses: This is where a good chunk of the moved money came from… I originally budgeted $ XXX** for this category, but took a bunch of that away to pay for other stuff and this category relied on the “funds” to cover this month’s expenses… which I guess is the point… right? August I am trying to fill the funds again a bit…
6. Cable, Cell Phones & Internet: Original = $ XXX**, Actual = $ XXX**… what?!? Yeah, there was the rest of the fiance’s new phone to pay off… totally forgot about that… whoops…
7. Car Insurance, Maintenance & Gas: I had originally budgeted $ XXX**, but decided to take some out and bring it down to $ XXX**… I thought I was going to get some maintenance done on my car, but that didn’t happen, so hopefully there is enough in the fund this month for that… however, we spent more on gas than I had expected in July…
8. Groceries, Eating Out & Liquor: Original budget = $ XXXX**, and as always, this is the category where we go over… For August, some of our food expenses will be combined with travel and wedding stuff, so hopefully the August $ XXXX** will be enough…
9. Household Goods & Toiletries: Original budget was $ XXX**, but that was bare-bones… so didn’t account for anything that might come up… so it was increased to $ XXX**. For August, I brought it back up again… we’ll see…
10. Fitness & Sports: I should have known better than attempt a $0 budget for fitness and sports… We are active people and we like to participate in team sports which cost money…
11. Clothing & Personal Care: I am pretty proud of this category… I budgeted $ XXX** and only needed to up it by $ XX** to make it work. I expect more to be in this category for August…
12. Misc.: I don’t really know what to say about this one… My original budget had only $ XX**… This category includes gifts… wedding gifts, baby gifts… and I renewed my passport… I also bought an external hard drive to backup some of our files… Oh, and we contributed to a friend’s charity bike ride… It just adds up… really fast…
I am not surprised by the spending… there was lots going on… and I don’t expect much different for August, with the wedding and all… but here’s hoping that after that we can settle in to some serious saving for the next few months… Once all the chaos subsides…
How did your July go financially? Are you expecting better or worse for August?
**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 
Our spending is always higher in the summer months, because hello, summer is for fun!! In January we always barely spend anything because we are in total hermit mode. Anyways, all that to say, when I go over in the summer on spending I don’t sweat it at all, because I know it’s my favorite time of year and the money is going towards fun experiences. Sounds like y’all had a fun July!
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Yes, it is much easier to stay in and be frugal in the winter months… We did have some pretty awesome experiences in July, and we are going to have a bunch more this month (already have and we are only a week in!) so the spending is for a good cause… but I’d still like to see us save more.
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Yes! If, I’m reading your blog’s sidebar, y’all are gettin’ hitched in a few days!!! Good luck and well wishes 🙂
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