Friday, February 1, 2008

January recap

The first month of the year is done and I am pretty pleased with how it's gone. I have really trimmed spending significantly. This is what I am most proud of. The biggest help in this realm has been the serious reduction in eating out. It's really hard not to sometimes, especially as everyone heads out of the office to my favorite Chinese place. Must. Have. Willpower. It's been easily curbed by my resolution to go to the gym more. Twice a week I hit the gym during lunch and thisinly allows me a quick meal at my desk.

I printed out my bank statement to do some quick analysis. I broke out my expenses for the month into a few areas where I had made goals. This is how I did:

Meals Out: $82.76
I did have 5 girlfriends in town in the middle of the month and we actually limited ourselves to ne meal out, which I paid $30 for. The rest of it was three lunches out, a meal at a night meeting, and treating my daughter to pizza. I have more than cut this in half from December and would have been less save the great lunch out with the girls.

Groceries: $269.33
Again, this was a little higher than I planned as I had houseguests for a few days. Of course, they were MORE than generous with buying supplementals and I love them for it. I took November's numbers for groceries and tey totalled $461.19. Wow. Two things are at play here. First, I am watching the flyers and cutting coupons. Second, I am no longer buying liquor. Of course, I had a boyfriend in November so I kept the house better stocked. Not dating is saving me $200! That was a joke...

Gas: $227.48
This is pretty close to what I had budgeted! Off by $27.48 but I have discovered gasbuddy.com which tells me the cheapest gas in area. One day the Circle K was 2.84 a gallon and I was able to find a station two miles away for $2.71 a gallon. Good deal.

The bad stuff? I still have to pay my cable bill and I had about $15o in miscellaneous expenses. Just little things here and there. This is where I need to severely monitor and cut back. That is my biggest goal for February. I mustcurb as much spending as I can and put the money to the credit card. I can reward myself a little bit here and there. I really want new workout clothes. But, I need to see that balance go down more before I can!

So my goals for February are:

Groceries - $200
Gas - $200
Meals out - $40
Miscellaneous - $50

I am certain I can do this!

1 comment:

Matt said...

Good for you for looking back at how you did versus the budget! That's an area I need to improve upon :). It is tough to stick to the budget, but it is worth it. The hardest part is when you have an empty tank of gas and no money left in the gas budget...and a couple days left in the month.
Keep at it! You'll see more progress :)