What I Spent March 2017

Can we just talk about how hard budgeting is before you read this months budget? Ugh. I don't even know what happened. We spent way over our budget of $2000 a month (we are trying for $1800 but didn't even get close this month). What did we buy? More on that below. Ugh.

Bills: $1140
Our bills for this month are:

1. YMCA ($75)
2. Audible ($25)
3. Cell phones, mine and husbands ($25)
4. Electric bill ($200)
5. Internet ($60)
6. Water ($80)
7. House Taxes (we own our home) (675$)

I forgot we'd be paying our home taxes this month! This pushes our bills up wayyyy over what I budget. Good thing we also got our tax return back this month or we'd be in the red. I also got a question about our electric bill. Is it really $200 a month? No, its not. I budget $200 for it a month but in the summer it can be as low as $75 and in the winter it can be as much as $300. I just forget to update the exact number, but I always know we budget $200 for it. Same goes for the water bill. Sometimes I forget to look at exactly how much it is (husband manages those two bills and pays them) but I do know we budget $80.

Eating Out ($190)

We ate out too much AGAIN. Poop. We are only supposed to spend 100$ eating out a month. Fail. But, I did enjoy a really fun date night with the hubs at our favorite place--as well as a lot of weekend meals. This covers five times eating out, and one of those times we paid for a friend as well as for ourselves (hi Jon).

Grocery ($1087)

I'm not even halfway though the budget and we already hit $2000. Thanks, taxes. I have no idea how we spent this much on grocery food, but my receipts tell the truth.

Reuben ($40)

Finally something under budget! We budget $100 for Reuben each month for growing expenses, toys, trips, or doctor visits he needs. This month he got two (new to him) pairs of shoes, and some summer clothes (he needed more shorts) and also a friend was selling her kid's gently used winter clothes on facebook in 3T so I grabbed them up.

Home ($687)

This isn't a category we usually have, but since we got our tax return back we decided to spend it starting a garden in our front yard. We bought pressurized wood to build a frame, dirt, an electric rototiller, and chicken wire to put around the garden so deer don't eat all our food. This garden starting business was more expensive than I thought it would be, but it's only a starting cost. We won't be spending this much on it yearly! I'm glad its almost done (haven't put the wire up yet). Kudos to husband for doing the majority of the work. I mean, I did watch the Reuben, but husband dug out the raised beds, hauled everything... and built everything.

Personal Money ($595)

Carolynn ($505)

Yes, I know. I know. I spent like 80% of the personal money. I'm sorry. It happens. I hired a babysitter four times ($160) bought myself gas twice, some socks, some yarn, some clothes and some cloth pads.

Brian ($90)

Brian bought an essential oil to try for his anxiety, as well as a book, gas for his car, and breakfast from McDonald's.

Tithe ($200)

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That brings our total spent in January to $3939, almost $2000 over our budget of 1800. Are you shocked? I am. However, we received a tax return of $2000, bailing us out so we didn't have to take anything from our savings account. This saves $61 for our fence, bringing our total saved to $123. We had hoped to save our full tax return for the fence but as you can see above, we literally failed at that. At least we saved something. Right?

The 2017 budget series:

January : February : March : April : May : June : July : August : September : October : November : December