DD’s Monthly Expenses – March 2009

For any first time readers out there, I track my family’s monthly expenses.  It’s been a fun little exercise. It’s nice knowing where our money is going.  I’m flattered to see that I’m rubbing off on others.

Without further ado, here is the latest breakdown:

• $830.00 – Mortgage
• $664.10 – Health Insurance
• $639.00 – Daycare
• $456.24 – Electricity
• $345.06 – Groceries
• $296.16 – Household Misc
• $200.00 – Student Loan
• $167.36 – Beauty Products
• $122.97 – Dinning Out
• $109.63 – Dog (Food & Medicine)
• $79.85 – Furnace Repair
• $76.05 – Phone/Internet
• $69.27 – Gas
• $66.78 – Rec classes (Wife & Daughter)
• $54.50 – Donations
• $49.62 – Utilities (Water, Sewer, & Garbage)
• $45.00 – Circus
• $15.00 – Haircut
• $10.60 – Video Rentals

Grand Total – $4297.19

This is a little higher than I thought it was going to be, but it’s a HUGE improvement from last month.

Biggest Budget Busters:

1. $296.16 – Household Misc – I knew it was going to be a bad month for this category when on March 1st we had already spent $160.
2. $167.36 – Beauty Products –  My wife has decided to start using all natural & organic beauty products.  So she stocked up.  She informs me that this first batch will last quite a long time.
3. $139.97 – Dinning Out –  This is a tough one to swallow.  We’ve been doing so good holding this total down since going to the envelope system.  And if you take out one night of excess($79…half of this is drinks) we’d have been just fine this month too.
4. $79.85 – Furnace Repair – This should be listed under stupidity.  We had to request a service call when our furnace quit being able to keep up with the cold.  The stupid part was it ended up just needing a new filter.  The really stupid part is that before calling, I looked at the filter and thought it was just fine.

Biggest Budget Breakthroughs:

1. $345.06 – Groceries – This is by far the lowest total we’ve had in this category.  I’d love to think it was due to us making economical meals, but it’s really just the result of good timing.  I went shopping on Feb 28th, and that trip fed us the first week in March.
2. $76.05 – Phone/Internet – This is the result of taking your advice to switch to a cheaper provider. This price will go up after a 6 month promotion, but it’ll still be $10 cheaper than I was paying before.
3. $10.60 – Video Rentals – Instead of going to Cancun, this is how I spent my Spring Break.

Well there we have it.  I think with a little more adjustments (plus warmer weather) we’ll be under 4K in no time.

Until next time,

-DD