DD’s Monthly Expenses – June 2009 – The Grocery Breakthrough
I can’t believe the year is half over. Summer is flying by!
For any new readers just joining us, I track my family’s monthly expenses. Below is the tally for June 2009:
- $1038.54 – Mortgage
- $664.10 – Health Insurance
- $618.00 – Daycare
- $311.25 – Groceries
- $215.00 – Student Loan
- $173.34 -Hair Care
- $107.77 – Medical
- $83.97 – Electric
- $81.69 – Tennis
- $81.06 – Dinning Out
- $69.62 – Phone/Internet
- $65.79 – Household Misc
- $56.94 – Cosmetics
- $54.77 – Dog
- $53.32 – Utilities
- $52.02 – Kid’s Care
- $46.34 – Kid’s Fun
- $39.29 – Gas
- $37.54 – Books
- $30.74 – 4th of July Party
- $27.00 – Donations
- $9.51 – Video Rentals
- $8.88 – Clothes
Total Expense = $3917.59
YEAY!!! We finally met our goal of being under $4,000!
Biggest Budget Busters:
- $1038.54 – Mortgage – I normally pay $830/month, but my escrow account was too low, so I had to pay in a little extra. I’ll write more about this in another post.
- $173.34 -Hair Care – I wish I could say that this is all for Mrs DD. But it’s not, half of it is for me. I use Nioxin products and they are pretty spendy.
- $107.77 – Medical – I’m putting this one here because $60 of this is for an eye exam for Mrs DD. She only went because I was convinced that she was near sighted. But the Dr. said she is A-OK. Whoopsie.
Biggest Budget Breakthroughs:
- $311.25 – Groceries – Yet another all time low in this category. Not that long ago we were close to $500/month.
- $65.79 – Household Misc – After reading the comments from my “what is misc?” post, I decided that I’d try to narrow this down a little. That’s why there are a few new categories this time (cosmetics, kids care).
- $39.29 – Gas – Thanks to the nice weather which lets me ride my bike everywhere, we only had to fill up the van once this month.
It’s hard to believe but I have been writing for The Happy Rock for a year now. That means I finally have 12 months of figures to play with.
Let’s have some fun with the numbers!
- We’ve spent a total of $51,036.90 in the past 12 months. YOWSERS!
- 20% of that went towards our mortgage ($10,168.54)
- 16.5% of our expenses has gone to daycare ($8,449)
- 15.5% was spent on either Health Insurance or Medical bills (last 6 months)
- 12.2% ($6,232.02)was spent on food (groceries & dinning out)
- We love spending money on the dog ($550.85), but we love spending it on Tennis even more ($552.44).
- An example of life in South Dakota…Our lowest electric bill – $83.97(June). Our highest – $484.69(Jan).
- We’ve spent more on our hair ($350.73) than we did on clothes($313.36). Unless you also include shoes ($224.11).
- We spent $197.86 on Books, Magazines, Movies,and Videos. And $180 on Pearl Jam alone!!!
Now let’s see how close to average we were (thanks to Get Rich Slowly for this chart, who got it from Visual Economics).
How come I’m not surprised we spent more than normal 🙁
I have to admit that it took me a while to get used to people nit-picking my consumer choices. But now that I’ve been doing it awhile I find it quite valuable. Not only does it help me with accountability, but I also get loads of helpful advice from you guys. I thank you for that.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve really enjoyed the last 12 months. I’m planning on running a series of “Follow ups” to give some updates on a few previous issues that I have written about.
Do you have any requests?
Until next time,
-DD
Does Nioxin work? -> http://www.ehow.com/video_4791234_does-nioxin-work.html
I spend virtually nothing on my hair. I just trim it down to 1/2″ every month. I’ve had the same clippers ($20) for about 7 or 8 years, and it cost just a few cents of electricity each time.
That’s an incredibly low gas bill. Congrats. I have a 70 mile commute (round trip) so our gas bill is more than that.
Nice job on the groceries, but yikes on the hair care!
Thanks for the comments:
@ John – It works for me. The package says that a high % of users perceive of thickening effect. This is not the case for me. What I perceive is a lessening of thinning. Before I started using it 12 years ago, my formerly thick hair was coming out in clumps after each shower.
I told the lady who cuts my hair and she recommended Nioxin. It instantly stopped my problem. It could be a coincidence, but I’m hooked.
@kosmo – That is a nasty commute. The Mrs works from home and I ride my bike, so as long as we don’t hit the road our gas bill is quite small.
@ Car Insurance phi – I can’t speak for the stuff that Mrs DD bought, (other than it smells really good) but my stash should last at least 8 months. Unless it is spilled…which a college roommate did once and re-filled it with water.
Gotta love roommates.
You don’t have any credit card debt?! Sorry if you addressed this in another post, I just started reading this blog. I could not help but notice that it’s not in your monthly budgets. Why does the amount of your student loan seem to change from month to month?
@ Rowena – Good observation on the student loan. It’s actually $105 a month. But I usually pay a little extra. I suppose everything above $105 should be labeled “debt snowball” or something like that. But I’m too lazy 🙂
And yes, currently we have no credit card debt.