I have done my best to track our spending in the following categories: Groceries/Consumables, Eating Out, Gas and personal spending. My hope is that we can determine amounts for each category that challenge us to stay within budget, but are also realistic for our life and our needs. We set rough dollar amounts for each category to give us an idea of what will work, and will review and tweak these amounts once we determine what our spending habits really are.
This is a review of how the first pay period went.
Groceries/Consumables:
Initially budgeted = $250
Actual spending = $347.35
Yikes! I think its a good thing this is a category that we can work on to see better savings, though $250 for this category is probably a bit low. I would like to be able to increase this budget category to $300 per pay period and do our best to reach that goal and then whittle it down a bit. This category is really broad, includes diapers, dogfood, booze, newspapers (for coupons, of course!), groceries and drug store deals. Pretty much everything we eat or consume in some way.
Eating Out:
Initially budgeted = $50
Actual spending = $79.47
Another category where we overspent, but I feel we did pretty good. This included a trip to Sacramento to take Ashlyn's grandma Tobie to the airport. Ashlyn and I enjoyed a thrift store shopping afternoon and lunch at Chick-fil-A. We also had a last minute meal planning fail where nothing really sounded good to me so we ordered pizza. Dominos put a $26.83 dent into this category, but provided dinner and a few lunches for our family. I think we can continue to try and stick with a $50 family eating out budget, though we may need to make some exceptions during February when we have Ashlyn's birthday, my birthday and Valentines day.
Gas:
Initially budgeted = $50
Actual spending = $38.19
Under budget, wahoo! One thing I love about our new van is the gas mileage, that plus the fact that I don't do a ton of driving makes this category an easy one for us on a normal basis.
Spending Money:
Bob's initially budgeted = $50
Bob's actual spending = $29.77
The majority of Bob's spending was on lunch while he is working. This is something we need to focus on. He was within his spending limits but I'm sure he'd enjoy spending his money on something fun occasionally, we need to do a little more lunch packing and a little less McDonalds buying.
Hailey's initially budgeted = $100
Hailey's actual spending = $106.33
YES!! This impresses me, big time! I'm a shopper. This amount was spent during our thrift store shopping day, a Redding trip to Joann's & Michaels and included a few birthday items for Ashlyn!
There were also a few random expenses & purchases that came up during this period, $14.20 in ebay fees and $40 that we spent on a chair from Red Bluff Needs. Not just any chair, Dannon's favorite "Awesome gamer chair!"
All in all, I think this was a good start to our budgeting attempt! Tracking our spending in these areas will help us to be more aware of where the money is going, and which areas we can focus on improving. I'd like to also start keeping track of the money I bring into the house by selling items on the facebook buy/sell groups I'm a part of and Craigslist. More on that to come with our next pay period review!
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