I don’t plan to do this all the time, but I just wanted to give a quick update as to where we are in our budget in the middle of the month.
I use YNAB (You Need A Budget), which is really great, but when looking back at past months, it’s hard to see how I was doing in the middle of the month. Am I living like a prince in the first half of the month and like a pauper the rest of the month because my categories are empty?
So here’s how we’re doing in the middle of the month:
Wins:
- We’ve only spent $113 on going out to eat so far this month. Our monthly goal is $200, so we’re just a little off track, but I bought a lot more easy-to-make food, so we’ve been really good at eating at home. And I made a big pot of jambalaya, so there’s lots of leftovers. Also, we’ve been good about eating at cheaper local restaurants than going to more expensive places. (I swear I can’t pull into a Buffalo Wild Wings parking lot without having buyer’s remorse.)
- We’ve only spent $60 on gas so far this month! Our usual budget is $200 (Eric drives a really old truck that is a gas guzzler, and I like random trips to cities about an hour away).
- We’ve only spent $25 on “baby consumables” this month; diapers, wipes, things like that. I’ve been finding coupons and shopping Target’s good deals for these items, and it’s working out! And we only spent $61 total in this category last month, so it’s not even like I carried over a ton of stuff.
Losses:
- I’ve spent $274 of fun money already this month. Eric and I each get $150 of fun money and $200 of savings, which turns into me spending $350 and never having any savings. I am determined to not go over this month, so we’ll see how the next 16 days go.
- We’ve spent $338 on groceries so far. We budget $400, so this is really hard. Luckily, there’s a lot of food left in the house, but we need to get some cheap foods and get it together, and I’ve already put an extra $43 in the grocery category this month (money I would have rather saved elsewhere) just to make sure we don’t go over.
Here’s to the next 16 days! I am hopeful we can actually have a really great month for budgeting and level everything out. We’re going to need to build a consistent budget for retirement, as we won’t have income variation like we do now, so we’ll need to have a really good idea of what we actually need and actually spend on.
