Monthly Money Roundup

Since my quest to track our grocery spending and how we spend it has fallen to the wayside, I thought I would institute a monthly money roundup.  This way I don't have to breakdown receipts, although as you'll soon find out, I probably need to.

I will be breaking down the monthly budget using our Quicken categories:

Auto
     Car payments - we have 2 cars that we make payments on: A 2002 Ford Explorer Sport and a 2002 Ford Focus ZX5 hatchback ( the new car for the wife)
     Auto Gas - I drive approximately 24 miles a day when I come home for lunch and the wife drives around 50 miles a week (including our weekend jaunts)    
     Car Insurance - it just went up with the new car, but I'm bringing it back down this week.

Utilities/Monthly house bills
     Electricity - most of our house is electric with the exception of the hot water heater, which also runs our baseboard radiant heat in the winter
     House Gas - This is only for our hot water heater
     Cable/Internet/Home Phone - We have the triple play from comcast with a DVR and 2 cable boxes.  I'd like to get rid of one, but our house has an A/B cable system.  It sucks.
     Cell Phones - My wife and I have cellphones and they are currently stripped down to voice only
     Water/Trash Pickup - we have a soaking tub so sometimes this is more, sometimes it's less

Loans
     Mortgage - you can read a little about the house here.
     Student Loans - these are all mine.  Went way into debt to get schooled, but it payed off.

Food/Smokes
     Smokes - we both smoke and can save a lot of money if we didn't, but we do.  I'll post more about it later this week.
     Groceries - this won't be a breakdown, but a general what we spend

Misc.
     Household expenses - This is when we nickel and dime ourselves, and is part of our entertainment also.  We like buying stuff for the house.
     Medical - everybody needs a doctor sometimes.
     Eating out - This is mostly me snagging foodwhen I don't come home for lunch.



So now that you now what goes into each category, here's the breakdown for the month of May:

Auto
     Car payments - $366.63
          This is only for my car, we make the wife's car first payment in July

     Auto Gas - $240.54
          This one blew me away.  That's about 5 fillups.  That is way too much money.

     Car Insurance - $203.52
          This will go up about $50 when the wife's car gets hit.  

Utilities/Monthly house bills
     Electricity - $0
           Didn't pay the bill this month.  I am trying to do better, but May was a bad month.
     House Gas - $0
           Didn't technically pay in May, but paid a bunch this week.
     Cable/Internet/Home Phone - $0
           See.  Told you it was a bad month.  But same as the gas, I paid a whole bunch this week. 
     Cell Phones - $434.12
           This was 3 months worth of cell phones, with one month still including all the extras we used to have.  But the cellphone is now up to date and on the month online bill pay schedule
     Water/Trash Pickup - $0

Loans
     Mortgage - $1490.90
     Student Loans - $0
         This one is going to hurt in June.

Food/Smokes
     Smokes - $345.28
           We live in a high cost to smoke state.
     Groceries - $814.46.
           This one blew me away.  For some reason we pent $300 more on groceries than we did last month
      Eating out - $76.66
           It was a rough month at work and I couldn't come home as often as I would have liked.  This month I have been preplanning and have brought my lunch a few days.

Misc.
     Household expenses - $521.92
          We finally got around to setting up the back yard.  Also some of the garden expenses are in this one.
     Medical - $268.28
           We signed up another animal for banfield at petsmart.  We really needed to since he has seasonal allergies and this will save us money. He also had an ear infection that needed meds.


photo by pouwerkerk