I’m not paying much attention to our money these days, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that we’ve spent way more than usual.  There has been a bit of waste and convenience spending, but most everything was reasonable.  I was just a bit taken aback in tallying it all up that it came out so high.  We were over in almost all of our variable spending categories.  Targeted spending was a little weird – medium-sized purchases in a bunch of categories, plus we’re paying the expenses up front for a conference Kyle is attending in July.

The Everyday Budget

Top-line items

INCOME: Our normal stipend paychecks.

AUTOMATED GIVING:

• 10% of our stipends to our church
• $50 to the missionary we support

RETIREMENT SAVINGS: Our new slightly increased rate, 18%-ish.

Non-discretionary spending

Rent: $870.

Internet: $34.99.

Cell phones: Kyle’s usual $69.77.  I’m now out of account credits from people using my referral link to sign up for Republic Wireless so I paid $26.32 for my cell this month.  What a deal for unlimited everything! 🙂

Variable spending

Groceries: Ugh, over again here, even though I’ve stopped even counting our CSA spending.  Just a lack of self-control.  Plus it’s summer, which is always higher-spending.

Gas: We filled up three times this month – Kyle was driving all over RDU trying to buy his electronics and we also went to a wedding 90 minutes away.  So a reasonable overage, but an overage nonetheless.

Restaurants: About 20% over on eating out.  Unfortunately, only a bit of the spending was for legitimate social occasions and the rest was just convenience spending, which we try to avoid.

Electricity and Gas: Lovely spring weather here meant we were under budget.

Water: Quite over here and I’m not sure why.  It’s about a 30% jump over our average.

Miscellaneous Transactions

Every month, we have some transactions that don’t fall into our normal budget categories:

• We spent $14.40 on some random stuff from Amazon.
• We bought a Kindle book for $9.15.  I really can’t remember the last time we bought a book because we use the library for everything (or forgo it if the library doesn’t have it).  We’re reading When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourselfwith our church small group this summer, so we can’t depend on a library loan for that whole period, and they don’t have an ebook version available.  I hope it’s worth it!
• Kyle received another cash graduation gift.

Spending Out of Targeted Savings

We spent $1,184.98 out of these accounts and transferred $207.09 in above our normal savings rates.

Travel and Personal Gifts

We spent $78.99 on a wedding gift.

Nest Egg

We pulled $734 from this account to cover a flight and conference registration for Kyle.  It will be reimbursed.

Cars

no spending this month

Entertainment

We spent $96.10 on tickets to see the NC Symphony play John Williams music.

Appearance

We spent $107 on some clothes for me.

Electronics

We bought an iPad case, a Bluetooth keyboard, a new desktop keyboard, and a USB stick for $144.19.

Medical

We spent $19.70 on prescriptions and received a $100 rebate from our health insurance for the glasses I bought last month.

Charitable Giving

We gave $5 to the same homeless guy we’ve been giving to occasionally.

CSA

no spending this month

Taxes

We received our state tax return of $107.09.  We actually need to re-file because we found something else to deduct.

Camera

no spending this month

Budget Adjustments

This was Kyle’s very last month being paid as a graduate student; next month he’ll be bringing in the big postdoc bucks!  We decided on one budget change that will take effect in August – we’re supporting another missionary at $50/month.

Bottom Line

Major fail this month, unsurprisingly.  We were over by $88.76, which we covered out of our general savings account.

When you stop paying attention to your money, do you spend more or less?