Our major event this month was traveling over winter break. We stayed with my parents for about 10 days. Most of the time we were just spending time at home with my family, as DPR was all the entertainment we needed. My siblings hadn’t met DPR before so that was very exciting.

Traveling for that period threw off our spending in a couple ways: we mooched off my parents for food so our grocery and restaurant spending was lower, but had more transportation-related expenses.

One really cool (free!) thing we did in Seattle before we left for the holidays was to view the gingerbread houses at the Sheraton downtown. The theme this year was Harry Potter, which we’re big fans of. In addition to being enormous and actually covered in candy, the houses were had an incredible amount of intricate detail conveying different aspects of the book and were motorized to a small degree.

Sources of Income

Our budget is based on Kyle’s net income (after taxes and insurance).

Percentage-Based Budgeting

From Kyle’s net pay, we set aside/transfer:

• 18% toward retirement
• 10% for our tithe

Monthly Budget

We did surprisingly well keeping our variable expenses in check this month.

Regular Expenses

Rent $1495 ($1495 budgeted)

Water/Sewer/Garbage $130 ($130 budgeted)

Phones $61.53 ($65 budgeted): Republic Wireless for me and Cricket Wireless for Kyle!

Internet $69.95 ($70 budgeted)

Netflix $10.74 ($11 budgeted)

Student Loan $99.67 ($100 budgeted)

Cloud Backup $5.99 ($6 budgeted)

Variable Expenses

Transit $107.22 ($50 budgeted): In addition to our typical expenses of a gas fill-up and some parking, we Ubered to the airport for our trip and filled up my parent’s car with gas while we were using it.

Power $0 ($50 budgeted): Off month.

Groceries $369.16 ($600 budgeted): Very low grocery costs this month because of our travels.

Restaurants $20.15 ($100 budgeted): We grabbed one meal in the airport to eat on the plane.

Irregular Expenses

In total, we are allocating $800 per month (on average) to spend across five six seven categories.

In this period, we spent:

Cars $0

Travel $0

Gifts $665.65: We purchased one birthday gift, one wedding gift, and a zillion Christmas presents.

Appearance $0

Electronics $0

Baby $26.95: We bought a cover for DPR’s car seat so it wouldn’t be damaged while being handled as baggage on our flight.

Health $39: One visit to a chiropractor.

Miscellaneous

Our total available miscellaneous money for this period was our normal $3.60. We spent $0.

Bottom Line(s)

Monthly: Spent $2,369.41 of $2,677.00 budgeted – under!

Irregular: Spent $731.60 of $800 budgeted – under!

Miscellaneous: Spent $0 of $3.60 budgeted – under!

This period, we spent $3101.01 of $3,480.60 available.

How did the holidays change your spending from a typical month?