June struck me as a very simple month for us, financially. Nearly all of our variable spending was on groceries. We only bought gas once. We didn’t eat out at all. We only bought four items from Amazon, which is pretty low these days! We were fairly busy around town attending birthday parties and going to the zoo, but didn’t have to spend major bucks to do so. Over the last six weeks, we finally put DPR into a set bedtime routine, which keeps us at home after about 6:00 PM every night, limiting the opportunities for spending.

these birds are DPR’s favorite

We still have about $3,000 left from our ‘tax refund’ this year that we haven’t spent or allocated. I’m waiting to see how much Kyle spends on the desktop computer he’s been planning to buy, and I have plenty of ideas for what to do with the remainder: beef up a targeted savings bucket or two (I’m looking at you, ‘Baby’), add to our house down payment fund, and possibly pay for some financial/estate planning. But he’s dragging his feet on the desktop purchase for inscrutable reasons. Man, we’re such bad procrastinators these days when it comes to our money!

Regular Fixed Expenses

Rent $1495

Water/Sewer/Garbage $130

Internet $74.45

Student Loan Minimum Payment $99.67

Netflix $10.74

Cloud Backup $5.99

Regular Variable Expenses

Power $0 ($60 budgeted): Off month.

Groceries $667.32 ($600 budgeted): 10% over here, which is a little disappointing but not too bad considering we didn’t spend any money eating out.

Restaurants $0 ($100 budgeted)

Gas/Parking/Public Transit $23.88 ($60 budgeted): One gas fill-up.

Phones $64.25 ($65 budgeted): Two smartphones with large data plans! Kyle uses Cricket Wireless and I use Republic Wireless.

Miscellaneous $19.09 ($41.81 budgeted): We bought a charging cable after we damaged one in our vacuum cleaner and a smartphone holder for our car. I’ve actually been pleasantly surprised by how well the holder works. We needed something that was compatible with both of our phones (an iPhone and an Android). The holder is very simple and cheap: a magnetic plate (came with four) that goes inside a smartphone cover (or sticks to the back) that is attracted to a base that you shove into an air vent.

Bottom Line

We spent $2,590.39 of $2,742.66 available. The $152.27 extra will go toward partially refilling the checking account buffer that we depleted so drastically last month.

Targeted Savings

Cars

Starting Balance $717.35

Saved $79.44

Spent $0

Travel

Starting Balance $1372.45

Saved $441.67

Spent $0

Gifts

Starting Balance $430.55

Saved $70.00

Spent $17.60: All of DPR’s babyfriends have summer birthdays, so we’re attending lots of birthday parties!

Appearance

Starting Balance $74.38

Saved $30.00

Spent $0

Electronics

Starting Balance $1,082.89

Saved $42.86

Spent $0

Baby

Starting Balance -$262.76

Saved $0

Spent $26.00: We bought DPR a new sippy cup and paid some babysitting booking fees. Just digging ourselves a bigger hole here!

Insurance

Starting Balance $583.32

Saved $108.33

Spent $0

When you have a simple financial month, where does most of your variable or discretionary spending happen?