view from my hotel room while traveling to speak

April was a very busy month for us! I gave six talks this month on two trips, one day trip and one multi-day trip to the East Coast. We also traveled to California on two subsequent weekends. Thankfully DPR took all that upheaval pretty well, though it wiped me out.

We filed our tax return on April 15 after preparing it using tax software. We owed a small amount of money to the IRS and gave ourselves a ridiculously large self-tax refund. We started but haven’t yet finished allocating the refund yet. So far we put $2,112 extra toward our retirement accounts (instead of contributing to DPR’s 529) (this was the amount she ‘saved’ us on our taxes this year) and used $509.42 toward a network attached storage system. We have some ideas for the remainder of the money as well.

Thankfully, after last month’s ridiculous overspend, we came in radically under budget this month and were able to refill our checking account buffer and contribute a bit more to our targeted savings accounts.

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 $335.74 ($600 budgeted): This was a fantastically low-spending month for us for food because of all our traveling. Our whole family was out of town for 7 days and I was out of town for 6 days (Kyle’s food is less expensive than my food).

Restaurants $0 ($100 budgeted): We did all of our eating out while traveling, so it went against our travel funds.

Gas/Parking/Public Transit $16.31 ($60 budgeted): This was 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 $0 ($8.48 budgeted)

Bottom Line

We spent $2,232.15 of $2,709.33 available. That’s probably our biggest under-spend ever! We used $381.30 to refill our checking account buffer (following last month’s spending disaster) and added $95.89 to our Baby targeted savings account.

Targeted Savings

Cars

Starting Balance $558.47

Saved $79.44

Spent $0

Travel

Starting Balance $1,207.40

Saved $450.00

Spent $734.95: We traveled to two events in California this month, a wedding and our 10-year high school reunion.

Gifts

Starting Balance $365.00

Saved $95.00

Spent $99.45: We purchased a wedding gift.

Appearance

Starting Balance $466.45

Saved $30.00

Spent $137.97: I got a haircut and bought two pairs of jeans and a dress for the wedding we attended.

Electronics

Starting Balance $997.17

Saved $552.28

Spent $509.42: Kyle purchased a solid state drive and three hard drives to set up a NAS for our home. We paid for it with our self-tax return money.

Baby

Starting Balance -$142.45

Saved $95.89

Spent $6.59: We bought a teether for DPR.

Insurance

Starting Balance $366.66

Saved $108.33

Spent $0.00

What are you doing with your tax refund, if you got one? How are you doing with your budget?