July 2014 Budget Review

I entered the month of July fully aware that it would be a very high spending month for me, most likely the highest spending month, and I came out of July proving myself right. Let’s hope that I don’t prove myself wrong this month though! I went down to Ocean City, Maryland twice this month for vacation, once over the 4th of July holiday weekend and again for an entire week at the end of the month. Just based on these trips I knew they were going to contribute to my spending being somewhat excessive, so I attempted to keep the rest of my spending down. Vacations and being able to take a break from everything is something that I highly value, so I have no regrets about spending extra money on vacation to do the things that I enjoy. That doesn’t mean that I’m going out to a super fancy restaurant and dropping $100 for a meal, but I don’t mind going out to eat a few times while I’m away. Plus the price of the rent can’t be beat down in Ocean City – thanks grandma! Keep on reading to see what my actual budget numbers are and what categories I was able to keep under budget.

So here is what my budget did look like:

As you can see from the above budget numbers, I busted my budget pretty bad at almost $500 over my standard estimated budget. The one thing I forgot about this month (but was quickly reminded when the bill came!) is that I had to make an initial upfront payment for my car insurance of $500 which really pushed me over the limit of my budget. I wrote about finding a new car insurance provider in a recent post, but with vacation and the deadline quickly approaching I had to make this decision for now at least. This will lower the overall amount I’m paying and it slightly less than last year. I’ll adjust my budget going forward, and I’m still going to keep a look out for other insurance quotes so that I can switch as soon as possible if necessary.

Tying right into car insurance comes the next category on my budget that I knew was going to high, and that is the cost of fuel. I spent $160+ on gas this month and thinking about all the driving I did I guess it doesn’t seem to bad. I even lucked out with gas prices going down towards the end of the month so this category could have been a lot higher, especially with the gas prices in more recent summers.

Unfortunately I had more car related expenses including $15 spent in tolls going back and forth as when you travel on the weekend (hard to avoid) the tolls are double the weekday prices. I also spent $15 to get some engine coolant and washer fluid, so that would should round out my auto expenses for the month.

I spent $98 on dining out as well which is probably the most I’ll spend in this category this year. We went out for pizza one night, a rib place another night, and around the 4th of the July we went to a burger place so I think that works out pretty well for the three meals out that I paid for. There was also around $150 worth of grocery spending in the other spending category to pay for breakfast, lunches, and the rest of the dinners that we cooked in. I also bought some supplies for my grandma’s condo (I have to contribute somehow since I get to stay for free) so things like toilet paper, laundry detergent, dish/hand soap, tissues, because they were all running low down there so those expenses added up quickly with the cost of food.

Other expenses on vacation were spending some money on the boardwalk, having to pay for parking, and of course I had to play a round of mini golf. Who doesn’t love mini golf? I’m a big fan of it and never had the interest or the money to get into actual golfing so at least I get to work on my putting game. I got a haircut this month which costs me $15 and is basically a monthly expense at this point, I’m starting to think that I should just start adding that into my budget.

I tried to capture all of my cash expenses on vacation and I think I did a pretty good job of that while mostly paying everything else with credit card (I love getting the cash back and being able to track all my purchases!) as when I went to check my wallet versus the all the expenses I was only off by $3, which just might have been a missed toll or something. I still paid my $2300 towards my student loans for month even though I knew that I would be over budget as I have said before, it will all catch up in the coming months. My budget does not cover my entire income and most months I end up with excess money that just goes into my savings account for now. As long as my spending stays in line throughout the year I am not worried about months like this where I do break the budget. If I was paying a normal car insurance payment this month, I actually would have been right in line with my budget!

Image Source: Justin Posey from Death to the Stock Photo