March was a great month for me when it came to spending, even if that resulted in a more boring month for my social life. So far April has started off the complete opposite from the spending perspective! With the extra income that I received from my bonus and tax return, this worked out great for my budget. The HUGE amount of money I put into my student loans really didn’t cause any major disruptions in my budget like I thought it was. I know that I allowed for some breathing room when calculating the payment, but I did expect that it would cut it somewhat close. Fortunately it did not end up that way and I finished the month coming out under budget and resulting in a nice surplus going into my checking account.
Here are the budget numbers for March:
I only spent $10 on gas this month thanks to remembering to use my gift cards as much possible, and doing significantly less driving this month than I normally would. Gas is on the rise but I was able to counteract that this month. I also made my last car insurance payment for the “year” and I’ll now have a two month break before renewing my policy, which will be nice. I’ll have to explore my options this year since last year I already took advantage of the discount from the defensive driving course I took.
Like I had said at the beginning of the post, you can see that both my dining out and entertainment spending was pretty negligible for March. You can see that I didn’t spend anything in either category which I don’t think has ever happened for me! I did have a visit to the doctor when I was sick, so I had a $25 co-pay for that visit but it turned out to just be viral, so there was no additional expenses there.
I did have some extra spending as it was a busy month with events on my team at work and others that I work closely with. There were baby showers, someone got married, and someone else had surgery. It seemed like every day there was another reason for an event! I don’t mind chipping in for gifts though, I think it’s nice that everyone does help give a little something for these major events.
Here are my other budget goals:
You can see that my checking account really got a huge boost from the extra income, and even with the massive student loan payment that I made last month I was able to come out almost $1300 under budget. I plan on putting that towards an early student loan payment in April before my automatic payment is made (probably could have put more last month). With the amount of money currently in my checking account I don’t really have to worry about cash flow or waiting for another paycheck. It should save me a few cents on interest and bring me even closer to finally paying off those loans!
My car payment continues on the standard repayment track, and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to start putting money into my Roth IRA for 2016 contributions later this month. It depends how much goes towards my student loan as well as my spending levels, but I’m thinking that I will be able to start that later in April.
photo credit: Morning Light via photopin (license)
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