January Budget Review

Happy hump day everyone! It’s time for me to be accountable and review my monthly budget. While the month isn’t quite over yet, I’ve already finished paying my bills and other expenses and I don’t really plan on spending any more money this week. Last week was pretty rough for me so *fingers crossed* I hope the rest of this week will be pretty mellow.

If you haven’t yet, feel free to check out my debt updates that I post at the end of each month. I just can’t wait to see my debt total drop down and then be eliminated all together 🙂

Before I get to the nitty gritty, I always like to check in on how my month went so I’d like to mention my ‘highs’ to highlight the good and my ‘ lows’ to acknowledge the not so good so hopefully I can make improvements for future months.

My Highs

I paid at least $500 on my debt this month whoo! And I hope this number will only increase this year.

I had a wonderful birthday last weekend and I threw my son an awesome bowling party for his birthday (we’re 4 days apart) with food included for only $60

My boyfriend got me the book How to Blog for Profit Without Selling Your Soul and I’ve heard nothing but great things about this book. I’m so excited to finish reading it and to just be reading in general for that matter.

Despite missing a few days at work and having a super busy month at the office, we’re actually on task to earn a bonus this month so I really hope that happens so I can toss that on the student loans.

I’ve started investing in my professional education by joining some blogging and writing coaching programs which I’m super excited about. My budget may be even tighter along the next few months but I think it’s definitely worth it.

I started coaching preschool basketball again! I wasn’t going to do it this time and I was just going to watch my son play but the athletic director sent out an email claiming they were short on volunteer coaches so I felt somewhat obligated to lend a helping hand. I’m pretty glad I chose to coach again and it will only make exercising easier for me with the gym being so accessible after games.

My Lows

My payroll check got held up at my bank for a week this month. Something happened with the direct deposit where my boss had to give us a paper check and since I work at a small business my bank was giving me the run around about making my funds available. Since MLK day was a bank holiday, they informed me that it would take even longer for the funds to become available. With this unexpected and unfortunate setback happening the week of my son’s birthday and around the time when most of my bills were due, I had to exchange some funds from the good old emergency fund and I ended up opening another checking account with CapitalOne360

I ended up spending $864 on my car this month. Yup. You read right. A combination of my car note, gas, insurance and car repairs made up this grand total. My starter ended up going out the same week when my payroll check got held up with the bank. Again, my BFF the EF had to come to the rescue for this as well

We had a mini-fire in our house earlier this month and luckily it was all contained inside our oven and Ray was able to use the fire extinguisher to put out the fire. This resulted in us having to buy extra cleaning supplies to clean up the mess and we ended up going out to eat for lunch that day to let the house air out. Hence my dining out numbers.

After everything that happened this month I’m proud of myself for remaining positive. Positivity and gratitude have always been an issue for me in the past but I’ve been slowly getting better. I realized that life isn’t perfect and stuff happens.

It’s important to remain optimistic and keep moving forward no matter what. Michelle from Making Sense of Cents wrote about how being positive can improve your life and your financial situation and that really hit home with me. By being positive, I was able to think clearer and didn’t stress myself out. I even decided to ramp up my goal of paying off $8000 in debt this year and try to pay off my car completely if possible. You see, positivity 🙂

Anywho, I think I’ve blabbed enough.

Onto the Budget

Living Expenses/Utilities/Other Bills
Rent: $315
Fuel: $129 –Hooray for lower gas prices!
Car Repairs: $328
Groceries: $150
Household Toiletries: $15
ComEd: $75
Sister’s Phone: $50
My Phone: $12
Car Insurance: $107
Daycare: $151
Gym: $14
Bed Payment: $25
Credit Cards: $100
American Express: $140

Entertainment/Misc.
Jordan’s Birthday: $160 –party and tablet
My Birthday: $20
Dining Out: $25
Clothes: $13 -birthday dress; last article of clothing I allowed myself to purchase for a while

Debt Payments/Savings
Car Note: $300
Student Loans: $200
Emergency Fund: $150
Car Savings: $120

Professional Development
$182
Total: $2,781 Eeek!

This was definitely a little more than I usually planned on spending monthly but it was a pretty expensive month for me. I’m really liking this accountability gig and I hope my readers will hold me to it each month.

Sometimes I’m shocked when I count everything up at the end of the month, but it’s a good thing. I need to see where my money is going and track my debt payoff progress. Paying off this debt is so important to me and I hope you all will hold me accountable for this major goal and join in on this journey with me. Overall I’m just thankful to come out on top this month.

How did your month go?