July Budget Review

Another busy month is over and like everyone else, I’m trying to soak up the last few weeks of summer. Last month I introduced my goal of living on only about 50% of my income and using the rest to save and pay off debt. July was my first month of working toward that goal and while I definitely see room for improvement, I think I’m off to a decent start.

My Highs

I reached my emergency fund goal for this year! It’s really not much, but it’s a solid cushion to fall back on should I ever need the money for an emergency. Now that I reached this goal, I’m still going to continue with my original plan of holding off on emergency savings’ contributions for the remainder of the year and using the money to put toward my debt payments. I know it sounds a bit risky, but debt repayment is a priority for me this year and I do have something in the bank so I’ll pick back up with contributions in January after my car is paid off.

We got most of our security deposit back in early July. All that cleaning and keeping up with our unit paid off. I used my half to pay on a credit card so I can keep all my balances at $0

I successfully finished my 6-month shopping ban! The only items that I allowed myself to purchase were athletic and fitness clothes to help motivate myself to workout. I picked up two workout outfits at the new Goodwill that opened by my house a few weeks ago and spend around $21. Aside from that and my one slip up of accidentally buying new shoes, I haven’t bought a shred of additional clothing. I still set my clothes budget at $30 because I’ve been putting money aside to take my son school clothes shopping this month since he needs a few things. As for my own wardrobe, I literally felt like I was wearing the same thing over and over again but I stuck it out and learned a ton! I realized that no matter how many clothes I have, I actually only gravitate to my favorite items and the rest just sit in my closet taking up space. I’m actually ready to head into my closet and get rid of a few things I no longer wear when I finish with this post 🙂

Even though I’m in the red quite bit, I still managed to live on around $1500/month in July which is a big goal of mine. I still need to work on tracking my food spending, fuel costs and extra random money that seems to fly through my account, but I’m hoping to make a conscious habit out of living on this small amount for now.

My Lows

I sat here for a few minutes and thought long and hard about this one and I came to the conclusion that if I have to think that hard about what to put here, I must have had a pretty decent month. July was not perfect by any means. I can feel the brakes going out in my car and I have a bone to pick with Liberty HealthShare about some bills they sent me, but honestly, I haven’t even gotten into these issues yet so I can’t speak on it. For now, I’m just trying to be grateful for the present and keep my head up.