October Budget Review
I hope everyone had a great October and a nice Halloween. My son dressed up as a ninja and we went to a few parties with friends. Unfortunately, I didn’t dress up this year. My budget went pretty well with a few bumps in the road.
My Highs
- I put another $1,040 toward debt last month. Whoo!!!! Debe payments are always a joy because I love seeing the numbers go down and getting closer and closer to my goal. During some months I feel absolutely defeated and burnt out as I stretch my budget to make extra debt payments. It’s not easy, but at the end of the day I know it’s worth it when I look at my remaining debt and realize my car note is almost gone.
- Last month, I received an extra bonus based on my team’s performance at work in addition to the regular bonus made available each month so it was nice to see some extra money at my FT job after working so hard
- I took my friend to a concert as an early birthday present and spend next to nothing thanks to credit card reward points. We ate before we left, didn’t buy the expensive, watered down drinks at the bar and had a great night overall. The concert expenses aren’t in my budget because I spent NADA, haha. My friend was nice enough to pay $15 for parking since I got the tickets. But I just wanted to reiterate that credit cards are not evil even if you are in debt. It’s important to use them wisely and only make purchases you would normally make each month so it’s easier to manage. I plan on using credit card reward points to fund about 90% of our honeymoon trip because even though we have a tight budget, I NEED a getaway
- I spent only $10 on entertainment. Yup, you read right, and that $10 was even spent toward the end of the month. I had to check my bank statements thoroughly and even browse through my Facebook status updates to make sure I didn’t miss anything because it was odd realize that I spent nothing on ‘fun stuff’. I’ve done this before, but it was well planned out that this time it just happened to work out with little effort on my part. In October, I celebrated my brother’s birthday with my family, took my son to a free nature hiking event, went to a concert with my friend and paid practically nothing, had game night with my fiance and played a ton of old school video games, and went to a Halloween party for $10. I worked like crazy in October, but it was still a pretty fun month.
My Lows
- I ended up saving $400 last month to put toward my wedding dress but I had to spend it due to an unexpected family thing. I was a little bummed because I worked hard and busted my butt to put that much money aside in addition to my debt payments but I’m not upset because I know I can always make more money thanks to side hustling. But as a result, I didn’t go dress shopping as planned last month but I will try to go this month if possible
- My insurance was due again, and I got the runaround when I asked why my premium went up. Supposedly my monthly payment went up because I moved to a different county back in June….or there were a lot of ‘hail storms’ in my state. I’m not even positive. I didn’t want to pay for 6 months of insurance again this time because I explained to my insurance rep that I would be dropping my coverage drastically in January since my car would be paid off. So I’m stuck paying month-to-month for now. I also got a new renter’s insurance policy for about $10/month so that will be included in my auto insurance total in my budget moving forward. However, if they don’t give me a more reasonable payment come January, I’m gone!
- Even though I didn’t spend much on entertainment, I still ate out quite a bit and it was a ton of small meals and lunches that added up over time. I think I only went to a sit down restaurant about once last month so I need to work on toning down on the takeout because it is pretty unnecessary.
Onto the Budget:
How did your month go? What did you do for Halloween?
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