Our 2017 resolution was to be gazelle intense and pay off the rest of our debt. We were doing great through July, but come August; all 3 cars needed work, both computers started breaking, school applications were coming due, Christmas & birthdays, etc, etc, etc.
New Year - New Start!
After detailing our spending over 2017 we decided we'd analyze our spending each month this year. Reviewing what you've spent leaves no room for rationalizing or generalizing! It really shows you where you can tighten your spending and squeeze more money from your budget. If you're not doing a review of your spending at the end of the month or pay period, I really encourage you to start! We've learned a lot and it's only been a month!
WIthout further adieu, here's our January spending analysis!
The above categories are what we've decided to highlight each month. If there are different spending categories you'd like to see please let us know!
Tithing
We've been paying tithing off our take home but we will start paying it off our gross pay this next paycheck. Fast offerings are an extra donation we make once a month. The money we donate represents what we would spend on food for our family on Fast Sunday. Fast Sunday is the first Sunday of each month when we fast (don't eat) to become closer to Heavenly Father. January we paid $490 to tithing and fast offerings ($10 for fast offering).
Mortgage
Last spring we had escrow released to our management and had our home reappraised to remove PMI. Our Mortgage payment is solely for the mortgage and nothing else. We paid $883.83.
Utilities
This includes our phone bill ($130.92) which we are still making payments on Ben's phone. Once his phone is paid off the bill should be closer to $100. We should be done paying off his phone in February.
Power Bill ($108) We were on equal payments but have decided to remove the equal payment plan and just pay for what we use. Since we've been on the equal payment plan, our bill has gone up every time they evaluate our usage (about every 6 months). I think because we're not seeing how much we're using each month we've gotten lazy about turning off lights and keeping things on.
Natural Gas: $148.77. This was the highest bill so far this winter. We have a boiler rather than a furnace, which was tricky at first to learn the best way to save money on it. However we now turn it on for 3 hours in the early morning to wake up to a warm house, and then one hour at night.
Water Bill: $69.80. This bill includes our sewer and trash as well.
Internet: $77.68. We also have basic basic cable which makes our bill slightly lower than just having internet. We signed up for Trim, a company that negotiates your bill for you, and they got it lowered a bit more. Downside - we didn't realize that they take 10% of the savings so we had an extra bill with them this month. We've canceled our account with Trim.
Debt
We're down to 1 student loan($206.50), Subaru($183), windows ($164.64), and 1 credit card ($140). The student loan should be gone in February. We're considering selling the Subaru; we should be able to get more than we owe, which would knock out both the car payment and some of the credit card. The windows we didn't include in our debt snowball last year but are including it this year.
Sinking Funds
Our sinking funds include car insurance ($67.81), car registration ($24), life insurance ($42.78), and escrow ($140). January's car insurance payment was less than usual because of how the payment dates fell. February's should be normal. Escrow covers our property taxes which are due in September.
Food
The food category includes our groceries (which actually includes more than just food - it includes pet supplies paper products, baby items, beauty, cleaning supplies), eating out, and Ben's breakfasts at work.
We spent $284.63 on groceries in January. We budgeted $250 so a little off but not bad. Ben's breakfasts came to $21.43. Eating out was the most enlightening! We spent $76.43 at restaurants, mostly pizza and fast food. We RARELY go to a sit down place. I was shocked to see that we had gone to Pizza Hut FOUR TIMES! We didn't spend that much there because we had book it certificates, promo codes, and a gift card; but I was still surprised to realize that we had gone that many times. Thinking about the month I couldn't remember going that many times but reviewing our spending doesn't lie!
Gasoline
$232.35. Our usual budget is $300 for gas. We had to cut it back due to replacing the water heater so we stayed home more, canceled some field trips we were planning. Staying home prevents a lot of extra spending!
School Applications
Ben is applying to grad schools and with that comes applications fees and travel expenses. We spent $135 on application fees and $79.94 on a rental car and luggage fees (we had paid for the hotel and airfare in an earlier month).
Kid's Activities
Zilch. I included this line item because it's a category that those with kids might be interested in.
Clothing
$8.74. I bought a cute hat from Eddie Bauer with a $10 reward certificate combined with a sale.
Gifts & Entertainment
$0.69 I purchased Christmas Clearance items at Michael's with mostly my allowance, this was the balance that my allowance didn't cover. Zero dollars were spent on Entertainment in January.
Miscellaneous
The miscellaneous category covers anything that doesn't fit the other categories. This month that includes our allowance ($40), turbo tax $82.45 (we already received our state refund!), home projects $1,082.36 definitely the largest portion! We replaced our water heater and had to replace a part on our boiler. It was a cold couple of weeks! Trim $53.82 I talked about this earlier. Trim is a company that negotiates your bills for you. They got us a lower Comcast bill (YAY) but charged us 10% of the savings up front (BOO) we canceled after realizing their fee. We also had a couple extras that totaled $18.52.
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