I got paid three times this month. For all of you salaried individuals, I guess this probably doesn’t mean too much. But for people like me who earn by the hour, it means much more. Added on to the fact that I am now getting more shifts at my serving job, it means an extra $1500 of income this month ! (I have done several happy dances; once while discovering I got an extra payday, then another when I got my extra paycheque)
This is extra, super great because I was very close to breaking even this month when everything was said and done. Let’s take a look :
This month was a bit different because I had to make my car payments for both July and August. From now on, this will only be $160 a month total. My phone bill also will be changing. Starting in September, my phone bill should be more like $35 / month, which will be a nice relief. The downside is that I will have a $270 extra charge coming on my next bill.
The variable expenses were over by almost $150 dollars. I way overspent on gas, but I attribute this to the fact that I made a long trip home and then to Toronto, so this number will sometimes be very low, and sometimes be quite a bit higher, depending on the amount of trips I make. I’m also considering increasing my gas fund because visiting my family and friends who all live 2-4 hours away from me is very important to me, and I am not willing to sacrifice the time I have with them to save a bit of money.
I also overspent on restaurants/bars, which will be better next month. I also may increase this budget slightly, just so that I don’t feel completely deprived and get debt burnout. Groceries ended up right on, which I am very happy with, as $300/month for two people is pretty decent!
I bought some extra clothing this month, but it was all things I needed and good deals so I’m okay with the extra spending.
The reason the loan payments are so low is because my O.S.A.P. loan is not yet in repayment, but I have built it into the budget so that I can start to get used to not having it. As of now my debt repayment plan is $600 a month, which I will definitely be increasing as time allows. I will also be dropping savings to $100/month (I think) once I have a good chunk built up in my emergency fund. My TFSA does not earn as much interest as my bank loan costs in interest, so paying down my debt sooner is the better option.
The best part of this all is that extra income, which means I’ve got $1500 extra dollars to play around with. What am I going to do with it?
- I think I am going to put $100 extra into my vacation fund. It’s going to grow extremely slowly at $50 / month, so this will help it a bit. I need a vacation sometime next year.
- I have a few birthdays in September I need to buy (or cheaply make) gifts for. I will not spend more than I planned originally, so it will definitely be under $100!
- I am going to use the extra $270 for paying off my phone, as I know my cell phone budget will be over by this in September.
- The rest is going into the emergency fund. $1030 at least will be going into this. So if you add the $450 I put into my TFSA, my emergency fund after one month is now at $1480. This is far beyond the point I thought I would be after one month of budgeting and being frugal.
What do you think of my new budget? Any suggestions?
love the new layout
thanks !!
We have overspends during the month as well as you can see in our budget but we do try to recognize them and ask ourselves why it happened. In some cases we simply were not putting enough money in that category each month so we had to make changes. Just as you point out above that balancing the budget so you don’t feel deprived is very important. There’s no point budgeting $10 a month for clothes if you see a trend of $150 a month every month. That only sets people up for failure. Good for you! When do you start paying back your osap loan and how big do you want your emergency savings?
I am definitely still working on adjusting the figures; I’m thinking my clothing budget will need to be raised a bit, but hopefully something else can be lowered. I start paying back osap in November. And I was thinking $3000 minimum in my emergency savings, but I have not totally decided if I need more than that yet. It would be nice to have the extra but it would also be nice to be able to contribute more to my debt to avoid the interest. I agree it is very important even when you overspend, to be aware of it and find reasoning in it.