Category Archives: budgeting

Tracking 2015 – November

Leave a comment

November blew the averages completely out of the water!

BudgetingJanuary – $5,144.53
February – $1,783.49
March – $4,350.56
April – $2,385.31
May – $5,961.54
June – $2,939.07
July – $3,537.09
August – $3,601.19
September – $9,406.95
October – $7,490.03
November – $15,707.97

This was a huge month in terms of spending but one that we knew was coming up.  I mentioned in September that we had paid $3,050 for a deposit on a hybrid battery system for our solar panels.  The system was installed a couple of weeks ago and we paid the balance of just over $12,000.  This outlay will reap benefits in increased refunds for the power which we feed back to the grid.  Our monitoring system is showing a significant change already.  Our meter was read a couple of days ago so the next 3 months will tell the story.

Food accounted for just over $600 this month as I stocked up on bulk dry goods which I tend to buy every few months.  We bought travel insurance for our 2016 trip as well as attending a family funeral interstate.

The year is coming to a close and at the end of next month I will collate the figures for all of the categories and then add in the fixed spending such as mortgage, insurances, rates and so on to discover how much we actually spent in a full year.

There have certainly been some revelations during this year of tracking our spending.  I will not be documenting our spending in detail on the blog during 2016 but I am inspired to continue the process for our own interest.  It will be good to compare year on year, too.

Do you track your spending?

 

 

Tracking 2015 – October

1 Comment

Is there such a thing as a normal month?  Every month we seem to have expenses that are not repeated in any other month.  I guess that is why I chose the exercise of tracking our spending over a 12 month period.  Hopefully, I can gain some general idea when it is averaged over the whole year.

BudgetingJanuary – $5,144.53
February – $1,783.49
March – $4,350.56
April – $2,385.31
May – $5,961.54
June – $2,939.07
July – $3,537.09
August – $3,601.19
September – $9,406.95
October – $7,490.03

More than half of our spending ($4,300 in fact) for October was on upfront payments related to our overseas trip in 2016.  We have paid for over a week of accommodation as well as train and ferry fares.

On the home front, food accounted for $273, I bought 2 pairs of summer sandals which set me back $330 while the somewhat broad category of ‘House and Garden’ continues to be a bottomless pit when it comes to spending.  Does anyone else find that this is the case?

This has certainly been an eye-opening exercise and when the full year is complete I will add in the regular costs such as insurances, rates and so on to get an overall figure for our spending for the year.  I have a feeling that it will be fairly scary.

Tracking 2015 – September

2 Comments

Hold onto your hats!  Money has been literally flying out the door this month!

Budgeting

This is a good example of why we save.

January – $5,144.53
February – $1,783.49
March – $4,350.56
April – $2,385.31
May – $5,961.54
June – $2,939.07
July – $3,537.09
August – $3,601.19
September – $9,406.95

It was certainly no surprise to see that we had parted with almost $10,000.00 of our hard-earned cash in September.

As I mentioned last month, we headed to Singapore for a week and while we had already paid for our airfares and accommodation earlier in the year all of our other spending is included in a lump sum of $1,644.37 for the week.  This comprised of spending on transport, sightseeing, admission costs, groceries, alcohol and eating out as well as a dress for myself and a birthday gift.  We decided not to try to separate it into categories as it was all spent while we were on holidays.  If you are interested you can see the full breakdown of the holiday spending here.

There were 2 other major expenses in September.

The first was $3,050 for a deposit on a hybrid battery system for our solar panels.  There will be significant additional expense for this project sometime in the next month or so.  This is a substantial upfront cost but we believe that it will be a worthwhile long-term investment that will save us even more money and allow a degree of independence from the power grid.  The detail will be forthcoming in a future blog post.

The second large outlay of money was in the holiday category as we have booked our return airfares to Chicago for next year.  I have been watching the release of airfares for 2016 and the pricing and decided that the time was right to secure fares available for the dates and times that we wanted to travel.  Once again, there will be more details about that on my holiday blog.  I hope to get a post written today.

However, on the spending upside, we only spent $55.89 on food for the entire month.  Apart from a modest amount of fruit and vegetables as well as milk and cheese, we simply ate what we had available from the refrigerator, freezer, pantry and garden.  I did not necessarily set out to minimise our spending on food and it was really more about not having the time or inclination to shop as well as being away for a week.  It is good to know that we have plenty to sustain us if the need arises.

Tracking 2015 – August

Leave a comment

Another month has flown by and time to review what we spent.

BudgetingJanuary – $5,144.53
February – $1,783.49
March – $4,350.56
April – $2,385.31
May – $5,961.54
June – $2,939.07
July – $3,537.09
August – $3,601.19

I was a little surprised at how much we spent this month but when I examined the categories it was interesting to note that ‘House & Garden’ which is often a substantial amount was only $24.50 in August.  However, we made up for it in other ways – routine service for the car, major dental work for GMan, new sandals for Gman, a couple of items of clothing for me and a bulk purchase of dog food.  We also had visitors and so naturally we spent more on entertaining and also petrol but I would not have it any other way.

The average monthly discretionary spending for the first 8 months of the year is $3712.

September will be an interesting month for spending as we are heading to Singapore for a week during the month.  Airfares, accommodation and travel insurance have all been accounted for earlier in the year so our spending will be limited to transport, food, admission costs and anything that we buy while we are there.  More on that at the end of the month.

Tracking 2015 – July

4 Comments

We have started the new financial year with plenty of spending but when you look at it over the longer term it is just under the monthly average for 2015.

So, what did we spend our money on?  Unlike some other months, there was no spending on gifts or travel.  The category of ‘House & Garden’ continues to to be where much of our discretionary spending goes.  In July we bought our new desk for the home office and at the end of the month we replaced the microwave which died.  ‘Food’ was almost $700 as we stocked up on supplies in July and petrol was higher as I drove to Brisbane a bit more to spend time with my mother.  We spent $320 on clothing as we ordered several items of knitwear for both GMan and myself.

Budgeting

Here are the totals for the first 7 months of 2015:

January – $5,144.53
February – $1,783.49
March – $4,350.56
April – $2,385.31
May – $5,961.54
June – $2,939.07
July – $3,537.09

You need to remember that this is only our variable spending and does not include mortgage, rates, phone, internet, insurances or any other fixed costs.

The total for the first 7 months is $26,101.59 at an average of $3,729.00 per month.

I am starting to see some patterns emerge and these will be discussed in more detail later in the year.

It is important not to forget the reason for this tracking exercise.  I wanted to see how much we spend and on what so that we could better understand what our actual financial needs would be in our retirement.  Our plans to leave the paid workforce are still a few years away but preparation is a necessary part of that if we are to be able to live according to our means.

Tracking 2015 – The Halfway Mark

Leave a comment

 Well, another financial year is done and dusted.  More importantly, I have reached the halfway mark of tracking our variable spending.

BudgetingHere are the totals so far:

January – $5,144.53
February – $1,783.49
March – $4,350.56
April – $2,385.31
May – $5,961.54
June – $2,939.07

We are halfway through the year and our variable spending is $22,564.50 so far.

As I mentioned in the round-up for May, we began June with GMan buying a new pair of shoes.  Other than that we did not spend anything on clothes or shoes.  We bought Christmas gift for our other daughter so the majority of our Christmas spending is done.

The ‘House & Garden’ category continues to be a substantial portion of our expenses with $367 for repairs to the ride-on mower and $237 on a fancy new garden hose system which arrived yesterday.  There will be more detail about that in a future post.

It will be interesting to see how the second half of the year compares to the first.

Planning Ahead

2 Comments

On Saturday or Sunday morning I generally make a menu plan of our meals for the coming week.  This based on what is in the fridge, freezer, pantry and garden and is used to create a shopping list for any additional requirements.  I try to incorporate a mix of fish, chicken, red meat and vegetarian meals.

The next couple of weeks are very unpredictable due to family issues and will mean that I am not at home some nights but potentially with very short notice.  So I used a different method today and simply made a list of 20 meals for which we have the ingredients.  We will need some additional fruit and vegetables during that time.

1  Pizza
2  Grilled salmon and vegetables
3  Tumeric chicken and rice
4  Pumpkin soup
5  Chilli con carne and rice
6  Nachos
7  Sausages and vegetables
8  Vegetable pie and salad
9  Hamburger patties and salad
10  Celery soup
11  Beef curry and rice
12  Tuna patties and vegetables
13  Shepherd’s pie and vegetables
14  Scrambled eggs with bacon and avocado
15  Chicken stir-fry and rice
16  Pizza
17  Chilli con carne and rice
18  Pumpkin soup
19  Lasagne and salad
20  Chilli chicken and corn chips

The entire plan is gluten-free.  I make my own gluten-free pizza bases and hamburger patties, buy gluten-free sausages from Aldi, buy gluten free corn chips and lasagne sheets and use gluten-free flour as required.008I intend to work roughly from the top of the list and we had home-made pizzas tonight.  This is how I make them.

Do you plan your meals?  How closely do you stick to a plan?

Tracking 2015 – May

2 Comments

Another month over and I have totalled up the spending for May.  It is not a pretty sight.  Almost $6,000 gone this month in variable spending.  Yikes!!

BudgetingHere are the totals so far:

January – $5,144.53
February – $1,783.49
March – $4,350.56
April – $2,385.31
May – $5,961.54

I have amended the figures slightly to include everything that we have spent in the past 5 months – that is variable spending so does not include mortgage, rates, insurances, phone/internet etc.

May was particularly high as we booked and paid for airfares and accommodation in Melbourne at Christmas as well as paying for birthday presents for both daughters and a Christmas gift for one of them.  Since they are both adults earning their own money we generally pay for something special such as an airfare and then buy a small gift to give on the day.  The other category that impacted significantly was ‘House & Garden’ of just over $1,200 which included $860 for the plumber and electrician and installation of a new sump pump for the greywater system.

I thought that we would pull our horns in for June but we started the first day of the month with GMan buying a new pair of shoes for work at $209 since the others could not be repaired.  The other not so good news is that the drive chain broke on the ride-on mower yesterday and we have yet to find out what that will cost to replace.

There are only 29 more days until the end of the financial year and I will be halfway through this tracking exercise which is nothing if not eye-opening.

A Packed Lunch

2 Comments

I pack our lunches (and breakfasts) each day for work but I am usually in a rush so the camera is the last thing on my mind.  This morning I had a little more time and I remembered to grab the camera.

001This is what GMan took today.  Banana, apple, 2 Vitabrits and psyllium husk, 2 slices bread, almonds and raisins, baked beans, grapefruit.

He always has 2 pieces of fruit, dried fruit and nuts for snacks.  Lunch can be baked beans, flavoured tuna, salad, soup or leftovers.  He generally has Vitabrits for breakfast but I had prepared a grapefruit yesterday so the Vitabrits were kept for tomorrow.

Sometimes I feel like I am packing the same old thing every day but we are happy to take our packed lunches and save around $10/day each on bought lunches.  That is $200/fortnight that we can use for other expenses.  The other benefit is that it is all packed in reuseable containers and ziplock bags so we are minimising any waste.

We are lucky that we both have access to refrigerators and microwave ovens at work.

Do you take a packed lunch?

Tracking 2015 – April

4 Comments

Over the weekend I finalised the figures for our April spending.

BudgetingHere are the totals so far:

January – $2,628.73
February – $1,783.49
March – $4,320.56
April – $2,384.46

Now that I have 4 months of spending recorded I decided to extrapolate that to a 12 month period and came up with $33,351.72 which is rather high considering that is only our variable expenses and does not include the mortgage, rates, insurances etc.  I then took out the holiday costs and redid my calculations which presented a more realistic figure of $24,832.32 for the year.  Finally, I excluded our public transport costs and our variable spending dropped to $18,340.32 when averaged over the year.  The reason I tried excluding the public transport costs is that these are entirely associated with going to work and would not be relevant in a post-retirement budget.

This is certainly proving to be an interesting exercise to see where the money actually goes.