Like I did in April, I set my total budget to 75% of my take home pay. In May I spent 91.3% of my available budget which means I saved an extra 8.7% (up a couple percent from April which is great).
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. At or under budget in total is my main goal, the category budgets are just guidelines or estimates of how I expect to spend my money.
Like April also, I was over in some categories and under in others. My water, trash, and sewer bill comes only every other month so utilities were over in April and under in May. Restaurants I went over only by $6 so nothing to worry about there, especially considering the total budget for dining out is only $25 a month. Pharmacy was over this month but I usually only refill prescriptions every three months (my insurance company, Kaiser, operates their own pharmacy so they won’t cover drugstore pharmacies and I can’t “roll” my prescriptions for those drugstore gift cards). Cash and business services are alloted at $0 so if I use those categories at all they’re always over. I knew I was going to come in quite a bit under budget this month so I purchased 4 full place settings of Fiestaware in cobalt this month, that pushed the shopping category past it’s normal limit.
Shared in Finding Freedom Friday.
Related posts:
April Budget Wrap Up
September Budget Wrap Up
August Budget Wrap Up
October Budget Wrap Up
December Budget Wrap Up
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{ 5 comments }
Hi,
I’m new to your blog, but I was wondering what program you used to make your budget graph. Thanks
i use mint.com
I have Kaiser too and it stinks! I just transferred there and I hate not having the choice of pharmacies.
Charlene @ My Frugal Adventures’s last blog post: Safeway Shoppers: Coupon Booklets
i’m actually overall pretty happy with them. they do have some amazing generic otc prices like generic zyrtec is $10 for 100 tablets which about 1/10th the cost of the brand name and 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of any other generic i’ve seen for it
I like how you have set your goal to spend 75% of your income and then adjust your budget accordingly. Savings is savings–keep it up!
Phoebe @ Cents to Get Debt Free’s last blog post: Finding Freedom Friday: 2009 Goal Update
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