January Budget so far

Earlier this week, I mentioned how our budget has gone down the crapper this month. Or, at least I thought it probably had but in the same post, I confessed that I had not balanced the checkbook or even looked at our budget in weeks. I felt like we had been spending SO much money on random stuff- nickle and diming us to the point that we were over budget.

Now that the work thing is out of my control, and we officially signed our new lease and have that taken care of, I feel like I can focus on our budget. I told myself one of my top priorities this weekend was to see what kind of damage had been done so far this month.

I'm pleasantly surprised to see that although we've certainly overspent in some categories, we are under in some others and the total damage isn't all too bad. I put together a little comparison to see where we're over and where we're under so far this month...

We budgeted $3,000 for the move but have only spent $2,105 so far. We still have to pay for the movers, carpet cleaning, and general overall cleaning. Most of these expenses will not actually occur until February but we have the money budgeted for whenever they do hit.

One thing I didn't realize when setting January's budget was that we would not have to pay a full month's rent at our current apartment. Our lease ends on the 25th of February which means it's about $200 less than we budgeted originally.

Our grocery expenses so far are a lot less than they should be at this time of the month, but as you can see, our fast food and "spending money" budgets are really high. We did not buy any groceries this week which means we ate out a ton. It was like everyday we were eating out instead of the one trip to the grocery store I normally see. I think this contributed to my sense of dread over how much we had spent so far because it seemed like we were always spending and I couldn't keep track of it all.

We also have not ordered the carpet repair yet but we'll do that soon. I budgeted $100 but I'm not sure yet how much that will cost.

In other words, we're still doing okay. We did let a few things get out of control compared to other months, but it wasn't too bad. I'm glad I took a look when I did so hopefully we can end the month better than we started it.

Kelsalynn