As the title suggests, April was the first month I have tracked our totals together.
I am still working out how to get it into a system so that it works easily for us - at the moment i just ask DF to tell me what he spends every day. He is getting better at remembering it now - but still needs to work on the cents part of it! ("spent twenty bucks on beer" "twenty? or $19.75? or $20.50? there's a difference!" "pfft, just put $20") *sigh*
So, here we go!
INCOME:
Earnings: $5004.80
Other: $3129
Total: $8133.80
EXPENSES:
Mortgage Payments: $2150.75
Groceries: $564.24
Petrol: $241.30
Internet & Phone Bill: $263.90
Car Repairs: $479
Car Engine: $1910 (one off expense)
Engine Hoist: $130 (one off expense)
Mobile Phone: $49.63
Life Insurance: $93.64
House Repairs & Maintenance: $304.32
Appliances/House Gadgets: $237.28
Gifts: $101.50
Health & Grooming: $108.90
Misc: $51
Dining Out: $231.67
DF Fun: $551.89
WS Fun: $395.58
Total Spent: $7864.60
Remaining: $269.20
Extra Payments Made: $333.14
While I agree it looks like we are cutting it fine, and not saving, generally speaking most months we won't be dropping $2k on car engines! So I think we did quite well, considering.
I worked out my figures wrong, so that is why more was paid into the loan that was actually remaining at the end of the month. Normally what I will be doing is calculating what is left and adding that back into the loan for savings or extra mortgage payments.
DF did not earn very much at all last month, it was quite slow. He had nearly two weeks off. I also had days off, so my earnings are down too. I am looking forward to May, as our earnings should be back to normal, and our spending should be under control.
Notice there is no longer a Bank Fees amount listed? Yes! Now we only have an annual bank fee, that we hope to offset with our credit card rewards. Yahoo!
Hmmm, not sure what else I should comment on here. Yes, DF's 'Fun' money is high, mine is also slightly higher than should be, but some of that is spending from my stimulus package, which I haven't bothered to seperate. DF is going to work on his Fun spending this month. Our dining out is high, even though it was only dining out once a week. Which I think is pretty reasonable really. Maybe we will push it to once every two weeks. Generally it is only when people come over, and we go out for lunch or something.
The phone & internet bill is high because it is the transfer fee for moving - I accidently put it in last months expenses too, so I will have to remove it from there.
All in all, I am happy with our first month of spending in the new house.
House Appliances & Gadgets were: a muffin tin, a set top box, and a slow cooker. The house maintenance & expenses were mainly gardening supplies and equipment, plus some other items like a rubbish bin, a front door mat, a sink strainer, window locks etc.
our first month of joint tracking totals
May 3rd, 2009 at 06:52 am
May 3rd, 2009 at 12:54 pm 1241355294
May 3rd, 2009 at 02:07 pm 1241359647
May 4th, 2009 at 12:09 am 1241395761
LSaver: I do get him to keep reciepts but i would rather him be able to remember them, as i believe reciepts are a waste of paper. i would rather him remember he spent $4 on a pie than waste a piece of paper on it. it just makes me cringe at the amount of waste that is made by silly things like that - i just can't get the image of beatiful forests and birds out of my head!
May 4th, 2009 at 04:00 pm 1241452857
May 5th, 2009 at 04:43 am 1241498634