Budgeting Bare: October 2019 Spending Report

I interrupt the “Destructive Relationships to Avoid” series to bring you– October 2019 Spending Report! Alrighty, it’s the first month of the second year of budgeting and there’s some cool stuff happening but some big stuff I’m still working on! The numbers are in for the October 2019 Spending Report and…. I was three dollars over budget. 

I know, I should just give up, right?

But ACTUALLY, even though it seems like I didn’t go over by much, there are a few things I still need to improve on. Because, correct, I stayed within budget basically however when you compare what I spent this month to my yearly budgeting goals… I didn’t do so hot.

So let’s dive in. We’ll start with the good things from this budget period.

October 2019 Budgeting Wins

1. I only went over budget by $3. Not terrible.
2. I paid almost $2k on student loans (I’M ALMOST UNDER $50K IN DEBT)
3. This pay period I made a little more money than normal (thank you overtime and the refund from Spirit Airlines).
4. After paying down debt, I lived off of 37% of my income this month. 29% of my income went to debt, and 33% of my income went into savings.
5. Oh yeah– I saved $2k this month too! That’s pretty dope.

A few wins, and that’s pretty cool. I love saving and I love dropping money on that big old debt number. I also LOVE knowing that I lived off of 37% of my income. That’s pretty damn cool, although it’s helpful that I brought in almost $1k more than I usually do.

Now let’s dive into some of the fuck up’s and in order to get there, let’s talk about categories.

October 2019 Spending Categories & Budget Actuals

	Planned	Actuals	Difference
Groceries	$175.00	$175.00	$0.00
Clo Bare	$35.00	$31.00	$4.00
Health/medical	$128.00	$128.00	$0.00
Home	$850.00	$850.00	$0.00
Transportation/Car Insurance	$200.00	$195.00	$5.00
Personal	$181.00	$190.00	-$9.00
Entertainment	$315.00	$333.00	-$18.00
Utilities/Cell Phone	$300.00	$293.00	$7.00
Travel	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Debt	$1,806.00	$1,806.00	$0.00
CBBB	$150.00	$142.00	$8.00
Totals:	$4,140.00	$4,143.00	-$3.00

The Fuck-Up’s Explained

Alright. This is where things get a little complicated.

To the untrained eye– this budgeting period doesn’t look too bad. I saved money, I put money on debt, and I made more money.

But this is where I got myself in trouble last year.

You see, even though I’ve done a good job at staying within my monthly budget, I also now have a yearly budget that I use to keep myself in check and remind myself of the bigger picture.

For example, I have a fluid monthly budget. I create it according to my plans and the big events in my life that I know are coming up and so my planned category spend changes every month. That’s good– that’s how your budget should be created so that your life and your budget work together.

Where I mess up is constantly increasing my category spend based on my month, without having a month where I spend less in that category in order to balance it out.

Let me show you what I mean.

My Yearly Budgeting Goals

Now the dates are a little off because I started budgeting in October 2018 so now my fiscal year is a little odd. I’ll probably revamp it next year to follow the calendar year, but I didn’t want to wait this year to start my budgeting period so I said fuck it– let’s do October to September and base it off of my pay periods. Also, “pp” is per pay period.

Groceries ($115 pp)	$3,000/year
Clo Bare ($38 pp)	$1,000/year
Health/medical ($57 pp)	$1,500/year
Home ($557.69 pp)	$14,500/year
Transportation ($88 pp)	$2,500/year
Personal ($88 pp)	$2,300/year
Entertainment ($100 pp)	$2,600/year
Utilities/Cell Phone ($126 pp)	$3,300/year
Travel ($192 pp)	$5,000/year
Debt ($846 pp)	$22,000/year
CBBB ($19 pp)	$500/year

What this Means

When we compare my October 2019 Spending Categories to my yearly budgeting goals, I went over budget in Health/Medical ($14), Transportation/Car Insurance ($19), Personal ($14), Entertainment ($133) and Chicago Boss Babes ($104).

That’s not great.

Think about it long term.

I went over my yearly goals this month by $284. There was nothing extraordinary that made this happen and it’s incredibly easy to do. BUT if I continue to go over my yearly goals by $284 a month without readjusting my budget the following pay period to make up for what I spent, I’d go over budget by $3,408 this year. $3k over budget! That’s insane just from tiny little purchases that add up!

I don’t want to end up doing that. Cause this bitch got goals.

October 2019 Spending Report

Now, let’s check out where all that money went.

Date	Amount	Description	Category
9/27/2019	$5.00	Coffee	Entertainment
9/27/2019	$26.50	Groceries	Groceries
9/27/2019	$48.00	Trike Thai Food	Entertainment
9/27/2019	$805.00	Student loans	Debt
9/28/2019	$20.00	aquarium	Personal
9/28	$13.00	uber	Transportation/Car Insurance
9/28/2019	$25.00	clothes	Personal
9/28/2019	$61.00	drinks and food	Personal
9/28/2019	$20.00	ventra	Personal
9/28	$40.00	Money fell out of purse at Lizzo concert	Entertainment
9/30/2019	$8.00	snack	Groceries
10/1	$850.00	Rent	Home
9/30/2019	$28.00	Foodsmart	Groceries
10/2/2019	$88.00	Farrells	Health/medical
10/2/2019	$7.00	dinner	Groceries
10/3/2019	$22.00	chocolate	Personal
10/3/2019	$75.00	comed	Utilities/Cell Phone
10/4/2019	$13.00	wine	Entertainment
10/5	$99.00	dinner	Entertainment
10/6/2019	$46.00	aldi	CBBB
10/6/2019	$68.00	marianos	CBBB
10/6/2019	$30.00	aldi	Groceries
10/6/2019	$44.17	comcast	Utilities/Cell Phone
10/7/2019	$10.00	pinterest	Clo Bare
10/10/2019	$14.00	panera	Entertainment
10/11/2019	$1,000.00	Student Loans (Extra Payment)	Debt
10/11/2019	$11.00	CBBB PARTY: paper towels	Groceries
10/12/2019	$24.00	gas	Transportation/Car Insurance
10/12/2019	$40.00	therapy	Health/medical
10/12/2019	$3.00	CBBB parking	CBBB
10/12	$25.00	brunch	CBBB
10/14/2019	$9.00	Dinner	Groceries
10/15/2019	$10.00	Facebook ad	Clo Bare
10/16/2019	$22.00	Groceries	Groceries
10/16	$148.00	Esurance	Transportation/Car Insurance
10/17/2019	$23.00	date	Personal
10/11	$124.00	Cell Phone	Utilities/Cell Phone
10/18/2019	$40.00	drinks with mom	Entertainment
10/18	$12.00	groceries for party	Entertainment
10/18/2019	$33.00	aldi	Groceries
10/18/2019	$8.00	car wash	Personal
10/19/2019	$30.00	pizza	Entertainment
10/21/2019	$11.00	Clo Bare Business Cards	Clo Bare
10/22	$32.00	Halloween Movie	Entertainment
10/23/2019	$49.20	peoples gas	Utilities/Cell Phone
10/24/2019	$11.00	prosecco	Personal

Total Spent: $4,143

Total Debt: $50,348

I went over a lot in entertainment because I had my sister visit for a weekend and we did all the things and all the drinking and all the eating and it was wonderful and magical. And the following weekend I went to a Chicago Ghost Convention with my mom (yes, you read that correctly, a GHOST CONVENTION), which cost money but was also magical and wonderful and amazing and I’m not mad about it. I also hosted a Chicago Boss Babes party which cost money, but again, not mad about it.

But NOW I need to balance this out by having a period where I don’t spend as much money. Like much at all on entertainment, personal, and Chicago Boss Babes (which shouldn’t be a problem since I won’t be hosting a party).

And I plan to take two weeks to stop spending and introvert/hermit for a bit. I even marked it in my calendar. We’ll call it “Low Spend November” or “No Spend November.”

Budgeting Goals: November 2019

My budgeting goals for November are pretty simple– I want to re-balance the yearly goals and make sure that I spend less in this pay period so that I can get on track to my yearly goals.

Goals by the numbers:

1. Put another $1.8k on debt
2. Save $1k
3. Put an extreme limit on my Entertainment and Personal Spending
4. Hermit a bit for the month
5. Budget for Thanksgiving dinner cooking

Budgeting in Your Life

How’s your budget going now that you’re headed into the end of the year? Any plans on how to plan for Holiday spending and other fun? Leave your tips and tricks and thoughts and questions in the comments below!

Last Updated on November 25, 2019