One month checkup – July’s Expenses

As you will recall I laid out my family’s monthly budget in my Nitty Gritty post and promised to track my expenses for the month so we could actually see how our money is spent.

Without further ado…here are the results for July 2008:

  • Daycare – $1018
  • Mortgage – $830
  • Groceries $496.95
  • Van Loan – $330
  • Gas – $225.88
  • Water, Sewer, Garbage – $151.57 (paid quarterly)
  • Phone & Internet – $115.75
  • Student Loan – $115
  • Dinning out – $108.34
  • Electricity – $100.07
  • Misc Household items – $88.20
  • Tennis – $82.00
  • Retirement Savings – $60
  • Kid stuff – $57.80
  • Vet Bills – $45.60
  • Movies & Videos – $27.68
  • Donations – $23.00

For a grand total of $3875.84!

YOWSERS!!!

Well, we definitely have areas where we can improve upon.

  1. The daycare total shouldn’t be that large again (this was June’s bill…paid in July, but July’s won’t be much smaller).
  2. Gas was higher than I expected but we traveled every weekend in July, which is odd for us.
  3. Dinning out – Most of this category was from all the traveling we did. $50 of that total was one meal where we went out with some out-of-town friends (while visiting them). This is the one bill I felt bad about. I instantly knew we were wasting money.
  4. Tennis – I was in two tournaments and got new strings. Now the season is winding down, so should the expenses.
  5. Retirement Savings. As one of the comments suggested, I’ll be stopping this payment until I get back on my feet.

The category that stands out to me the most is groceries.

I remember spending about $55 for our 4th of July get-together on stuff that I normally wouldn’t have bought. But we still would’ve eaten that weekend, so there would still be some level of expense.

As I mentioned in one of my comments from the Nitty Gritty Post, that my 3 1/2 year old daughter has food allergies (wheat, dairy, peanuts, egg, & soy…but we’ve just been allowed to re-introduce soy) , which require us to purchase more expensive foods. So I understand we will be slightly higher than the average family in this category, but I have to admit to not knowing what the average is.

What does the typical family of four spend a month on groceries?

And while I’m requesting feedback, where do you think I could shave a little off my monthly budget? Any areas that really stick out as being out of proportion? What categories are/have been your biggest budget busters?

Say that three times fast:

Biggest Budget Busters, Biggest Budget Busters, Biggest Budget Busters!

Until next time,

-DD

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