DD’s Monthly Expenses – February 2009

It’s a good thing that February is a short month, because we here at the DD household went WILD!!!

Here is the latest breakdown of my family’s monthly expenses:

  • $1032.00 – Investing
  • $830.00 – Mortgage
  • $664.10 – Health Insurance
  • stocks-plummet-timing-confused$639.00 – Daycare
  • $520.36 – Vehicle Maintenance
  • $475.50 – Groceries
  • $468.23 – Electricity
  • $210.83 – Phone & Internet
  • $175.92 – Short Film Project
  • $175.00 – Student Loan
  • $169.16 – Medical Expenses
  • $161.41 – Household Misc
  • $150.00 – Obama Picture
  • $58.45 – Dinning Out
  • $53.00 – Movies
  • $52.11 – Utilities (Water, Sewer, Garbage) no longer billed quarterly I guess.
  • $48.30 – Gas
  • $22.00 – Donations

Grand Total – $5905.37

I’m Speechless.

Biggest Budget Busters!

  1. $1032.00 – Investing – I tried my hand at timing the market by buying some pretty well known stocks which are at very low levels.  This is something that people with a working brain will tell you not to do.  If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time you know that my brain power is questionable at best.
  2. $520.36 – Vehicle Maintenance – Now I know why people put a piece of duct tape over their check engine light.  This also makes me wish I would’ve been friends with the Motorheads back in high school.  Only $90 of this was parts, the rest of was labor.   I need to hang out with Five cent Nickel’s Mom.
  3. $210.83 – Phone & Internet – You might remember, that I posted about how I switched phone/internet providers.  They warned me that the first bill was going to be a doozy.  I just got the next one and it’s back down to earth($75), so this will be a one time budget buster.
  4. $175.92 -Short Film Project – Back when I was “interviewing” for this gig, I told The Happy Rock that I was a man of many passions.  One of which is film.  My hometown hosts a fun little film making competition every winter. You get 47 hours to make a “film” then they show them all on Sunday night .  They give out $1000 in prize money, but sadly we didn’t win any of it.
  5. $150.00 – Obama Picture – Remember when My kids & I were in Time Magazine.  Well we finally were able to attain the rights to the picture…for a price.

Biggest Budget Breakthroughs:

  1. $48.30 – Gas – Actually I don’t think we had any Budget Breakthroughs this month. But I felt like putting something down.  The low total in this category doesn’t really represent less gas used(well it does, but…), it just means that we didn’t go on any out of town trips this month.

Now for my rationalization.

If you take away the one time budget busters, we’re right in line with last months total.  I also think we went a little wild because we have been suffering from a case of cabin fever.  I can’t say for sure since I didn’t track expenses last winter, but I bet our spending increases every winter.  Mainly because there is nothing else to do.

Not saying that makes it right, it’s just a theory.

Until next time,

-DD

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