DD’s Monthly Expenses – April 2009

tennis-racket-and-shoesFor those of you who are just joining us, I keep a record of my family’s expenses.  Here is the tally for April:

  • $830.00 – Mortgage
  • $664.10 – Health Insurance
  • $646.00 – Auto Insurance
  • $639.00 – Daycare
  • $339.33 – Groceries
  • $237.75 – Tennis
  • $200.00 – Student Loan
  • $154.34 – Gas
  • $148.00 – Umbrella Insurance Policy
  • $145.45 – Electricity
  • $134.20 – Household Misc.
  • $130.40 – Dinning Out
  • $105.95 – Turbo Tax
  • $97.69 – Easter Presents
  • $80.00 – Medical
  • $78.00 – Donations
  • $76.11 – Phone/Internet
  • $65.19 – Utilities (water, sewer, garbage)
  • $41.34 – Park & Rec Classes
  • $40.00 – Gift
  • $35.80 – Children Museum
  • $14.00 – Haircut
  • $1.89 – Video Rental

For a grand total of…$4904.54!

Or in other words, $600+ more than last month.

Biggest Budget Busters:

  1. $794.00 – Insurance (Auto & Umbrella) – This is an annual cost.  I could budget it every month, but I don’t.  It’s usually not so bad because I use my tax refund to help pay it.  But this year we had to pay in, so double ouch!
  2. $237.75 – Tennis – $180 of this is a new racket for my wife.  It was a surprise gift for her (I told her that it’s her Mother’s Day & Anniversary presents combined).  She is really coming along with her enthusiasm for the game, so I figured it was time to get her a real racket. One that she should be able to use for 10-20 years.
  3. $154.34 – Gas, $130.40 – Dinning Out, $97.69 – Easter Presents, $40.00 – Gift, $35.80 – Children Museum – I’m grouping all of these together, because these totals are a result of our Easter trip. The only one of these that I regret is the amount we spent on presents.  We wanted to get our daughter a bike (she has a winter B-Day), so we did.  But then we felt like we had to get our son something too.  So we ended up going a little overboard (plus we forgot to pack the Easter baskets, so we had to get that stuff too).  And of course, Little Miss DD is scared of her bike.  🙂

Biggest Budget Breakthroughs:

  1. $339.33 – Groceries –  Another record low in this category.  Being gone for 5 days helped a bit. But I have to admit that the real reason we are gaining ground here is that Mrs. DD is planning the meals and is doing a bang up job of making sure we use what we already have.
  2. $145.45 – Electricity – I received a couple of comments last month saying I paid a lot for electricity.  I wasn’t too worried because I knew something they didn’t… Spring finally arrived! The bills should be much lower now that it’s not so darn cold anymore.
  3. $134.20 – Household Misc. – I can hardly believe this number.  I think I must have lost some receipts, because our misc figures haven’t been this low in a long time.

Overall, it’s not that bad.  I hope to be under $4,000 in May. And if we’d take out the Insurance, we would’ve come close in April.

Until next time,

-DD

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