It's that time again - below you will find my bi-weekly budget:
This weeks pay is about what I thought it would be given the changes I made, but there of courses were variances because each year the tax man changes the rules around federal/provincial taxes.
You can see all of my ING transfers are set to go through for my new funds detailed in my 2010 budget. I'm looking forward to see all of these 'funds' going up!
The joint fund as well as the Transportation/Food/Entertainment (other) are as per usual. It's been difficult but I'm sticking with $100 on the entertainment/other category. I find that I have been using my credit card to supplement it through, so it may be worth it to try tacking expenses a little closer for a while to see if the budget as a whole needs re-working or my thinking does. Either way, I've got a visa payment on this budget that pays off the balance.
Something new you'll see on my bi-weekly budgets is a CSL - Lump Sum Pay category. Any monies that I have not allocated somewhere else will go towards a payment towards my Canada Student Loan. My snowflakes - to take from Jolie at Shaking the Money Tree. I anticipate that each month this should equal about $350 or so.
For the sake of being honest...which i'm not excited about...The Visa payment includes:
- Lunch with Jordan
- A few household items at Ikea
- we decided to finally get an area rug and needed a few things for the kitchen
- Staples
- got a can of air to clean out my printer which has been crapping out, also needed this for my computer. we also bought a small shelving unit to store all the movies/games we got for Christmas.. they were just stacked in front of the tv looking messy and disorganized.
- London Drugs
- this was a tub for storage of Christmas decorations and paper for my printer and some tinsel for next year that was on sale
- BBQ Galore
- I gave Jordan a smoker for Christmas but we needed charcoal, wood chips & lighter cubes - he smoked an entire 10lbs turkey - it was great, and we've been using it for sandwich meat.
- Liquor Store
- a few odds and ends to re-stock after Christmas. I like to have a couple bottles of wines handy should be invited somewhere for supper - don't like to show up empty handed
- A few household items from Walmart
- i can't even remember what we bought.. so that's a bad sign - I'm defn. going to keep receipts for the next two weeks...now that I'm thinking about it - I believe there were a couple of blue ray movies on sale that I bought. oops.
There were certainly some indulges there (ie lunch out) - but there were a few things that I feel were needs (yes some were just wants). So I will track all of my spending for the next two weeks to have a look at things.
Good idea to track for a bit. It's amazing how fast "it's only a tub, only tinsel on sale, only lunch" add up, eh. I went to Overwaitea for dog food and spent $50 bucks!
ReplyDeleteActually, I totally suggest you keep your all your receipts (even for coffee) for one month at a time so you can reconcile stuff. Also good if you suddenly regret a purchase and want to refund something.
ReplyDeleteI keep all of my receipts as a general rule, I just don't track them/write it all down. That's my goal for this pay period :) We'll see how well it works out.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Pear.
ReplyDeleteIt's HARD. But worth it.
I plan on tracking ALL my spending until JUNE.
I bought a little daily planner from the dollar store & update each night.
I would love to know at the end of the year that I spent $__ on groceries or $___ on coffee out.