This is probably going to be a long post...there are a lot of financial updates to share.
Let's start with last months spending:
I'm really proud of our booze spending, we cut it down significantly from every month previous since I started doing these reports! Hopefully we can keep this trend going.
We were strong the first two and half weeks for eating out and then bombed the last couple weeks. It didn't help that we made a trip to BC and went out a couple of times there and in the city with friends.
Pet's is abnormal but reasonable considering our recent adoption.
Education/Travel are as per norm.
I've pulled out the wedding, reimbursables and the cell phone as these items are not part of the MasterCard Budget - there is money set aside for them already so don't count for the intention of this summary activity.
Switching Banks:
We're in the middle of switching banks from CIBC to ING Thrive and so I borrowed money from our savings funds as place holders in both accounts until all of the changes have taken place. We didn't want to risk having a bounced payment if we closed an account to soon or assumed a vendor received our change of banking information request. Once the car and truck insurance payments go through, we'll be able to close CIBC for good (with the exception of my personal Visa and two RRSP GIC's).
Current Budget (sans roommate)
One of our roommates successfully moved out at the end of January and we fully refunded his damage deposit. We then re-worked the budget based on our increased portion of the rent and utilities.
This budget also reflects the insurance adjustments we made with the purchase of the Escape and reducing the coverage on Jordan's truck as it's no longer used more then 5 times a month.
Jordan also recently changed his cell phone plan and we expect the bills to be less.
We are ever striving to balance the MasterCard spending and are getting closer each month.
The wedding is our current savings priority but that is now competing with the house. So while this is our savings budget, there may be some adjustments as the weeks progress.
There it is, we're all updated now :)
Where The Money's At
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You can blame your Dad for telling you to bring your own beer. ;) Once you step off the wagon it's hard to get back on. But I love how you just keep working at it, and not beating yourself up for spending more than you planned.
ReplyDeletetoo true, and I do!
ReplyDeleteI think our wagon is eating out, and it's annoying b/c it's mostly crap food :( When we're out and about for longer then we expect and then grab a burger somewhere for convenience sake.
Maybe I'll do a post on eating out tomorrow....