It’s time for another Monthly Spending Report! When I published the first one last month, I got some good feedback so I’ll be continuing. And I’ll keep adding in the work trip expenses – it helps explain why one month might have very low grocery expenses, for instance.
What is a Monthly Spending Report?
Wayyyyy back when I first created this blog, I wrote about budgets. A budget is a plan for how you are going to spend your money.
A spending report, then, is a record of what you actually spent. Chances are most of your spending isn’t going to perfectly align with your planned budget. For instance, you may estimate that your electricity bill will be $70 and then it ends up being $76. Or you might budget $200 for eating out/entertainment and end up being sick one weekend and only spending $160 for the month.
The point is, a spending report is what really happened vs what you expected to happen (your budget). For my military readers, you could think of building your spending report as the data compilation portion of your debrief for the month.
February 2019 Monthly Spending Report
My total personal spending for February was $2,710.45. This is about average.
Of note, I’m a single human caring for one large dog. My car is paid off, I don’t have any debt other than a mortgage on my rental property, and I don’t want a giant house (been there, done that). All of those things affect my numbers, so if you look at this and anything seems surprising that might be why.
Housing Expenses – $1163.35
My rent was normal. I live in a fairly low cost of living area where I rent out a nice 2-bedroom patio home in a gated community for $1010/month, including a small amount for pet rent for my dog. I pay an extra $1.95/month for the convenience of having my rent auto-paid so I don’t have to worry about checks or remembering the due date.
My utilities were low again this month ($151.40) because I prepaid several months’ worth of water/sewer/trash, electricity, and gas a while back. I expect my utility costs to be much higher next month because my prepaid balances are almost at $0.
I include cable/internet and my cell phone bill in my utilities cost because I consider internet and a phone line to be near requirements these days.
Insurance – $526.20
This is high this month because my car insurance bill came due. This amount includes 6 months of car insurance, plus life insurance.
Groceries – $136.47
My grocery spending only includes actual food and drink meant for home preparation. I lump restaurant food into my entertainment budget, dog food under pet care, and toiletries under Miscellaneous. I know some people count all of those things as groceries but it just doesn’t make sense in my head that way.
This month’s total was actually a little higher than I would have expected, considering I spent 10 days in February on a TDY (work trip). I did buy some extra food due to finding some good deals, though. I loaded up on mac&cheese (don’t judge), frozen vegetables, and meat that I froze for later.
Entertainment – $197.47
More than half of this amount ($118.10) was me registering for the Bataan Memorial Death March. I am super excited about this event that is probably going to break me, lol. One more week!
I also spent $71.38 on eating out (mostly work meals) and $7.99 on Netflix.
Transportation – $34.60
Nothing cosmic, just gas.
Pet Care – $270.48
Alas, I had to take my dog in for some veterinary care in February. This cost is split between the vet fee, some medicine, a blood test, and his heartworm prevention medication.
Clothes – $73.54
I bought new shoes for a work event and some trail gaiters for the Bataan hike!
Uniforms – $59.00
$49 for a blues pullover and $10 for alterations.
Charity – $200.00
This $200 is my paycheck deductions going to the Combined Federal Campaign and the Air Force Assistance Fund. I also have a savings account for a sinking fund where I save money for additional charitable contributions, but I didn’t disburse any money from there last month.
Miscellaneous – $49.34
This could be anything. I like having a catch-all category for the things that aren’t easily lumped in elsewhere. Sometimes it’s a mug. Sometimes it’s paper towels. Whatever.
This month it was a Sam’s Club pack of paper towels, a new travel pillow, and a new band for my Fitbit.
Personal Total – $2710.45
This is a pretty normal amount for me. The expenses for some things are a little low because I either prepaid them previously (utilities) or was out of town (groceries). On the other hand, some were a little high because I did the prepaying this month (car insurance).
So far my annual spending has been $1707.87 in January and $2710.45 in February for a total of $4418.32. That’s a monthly average of $2209.16. If my spending stays the same throughout the year, my net (after tax) spending will end up being about $27,000. Realistically, I think it will end up being more like $35,000 over the course of the year once I add in things like travel, gifts, etc – things I haven’t spent money on yet.
Business Travel – $552.57
While the above amounts show normal spending, I also spent ~$550 more this month. But it wasn’t money I would’ve spent on my own, so I’m accounting for it separately. This money was spent for an 12-day TDY trip; I get reimbursed after I return home.
This $552 includes:
- One hotel night
- One week’s fuel for the rental car
- Meals and activities for 10 of the 12 days
This is artificially low because I actually returned in March, so a lot of the big expenses (hotel, rental car, dog boarding, etc) will be shown in my March spending report.
I will be reimbursed for all of this (I spend less on food so that my dog boarding is covered by per diem – normally it wouldn’t be) so it doesn’t feel right to include in my personal spending total. But it does affect my grocery bill, utilities, fuel to drive to the airport, etc so I still wanted to show it.
If you include this spending in my monthly spending report, February 2019 cost me $3263.02.
This month showed how different monthly spending can be when insurance, pet care, and other expenses change. February cost $1000 more than January! That’s why I’m a big fan of sinking funds. A topic for the future, I suppose.
I can’t believe the march is just a week away now! We don’t do sinking funds, but there are definitely months that I consider it. It feels weird to count something as “savings” if it has a planned future use (same with counting it as an expense before it actually happens). I guess this is why an overall annual look works well even when months fluctuate quite a bit.
Yeah I’m firmly in the “taxes are an expense” side but it’s hard to categorize sinking fund money! It’s not an investment, it’s not helping building my net worth…I just haven’t paid (whatever) quite yet.
I lump just about everything purchased at the grocery store as “groceries” simply due to convenience in record keeping. I looked at receipts for six months last year and figured out that roughly $50/month of our $400 “grocery” category is non-food items like hygiene and cleaning supplies. I needed that baseline because I was confusing a lot of people when discussing what our food budget actually works out to be for three people.
Will never judge the consumption of mac&cheese. If it wasn’t for those cheap boxes of carbs my son and I wouldn’t eat when my wife is away. Adding in a can of Hormel chili and you’ve got one of my staple meals.
Can’t wait to hear how your Bataan experience goes. It feels like we first discussed foot care and prep work ages ago.
It was actually only a month ago, which shows how little prep I’m actually going into this thing with 😬 But I’m prepared with lots of socks and Bandaids!
Our February finances were rough… our older dog (11 yr old chocolate lab) has cancer and wound up having eneucleation surgery… we’ve spent close to $2k on her medical expenses since December BUT the good news is she is now better (and happier) than she’s been in 6 months! Amazing how resilient they are!
Yay!!! Great news!!!
I didn’t see anything earmarked for investing. Do you save in the TSP plan any?
Yes, I max out the TSP as well as do other investing. The bottom of the chart says “Doesn’t include: taxes, savings, investments, rental property expenses, blog expenses.” I don’t include those things for two reasons: either they aren’t spending (this is a spending report) or they are things that are specific to me and wouldn’t be applicable to other people (my taxes are very personal based on my income and investments, you probably don’t have a blog, etc).
hello.. what do you use to crate your spending report? Thanks.
Just a table in Excel.