Savings Goal
10/01/15
Since it's a new month, and I just talked about spending, I figure I might as well set a savings goal for this month. There's some temporary spending going on this month that'll last about three months that'll make saving more than 50% of my income pretty difficult.
Anyways, I want to predict my spending for this coming month based on definite expenses and trends from the previous month.
| Category | Spending |
|---|---|
| Mortgage | 1089 |
| Health | 600 |
| Utilities | 530 |
| Grocery | 350 |
| Maintenance | 200 |
| Pets | 100 |
| Entertainment | 65 |
| Transportation | 20 |
| Total | 2954 |
Income for the month will be about $4200 after taxes, so my savings for this month will be around $1200. So, saving about 29% of my income for the month. The main items of spending are my mortgage, which I'm slowly working towards addressing; my utilities, A/C during the summer in a house that isn't the best insulated; and the health costs, vision therapy which probably isn't covered by insurance (still got to explore that).
I'm hoping to sell the house sometime early next year, but I need to actually get the ball rolling there. That could drop monthly costs a good $600 or so, I think. Though, rent from roommate would also drop somewhat proportionally.
Health expenses will stay pretty high if not covered by insurance for a minimum of about three months or so, maybe, but after that will drop back down to less than $100 a month.
Utilities should drop drastically this month and not rise again until late spring, which hopefully will be after I have absconded to a smaller house where utilities will also cost less.
Groceries and maintenance are somewhat decently low. Groceries could be done more efficiently, but it's still a work in progress, and is way better than it was. Maintenance is only so high this month because I need to buy some tools to actually do some chores around the house (notably, I need a weed eater and a vacuum cleaner). I may find ways to avoid spending so much on either, but their current level isn't too alarming.
The rest of the stuff on the list is accpetable for now, and not particularly valuable to reduce further.
Predicting and tracking my spending is going to be a necessary part of spending way, way less.