Spending Status

09/30/15

It's the end of the month, which means a monthly review will be in order soon. I managed to do one of those for August at work, and now I'm hoping to do one for September both at work and at home. I'll try for the review this weekend. I'll even try for a weekly review. Daily reviews are simply unlikely given my current control over my time spending.

Though maybe that will change soon.

In any case, I still have a backlog of receipts to enter into my system, and also a bunch of digital charges to go through as well, but here's a somewhat decent rundown of my expenses (except for some major expenses that I'm still getting around to putting in my system).

PETS is a bit more expensive than usual as I needed to take the dog to the vet. HEALTH will only be more expensive in the coming months for some eye therapy. MAINTENANCE is actually higher for the month, but I just haven't added in the receipts for fixing the add-on to my house (labor, materials, a new water-heater, etc.).

I'm thinking this plus mortgage and utitlities will put my spending for the month at something like $3400. So, savings for this month will be about $500. So, even with $400 of unexpected pet bills and about $1100 of one-time house fixing expenses, I managed to save money.

That's pretty awesome. Not that long ago, I would've hurt my savings for sure.

On months without unusual expenses, I should be able to save about 50% of my income.

Sometime in 2016, I should cut living expenses by a further $600 or so via moving to a smaller house. That should put my savings rate at around 70%. I could also be much more efficient at saving money, I think. The long-term goal will be $1000 per month. Hopefully that'll be my spending throughout 2017.

That's a dream right now. Got to make it a reality with some proper planning and training.