Week 9 Budget Assessment
By Matt - Thursday, July 31st, 2008
This past week I ended up spending a lot more in what I consider more of the discretionary categories and less in the essential ones. Even before I get to the weekly numbers I spent a lot more on alcohol than I did on food. Now before anyone thinks I have my priorities off kilter there is some method behind the madness. Here are my actual numbers from last week and I’ll explain why they are the way they are:
| Weekly Budget July 21-27 |
||
| Budget | Actual | |
| Alcohol | $20.00 | $87.10 |
| Food-Lunch | $15.00 | $13.60 |
| Food | $80.00 | $20.63 |
| Gas | $65.00 | $70.02 |
| Entertainment | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Smokes | $30.00 | $27.13 |
| Misc | $50.00 | $76.40 |
| Transportation | $$25.00 | $0.00 |
| Total | $285.00 | $269.58 |
As I mentioned above the alcohol spending is really high in comparison to the budgeted amount and a category such as food and the reasoning here is simple my wife and I entertained some friends on the weekend. I hadn’t budgeted for it and got some extra wine and some beer. I ended up paying for this and my wife ended up paying for the food which is why my grocery bill is so much lower than it should be. I also spent a lot more on the house this week which explains why the Misc category is higher than I was expecting.
Overall this past week was an amazing success; I managed to exceed my budget even though a couple categories were out of whack. I think I’m really starting to get a solid grip on controlling my day to day spending. The week we’re in right now is my conscious effort to try reducing some of the numbers and see if I can’t get my weekly spending down to about $200, which I think is entirely possible.
I have become incredibly conscious of my spending as a result of posting up these weekly budgets which is why I have been writing and posting them even though I’m not posting much else. The past month or so has been incredibly busy and I think there might be a bit of a lull coming up. Seeing how I spend my money gives me no excuse for not being responsible about my overall finances.
This entry is filed under Budgeting and Planning.
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