Thriftism's Monthly Budget - August Report

September is here and fall is upon us. Are we still staying within our thrifty budget?  For a quick reminder, we run our budget solely on my income of $2,400/month which gives us a gross income of $31,200. We do not include health insurance in our budget as ours is currently covered by our jobs, but if this was our household income we would also be taken care of by insurance subsidies. We do not include all discretionary spending such as traveling or major home renovations, but we do include all entertainment, grocery, dining out, and every day expenses. It is our essentials budget that we live on before adding in trips! If we can do it, so can you!

The Budget

Our goal budget is balanced with total income minus expenses equal to zero. Numbers in red are expenditures, while black is income. The green background indicates under budget. Red squares point out our overspending. 

We did change up the budget a bit to reflect that the student loan is paid off. We split that amount between miscellaneous expenses and increased the savings goal. 

WINS ✅

We had another good month for eating out. We were able to reduce our monthly average again. Our eating out budget came from Zumba on Tap meaning we only spent $16 eating out. 

The only entertainment spending we had this month was Netflix. With Race working many weekends and working on the house the remaining days, we didn't have time to do too much. We didn't buy any clothing in August and kept our miscellaneous spending low. This helped us lower us monthly averages to be on track or almost on track for all three areas.

Our household spending was under budget this month too! We had another month of keeping utilities under budget. We're not quite there yet for the yearly average, but getting closer every month. We will need to keep doing this to balance out for the year - this may be difficult as our internet cost is increasing by 8% this year. We will try to avoid using the air during the remainder of the warm weather and then switch to trying to capture the solar energy by leaving window shades open to avoid turning on the heat as early. We stayed under budget for household supplies as well. 

Car insurance wasn't due this month, so our monthly average is below the budgeted amount. We also didn't have any vehicle maintenance and did relatively little driving keeping fuel costs low as well.

NEEDS WORK ❌

Groceries went over budget this month again. We weren't extreme in our spending, but have become a little more laid back than we should be on what we are buying. My new coffee and gelato habits are pushing us over the limit I'm afraid. I'll try to cut back in September, but may just balance this out with our low spending in other areas.  We've had quite a few extremely low months and it's been a struggle to keep from buying things (and sticking to rice and beans). 

Our phone bill went over again this month too and will continue to do so until the end of the year. I likely should re-budget to account for this, but our average will be under the annually budgeted amount, so it will be fine if we go over in the coming months. 

We did not need prescriptions this month, but I have continued buying Zyrtec to combat allergies. They also sadly discontinued the generic brand we had been purchasing, pushing up our monthly costs. 

LAST THOUGHTS

We still went over budget in a few areas, but stayed under overall. We were able to increase our savings a lot and get back on track for the year. We actually have been saving over 20% of my income for this budget (in addition to Race's income). We are almost $140 under for the year (balance or $0 is the goal). Since we had excess, this money increased our savings. Still doubting our budget? Keep following along. 

Be sure to check our the Thriftism YouTube Channel for spending updates and budget report videos!