Thriftism's Monthly Budget - 2018 In Review Report
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. We haven't adjusted other budget items, though as you'll see when you continue reading, we probably should have adjusted at least the phone and the utilities.
WINS ✅
We stayed well under budget on household supplies and kept up with the mortgage. Household supplies includes things like toilet paper, shampoo, cleaning supplies, etc. How did we manage to spend so little? We always shop sales and plan ahead. A big help was stocking up when Sam's Club was closing near us. That meant swiffer sheets, dishwasher detergent, sponges, etc. was all 50% off! We also have made soap in the past as a hobby, so we are well stocked in that area for many months (or possibly years) to come. Another way to save is by using rebates apps or coupons. A few of my favorites are iBotta and ebates, though there are many more options available. Check out Krazycouponlady for tips on getting started couponing.
Most of our entertainment costs originated from our Netflix subscription. Otherwise, as with the eating out, we tried to entertain at home using game nights or other free entertainment options. We were able to stay under on our clothing budget in part due to the Sam's Club closure where we stocked up on clothing. I also shopping after Christmas and Amazon sales. I even got a shirt (normally $25) for $1. Talk about a score!
Our maintenance costs remained low throughout the year consisting of mostly renewing car tabs and oil changes- which we typically do ourselves keeping costs extra low. Our car insurance was pretty much right in line with what we expected and fuel was much lower. We tried to push for taking alternative transportation (walking, bike riding, car pooling) as much as possible. In addition, some of Race's travel for work is reimbursed so we didn't count that fuel towards our household budget.
While our phone bill appeared to go over budget nearly every month, we actually stayed under for the year. The reason is wasn't spot on was due to AT&T giving us a free month because they were slow in activating Race's phone. Definitely was worth the wait!
We rocked our savings goal this year! We saved $3,200 from an income of $28,800 or 11%. Again this is solely off of my income, but we do live off of my income with Race's going entirely towards retirement savings. That means if this was our entire household income, we would have a good chunk saved towards our emergency fund, a start on retirement, or be able to buy a decent used car (more than we bought our last car for). This income would be similar to a two income household making minimum wage working ~30-35 hours/week. Living frugally and saving (not going into debt either) can be done even on a super low income. This is the reasoning behind us showing our budget every month.
NEEDS WORK ❌
We didn't quite make it within budget on our groceries. Our monthly average was $4 more than we planned, but we did manage to make up a lot of ground since January. January was ridiculously high (again Sam's Club closure) because we stocked up on dried goods like rice, beans, canned tuna, protein powder, and pasta that will last us for at least the next year.
While we were able to keep prescriptions to a minimum, we did go over on the over-the-counter drugs. This was mostly allergy pills like Zyrtec (or rather the store brand of Zyrtec) in exchange for a prescription allergy pill. I did miscalculate how much our co-payments would be too, but it wasn't drastically over. I kept our insurance at $0 because it was covered by employers, but if it hadn't been and our income was $28,000 for a household of two, we would qualify for free insurance through government subsidies.
Our miscellaneous category includes our gift purchases and we got a little carried away at the end of the year with Christmas. Definitely got carried away with our spending. Good thing we underspent so drastically in other categories to make up for this!
Our utilities have been high all year. Inflation is finally catching up to us. I have had the same utility budget for 5 years and with annual increase of up to 8% in all of our utilities we aren't able to keep it within this budget anymore. Plus, I no longer want to sit in a steamy or freezing house. We had high temps all summer (higher than average) followed by extremely low temps (we had snow in September 😢 ). This led to higher than expected utility costs. We will need to adjust this going into next year.
LAST THOUGHTS
Overall, we stayed basically right on budget. We ended the year with an extra $5, but were also able to save almost double what we had planned. We will need to adjust the budget going forward to account for higher utility and medical bills. We may also adjust our grocery budget up a bit, but we will determine that at a later date.
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