September Spending

Mortgage or Rent	850.00
Telephone	80.00
Groceries	1119.00
Eating Out, Lunches, Snacks	64.48
Gasoline/Oil	123.42
Credit Cards	1070.00
Cable TV/Videos/Movies	165.33
Miscellaneous Expense	261.10
Cash Withdrawals	300.00

Well there it is. I have not analyzed my spending in 8 years. It was easier to do then I thought. I went straight down my bank statement and filled in the categories based on the withdrawal amounts. I used a basic spreadsheet from About.com and filled in amounts. It was pretty easy. The next step is guessing what the budget should be. I exceeded my income this month. But I also received back child support payments so I knew I could afford to do that. I also paid medical expenses which I had planned to withdraw from my emerg. fund but ended up not needing to because I had the support payments. I am going to set up a budget based on the book.... Girl, Get your credit Straight by Glinda Bridgforth. She has some pretty common sense approaches that I like.



So how did I do....


Well on Housing I am under the 35% guideline - SAFE
Other Expenses are WAY out of whack Almost double what they should be!
Transportation - under 15% - SAFE
DEBT WELL.....almost 2.5 times where it should be but thats why I am blogging about getting out of debt so duh
Savings - Well because I spent so much this month 0 - FAIL.

I was able to preserve the 700 I have set aside for car insurance coming in Oct and Medical. So balance wise where I needed the most work is Food. It was bothering me this month but I am a little surprised how far out of whack it is. I have really been struggling with food. We are all picky eaters in the house and on any given night one person will be out of luck. My fiancee is going through the most changes. He is allergic to milk. It is very very hard to have a casserole for someone who cant have milk. I have been looking for acceptable substitutes but it is expensive! Plus I have noticed we usually share some of the shopping and this month he did not share any of the food bills. I guess we will have to talk about some solutions.

This is the fist day and the budgeting day. The mountain is huge but I believe we can get out from under.