Dollars & Spends
It’s Friday the 13th, but there is nothing weird going on here. The week has come to an end and as usual we’ve done some spending. I posted the budget earlier this month so you know we plan to spend $4,112 in July. So far we’ve burned through $2,421 of those dollars ($1,876 last week and $545 this week) and we’ve got $1,691 left in the budget.
Here’s the skinny on who/what/where/when/how we spent $545 in the past week.
We don’t have too many transactions to report this week. We hit up the grocery store twice to the tune of $145. That’s pretty high, but we did stock up on some items so I’m hopeful that we’ll spend less than average next week (I don’t know why I’m always hopeful that the grocery bill will go down – it never does). On top of groceries our eating out spree from last week continued to beat up the budget early on this week. There goes another $49. We’ve just got to stop eating altogether. We’d save so much money.
Two irregular expenses got paid for this week. $66 to renew the registration on one of our vehicles and $242 for contact lenses so that I can continue to see while I’m driving said vehicle. Unfortunately it takes more than just up-to-date tags to make a car move so we did have to shell out $34 for gas.
The last thing we spent money on was $5 worth of entertainment. We have a second-run movie theater near us where you can see a matinee for $1.25. Um, that’s cheap! Yes the movies are two or three months old, but who cares at this price. We took in a Saturday matinee and another on Sunday. Even when the movies suck, it’s still worth $5 just to enjoy the air conditioning. We saw What to Expect When You’re Expecting (it wasn’t great, but it was cute) and we saw Battleship (it was totally cheesy). You can probably guess who picked each movie. The cheap theater is our favorite frugal fun.
We are slightly over budget in two categories (I hate those red bars you see up there), but we can make up that $17 overage. I forgot to add in tax when I was estimating the cost of contacts and I splurged for the $2 processing fee on my vehicle registration so that I could just pay online. I know that cost me $1.59 more than using a stamp and writing a check, but it was worth it for the convenience. I think I’m going to come in under budget on my haircut so that’ll help make up for these little goofs.
Being pretty much on track for the month is a good feeling. How is your budget looking now that July is half over?
Wow, that $1.25 movie theater is awesome! We stopped going because the theater costs us about $40 every time we go. Forget it–we would rather stay home and use Netflix. The only time we go now is for something huge like the Hunger Games. Other than a blockbuster every other year or so, Netflix is just fine.
Love your blog!
K
Right! Regular theaters are so expensive. There are maybe two or three movies a year that we splurge on. Otherwise we stick to the cheap theater and like you, we use Netflix. We did hit up the expensive theater for The Hunger Games where my high school teacher husband ran into pretty much everyone of his students.
I think I’ve found a kindred spirit! The tone and content of your blog reminds me of mine! I suspect we’ll be able to learn from one another. Adding you to RSS! Thanks.
Hey, I miss your posts! Where are you?