Spending Update - February 2018

It might be a little late, but it's time for our second monthly spending report. We did pretty well last month except for one big expense. Read on to get the details.

What We Spent in February
We were technically over budget this month, but the only reason we went over was a property tax payment. That's an expected expense, but it can't be spread over the year like our budget assumes. I'm thinking of revising our budget to account for expenses like these, but I'm trying to decide how best to do it. Until then, you can see the numbers below.

Category	2018 Budget	Monthly Budget	February Spending	Jan-Feb Spending	Jan-Feb Budget
Groceries	$     5,500	$        458	$         598	$       1,257	$       917
Property Tax	$     5,400	$        450	$     2,896	$       2,896	$       900
Car	$     4,000	$        333	$         476	$       1,885	$       667
Travel	$     3,500	$        292	$            -	$              -	$       583
Bills/Utilities	$     3,500	$        292	$         274	$           881	$       583
Household	$     3,000	$        250	$         181	$           226	$       500
Dining Out	$     2,200	$        183	$         228	$           529	$       367
Home Improvement	$     1,500	$        125	$         213	$           268	$       250
Gifts	$     1,500	$        125	$           38	$           137	$       250
Entertainment	$     1,300	$        108	$         290	$           320	$       217
Clothing	$     1,100	$          92	$           25	$             73	$       183
Cash Withdrawals	$     1,000	$          83	$            -	$              -	$       167
Home Insurance	$         700	$          58	$            -	$            725	$       117
Personal Care	$         450	$          38	$           71	$           120	$         75
Healthcare	$         400	$          33	$            -	$       1,040	$         67
Charity	$         200	$          17	$            -	$              -	$         33
Fees	$         150	$          13	$           20	$           147	$         25
Total	$   35,400	$    2,950	$     5,309	$     10,504	$   5,900

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with our performance. Excluding property tax, we actually came in under budget for the month! I know our cumulative spending for the year doesn't look good, but I'm confident it will even out as the year progresses. As well as we did, there are a couple categories we need to watch:

Groceries - $139 Over Budget
Unfortunately, we went over budget on groceries again. I think this is mainly due to purchasing some wine in bulk. Hopefully we do better next month.

Property Tax - $2,446 Over Budget
As I said before, we are technically over budget on this for the month, but over the course of the year it will work itself out.

Car - $143 Over Budget
This isn't too bad since we paid for six months of insurance on the Sonata. This is another expected expense that will even out over the course of the year.

Entertainment - $182 Over Budget
The vast majority of our spending in this category was for water park passes for the family. When summer rolls around, it gets pretty hot here, so having unlimited access to the local water park is wonderful. Passes are usually $100 per person, but we bought them early so they were only $80.

What We Bought in February
We didn't buy too much random stuff this month, but here are the highlights.

Car
We picked up a set of chunky rubber floor mats for our truck since it didn't have any. They fit perfectly, after a little trimming, and the best part is the beige ones were cheaper than gray, and that's the color we needed.

Household
In this category, we bought a couple small drawer units to give me some storage under my standing desk. Chrissy bought some bigger pots for our house plants along with a bunch of little things for Frugal Babe and friends to play with at the dollar store. Last, but not least, we got a bigger sleep sack for Frugal Babe. It was on sale when we bought it, so the expense didn't sting quite so much.

Home Improvement
We bought several things for the house last month. Those included some electrical parts to wire up our hot tub at some point. We also bought gravel to place underneath said hot tub. Finally, we bought some nice wood to complete a "barn door" project we are working on.

Clothing
Frugal Babe and I each got a new pair of shoes, for a total of $25. Pretty extravagant.

Fees
We completed our taxes in February and spent $20 to e-file our state taxes through TurboTax.

Did you stay on budget in February? Let us know in the comments.


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