February roundup

This month I did something a little different and tracked every single expense by hand. I just wanted a really accurate picture of our spending, and although it started off kinda fun, I soon fell behind and it became more of a chore. I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss anything off – here’s hoping – and certainly nothing major. What was nice was having the flexibility to make up categories of my own! It inspired me to finally get my butt into gear and add three new classifications in my online banking tracker (you’re allowed to add four of your own maximum).

• We’ll have his car loan paid off this month, and I can’t wait! There’s nothing worse than paying interest on something that you no longer even HAVE.
• It looks like he blew of a lot fun money, but $50 of that was for his ticket to a Shapeshifter gig, which accounts for nearly half of it.
• Misc. items include donations, a bug bomb for our room, and a haircut for him.
• Grocery spending looks REALLY good this month! Dining looks in line at just over $30 a week, although T is averaging a similar amount in lunch money.  I try to corral him into making SOME of his own lunches, but it doesn’t always happen. He also doesn’t always have access to kitchen facilities if he’s working on sites, so that narrows down options.
• I bought a lot of things this month for various mystery shops – Lotto tickets, some goodies from Lush, pizza, and three meals and a beer. I’m only waiting on about $60 in reimbursements at this stage.

In extra income, I made $355 from my second job (which went towards our Waiheke trip) and netted $166.41  from mystery shopping after purchases. That went towards a pretty summer dress ($30) and the rest was split between our ‘bills’ account and savings.

GOALS RECAP:

Save 20 per cent – DONE

One new recipe each week – Major, major fail.

Run once a week – Done, barring last week when we went away… but at least I got some swimming in!

Make an upwards career move – Done, to an extent. I’m still not counting this as fully achieved.

Donate to charity – Done in cash, canned food to the foodbank, dollars earned through an online survey site, and some old clothes for a child cancer appeal.