** Click here for more info on my monthly spending roundups.**
Some notes:
Car maintenance – oil and stuff. Or maybe it was just oil. Can’t quite recall. Let’s just say fluids and be done with it.
Clothes and grooming – shirts and singlets for T, and a lipstick for me ahead of my no-beauty spend year. I also just got given a big jar of Elizabeth Arden cream, so am well and truly set.
Dining – $17 over budget. Hmm.
Donations – I know it’s not much, but it’s the most I’ve donated in a month yet. This was a cause I’ve long been meaning to patron and this was the minimum donation. In Aussie bucks, no less.
Entertainment– $30 for a hosted family lunch, $20 ice skating, $10 at the arcade, and $80 for Incubus. I know said no concerts this year unless the Chilis come, but decided at last minute (two days before) to do it. Why? I had a $100 Ticketmaster voucher I originally planned to use it to tick off my goal of going to the theatre but there are no good shows coming up and it expires in five months. This way, we only paid $80 for two. (Though if the RHCP do tour this way, I am not entirely sure I really care to see a post-Frusciante band.)
Groceries – We came back from our holiday on the 2nd, so really it was a five-week month. Not too shabby.
Holidays – $64 deposit for a campervan for our South Island trip (post coming up on that), and the rest was food and petrol toward the end of our trip over NYE.
Insurance – contents for the quarter.
Medical – doctor’s appointment for T.
T fun – An expensive boys’ birthday outing. Paintball.
Utilities – are high. T’s phone bill was $64 as he accidentally made some phone calls unwittingly. We went over our data limit with Orcon (this rarely happens), so that was $99. I locked in $81 of winter power (post coming up on our new provider) and spent $135 on electricity.
A few updates…
T was off work all month injured (really, he only went back in twice since last year, and only lasted about an hour on each of those days). We’ve received one week of payment from ACC, which pays out 80 percent of wages, and are hoping the other two weeks will be covered.
I’ve started a subaccount called Wedding. It’s sitting at $360 and will be funded by T’s repayments to me (I have fronted him money previously for his bike, for the costs of his car accidents and some other things). This makes it much easier than me putting the money into my main savings account and having to keep track of his repayments in a spreadsheet.
And our South Island road trip fund is sitting at just over $1000. Granted, we just booked flights to Christchurch where we’ll pick up the campervan, so this will go down once I make the payment to the Visa.
I’ve also decided I would really like to start investing a bit of cash into international index funds outside of Kiwisaver, and in NZ stocks that pay dividends. not sure if this will be possible this year alongside our other savings, goals, though.
How was your January? Spendy? Frugal?
My month wasn’t 100% frugal, but I don’t have many major complaints surrounding it. The only complaint I have are my utilities. Have you guys been experiencing a surge in electricity prices down there? I sat down with my roommate and looked at our most recent water/electrical bill recently (they’re paid together). Our usage went down on both, but our bill went up almost $20. It’s frustrating.
Prices did go up last year across the board, but not very recently. Our new provider is really innovative and prices are 100 percent transparent so I’ll be writing in more detail about that soon!
OMG ice skating! I haven’t done that in for freaking ever! I’ll have to add that to my February budget, methinks. Before the winter is on it’s way out.
I had a frugal January which was nice. 🙂
I’m excited to see your upcoming post on the South Island trip! we really want to do that at some point, maybe next year so I’d love to hear more about it.
Maybe you have said before, but what program do you use to track your expenses. I like your pie charts 🙂
Oops, can’t believe I forgot to add my usual link! Adding disclaimer now (details here BTW http://eemusings.wordpress.com/tag/tag/tag/tag/tag/2011/01/09/tracking-expenses-the-lowdown/)