I spent $0 dollars this week in any of the categories I’m tracking for this month’s budget challenge, so very little to report here. Both personal loan payments came due in that timeframe as well as cellphone bill and electric and my automated weekly savings thing.
Since the credit cards are paid off, I’m increasing the autopay on the higher interest loan.
Got a few unexpected tips I tracked in my budget.
Going to use the allocated eating out money next week to contribute to us getting takeout for Philly Vegan Restaurant Week, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Working on YNAB almost daily just to make sure my bank transactions are matching up with my manual transactions I’ve been putting in. I reconciled last week, but now I’m a bit lost with my loan.
HALP - I have 1 loan I’m paying off. I’ve entered the payment transaction under my checking account, in addition to entering it under my loan account in YNAB. It’s sorta linking? But then I noticed the amount of debt in my loan just rose instead of decreased. Since all my transactions have been payments I’m not sure what I did wrong. When I go to change the payments from outflow to inflow, my reconciliation is off. I’ve watched videos made by the YNAB team but it’s not quite sinking in.
Does anyone know of other videos that maybe have a good explanation (visual learner here so seeing is better than reading for me)? Has Lily done a video on explaining this?
The goal for this upcoming week: Stick with it, even though I’m frustrated. Also start saving for car registration, ugh!
Week 2:
I have $50 in my Just For Me budget that I haven’t spent yet. Not sure if I’m just waiting for something I really want, or if I feel like I should tuck away all that money this month first. But I’m putting the $30/week in it, still, so still on track.
I don’t ever manually add transactions. I just wait until they show up as cleared through my account and then make sure they are categorized correctly.
On my way home last Friday I had car trouble that ended up with spending $85 on a tow truck and not having a car all weekend. I spent another $250 to fix the car this week, so all my discretionary money is gone for last week and most of this week too. It could technically have come out of my e-fund but I feel better cash flowing it out of discretionary and leaving the e-fund alone.
This week I paid the deposit to the contractor, which was budgeted separately. We’re going to go pick up some free weights from facebook marketplace tonight for our eventual home gym, but that’s my partner’s pet project so he is paying for those. I’m looking at couches and treadmills but am unlikely to buy either any time soon.
As reported earlier, $100 donated to Charitable Fundraiser- $50 for food-related programs and $50 for health-related programs.
I have another $50 recurring donation that goes through the last week of the month, and that will be my budget for October. So next week my homework is to tally up our donations year to date and make a plan with mr krmit for end of year donations.
I have NOT done a video on this but maybe I should - all you have to do is enter the payment as a “transfer” or payment from your checking > loan account. Make sure it doesn’t have a category if both are on-budget. Here is both sides on mine:
So far…it’s going ok.
-I have not purchased any takeaway - probably will this weekend at some point though.
-Money for giving has gone out, although will be reevaluated at month end just to verify we hit the goal.
-I did not buy myself nail polish on Amazon even though I really wanted to.
-I was on time to bed 2/3 nights. I am adjusting this goal to specify weeknights only…I will not be in bed by 9:30 on weekend nights, but that’s ok since I can sleep in.
Waved the magic wand! This budget looks a little bit more like reality.
Spending
1968/2327
Grocery
291/500
Take out
94/160
Bills and Utilities
617/617
Home Needs
155/200
Home Wants
436/450
Pet
375/400
Vet visit, successfully keeping grocery bill under budget, went a little crazy with home organization and decorating (but it had to happen sometime), on-track with take out.
So far we are doing really well overall on our budget. We’ve spent exactly $1000 less this month than we had at this point last month. We’ve also spent $120 MORE on charitable giving than normal, and we’ve had over $1000 in extra not-planned-for income. (Weird extra SSDI deposits, a refund check on my life insurance premium, and a reimbursement from the health insurance company). Also, I get paid bi-weekly so I always set my budget based upon a 2 paycheck month but this is a 3 paycheck month! It looks like we will have $5k+ in after-tax savings this month!
Week 2 Update:
Rent: $650/$650
Groceries: $136/$200
PT: $90/$135
Bed: $0/$100
Internet: $0/$60
Auto Insurance: $180/$180
Renters Insurance: $46/$46
Gas: $17/$40
Supplements: $35/$40
Misc: $3/$50
Giving: $20/$20
Coffee (beans for home): $13/$30
Personal Care: $20/$20
Apple Music: $10/$10
Unplanned purchases:
I bought a plane ticket to Colorado for Thanksgiving/my birthday. This was an impulse purchase after spending a week crying about how I don’t have any friends here. Anyway, it was $278 which I’m not that upset about.
$110 to see my new GP doctor. She doesn’t take insurance, but she is awesome so it is ok.
Well was doing ok on the budget and keeping everything tracked, and then yesterday Cooper had a vet appointment and his lung nodules are growing again. So he’s got to go back up with his Prednisone dose which is fine b/c it is super cheap ($18 for 4 months worth), but he needs to transition to an inhaled steroid. So now I have to buy a doggie inhaler setup and start buying him an inhaler. The inhaler costs $450 for two months if you buy it in the US, so my vet recommended getting it from a Canadian pharmacy where it will be $90 for 2 months. So I am using the magic wand and adding $200 to my pets budget for all of that. Also, I bought wine yesterday and forgot about tax, so I’m taking $5 from the etc category and adding it to the alcohol category.
Update:
Rent - $808/$808
CC payment - $275/$275
Renters Insurance - $28.83/$29
Life Insurance - $0/$23
Apartment Utilities - $0/$17
Groceries - $168.77/$300 - Bad day treats
Donations - $0/$100
Subscriptions - $21.82/$72 - Apple storage
Etc - $1.07/$45
Laundry - $0/$40
Gifts - $0/$40
Restaurants - $0/$30
Alcohol -$24.75/$25 - Wine and tax that I forgot about Taking $5 from etc and putting it here
Snacks - $0/$20
Pets - $286/$300 Magic wanding this to $500
Car - $10.57/$300 - Car wash and air in tires
Medical - $0/$100
Retirement $150/$150
E-fund $400/$400
Also spent $537 on printed face masks for work, but will be reimbursed so doesn’t count.
On my way home last Friday I had car trouble that ended up with spending $85 on a tow truck and not having a car all weekend. I spent another $250 to fix the car this week, so all my discretionary money is gone for last week and most of this week too. It could technically have come out of my e-fund but I feel better cash flowing it out of discretionary and leaving the e-fund alone.
my bad!
