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If you missed it, check out my August Budget here
One of the first things Eric said to me yesterday morning was that it was mid-month so it was time for my money diary update. I looked at him and said, “you know you don’t have to force yourself to spend just because there is budget left, right?”
Eric and I look at budgets very differently: I treat it as the ceiling amount while he treats it as an allowance. When he reads this, he is going to argue how there never seemed to be a ceiling amount for what I want most of the time. Well….. 😉
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Budget for August 2020 – Mid-Month Update
So, Where Are We At?
For Fixed Expenses, since I was able to find a cheaper condo insurance renewal, I am ahead in Housing Costs. For Car Payments, I had forgotten to budget for license renewal at the beginning of the month so there is now a negative variance.
For Variable Expenses, we managed to stay under-budget for all categories for now. The positive variance in Electronics was due to Eric refunding a couple of mouses he didn’t like. For Entertainment, Eric spent most of the budget on the Pokemon Go Rayquaza Dragon event. For Transportation, since we mostly stayed close to home, we barely drove anywhere.
For Groceries, I tried Grocery Curbside Pick Up at Walmart for the first time and loved it. I was never a big fan of walking around to shop for groceries at large stores like Walmart. This chore is even less appealing now that I want to minimize interactions with crowds.
We haven’t been shopping for Home & Furniture since I bought the prettiest pumpkins from HomeSense (pictured). I also adjusted our budget for Learning & Development when I realized I got the timing wrong for one of our courses. There is a positive variance but only because of timing. Once the other class opens up with a spot, we will have to pay for it in early Sept.
For Restaurants & Take-Outs, I wasn’t surprised to see it below the budget for now. We got take-outs 3 times a week on average in August so far and had leftover most of the time. However, as I will discuss in the next section, we might end the month over the budget. I managed to pick up the lotion I budgeted for under Self-Care.
Now I Know Where We Are At, What Will Happen?
There are a lot of green blocks half-way through August so I would say we have been doing well. However, I added a column to the right this time to show the projected end of the month results. If the second half of August is similar to the first half, we will end the month over budget in the following categories: Entertainment, Learning and Development and Restaurants & Take-Outs.
For Entertainment, the only Pokemon Go event left is tomorrow and we don’t expect it to require a lot of in-app purchases. For Learning and Development, the projection is not accurate as the amount for tuition is fixed already. For Restaurants & Take-Outs, since we are trending well for Groceries, it will be fine to go over budget on this.
