Well I was hoping that with February being a short month, that our expenses would look better with fewer days to spend money. Unfortunately that was not the case, must have been the fact that it was a leap year. Of course I have all kinds of excuses, like our awesome vacation we went on… I mean, how could we say no to buying the pink hat that matched Daddy’s (not pink) version?
Oh, and then there was the annual, once a year, get it now before it’s triple the price, Patagonia sale. We allow ourselves about a hundred dollars each for that every year. So if you think about it, we were really under budget for that expense (4 people at $100 each = $400, and we only spent $300).
AND THEN, it just so happened to be my once-every-few-months Costco trip. That’s always good for adding a couple extra hundred on the budget. But now we’ll be good for another few months.
Heads up this post contains affiliate links.
So, please proceed knowing we had all these very good reasons (you may call them excuses) why February’s expenses were significantly higher than January’s. The good news is, I went another month without getting anything from Zulily… so that’s a plus!
GROCERY EXPENSES
TRADER JOE’S – $386 (last month was $714)
COSTCO – $227
OTHER GROCERY – $217
GROCERY TOTAL – $840 (last month was $970)
TAKE OUT EXPENSES – $343 (I’m going to start adding this in because I want to see how much it goes up or down depending on how much we spend on groceries. Last month was $453)
SHOPPING EXPENSES
TARGET – $278 (last month was $283)
AMAZON – $100 (last month was $100 as well… paying off Christmas bills)
OTHER SHOPPING – $450 (remember this includes our annual Patagonia sale purchases)
SHOPPING TOTAL – $828 (last month was $652)
*Gulp*, total expenses for February were $2,011 vs. last month at $1,622. HOWEVER, when you factor in the “Take Out Expenses” that I hadn’t included in January, we were actually ahead by $64 in February.
And now on to the Blog Income portion. If you didn’t read January’s Expense and Blog Income post, you may be wondering why I’m adding this in as well… It is my goal to eventually be able to earn a full time income from this blog. So in the interest of budgeting, full disclosure, and full accountability, I invite you to follow along on my progress. (By the way if you are also interested in starting your own website, Bluehost is a great place to begin, and if you use this link it’s only $3.95/month.)
BLOG INCOME
GOOGLE ADSENSE – $7.30
BLUEHOST – $65
AMAZON – $0
TARGET – $0
ZULILY – $0
BLOG INCOME TOTAL – $72.30
Sure seems like a lot compared to January. Unfortunately I don’t actually get paid out on any of this until it hits $100, BUT it still feels like progress.
I read all these other monthly expense and budget reports from other bloggers in complete awe. It seems so impossible. To be honest, I’m still on the fence on if I want to completely change our lifestyle to fit our budget, or enhance our budget to fit our lifestyle. Hopefully this blog will allow me to do the latter, though I still plan to try some of the tips I’ve been receiving… keem ’em coming!
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