Well, I was worried about this when we did such a good job with our expenses in April. And I can already give you a little sneak peak into June… we’re on a downhill slide folks. I hope you are learning from our mistakes, because obviously we are not. (This post contains affiliate links. That means if you click on them and buy something I may make a commission).
Sure, I have excuses up the wazoo. We’re finishing up some remodeling we started last summer, with money we had already set aside to do so, but still takes money. Apparently we starved ourselves in April, so we made up for it in May. I got a promotion at work, so I had to go shopping (mind you my new pay doesn’t start until mid-July). Are you seeing our unhealthy pattern here?
Then let’s talk about the fact that I still haven’t shopped at Target since I announced our split. That expense definitely seems to have transferred over to Walmart instead. That’s even worse! Is there anyone out there that successfully stays away from both of those stores? I’ve been going to the local Ace Hardware for some things. Using Amazon for others. But there still seems to be those random purchases, like toothpaste and contact solution, that are just so much cheaper there. Somehow there’s got to be a balance of supporting the local shops and saving money.
I wish I could stay out of big box stores completely, but I think I need a few more promotions before we can afford that… and then maybe one more promotion so we can hire a nanny to watch the kids during errand time. Because it sucks dragging them around to 5 million different stores to get everything we need.
Phew, thanks for letting me rant! Now on to the numbers:
GROCERY EXPENSES:
TRADER JOE’S – $760 (I think I had 5 weeks go through as opposed to last month that was so much lower.)
OTHER GROCERY – $278 (While this is also up from last month, it’s still way below where it had been before that.)
GROCERY TOTAL – $1,038 (Not the best, but certainly not the worst)
EATING OUT EXPENSES – $527 (Ouch, as they say in the corporate world… there is “opportunity” there.)
SHOPPING EXPENSES:
NORDSTROM – $74
KOHLS – $109
WALMART – $265 (Oil changing stuff is pricey these days.)
AMAZON – $100 (Paying off Christmas)
TARGET – $0
HONEST COMPANY – $94 (This is the Diapers Bundle plus a swim diaper. These diapers are one of my favorite things, and you get $20 off if you use this link!)
SHOPPING TOTAL – $642 (Not as bad as I thought it would be. Still, room for improvement.)
I figured it was probably time to start factoring in my blog expenses, since I am incurring some on a monthly basis. It’s hard to look at this and not get discouraged, but I know it’s leading to greater things.
BLOG EXPENSES:
PIC MONKEY – $5
IZEA – $1
ETSY – $110 (I had someone refresh my logo so that it wasn’t so homemade as my stock tree I had used. Plus I got accepted into the Etsy affiliate program so that justifies shopping there more… right?)
ADVERTISING – $10 (Facebook boost)
THEME UPGRADE – $37 (I had been using the free version, it was time to upgrade to the full. Now the millions can start rolling in to pay for it.)
TAILWIND – $15 (Oh yeah, and I had to upgrade my Pinterest scheduler. I know, this world is crazy isn’t it?)
BLOG TOTAL – $178 (More than I normally spend, but I’m in this for the long haul and want to do it right.)
TOTAL EXPENSES – $2,385 (Noted)
And now on to the BLOG INCOME portion. If this is your first time reading, 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 on this blog. While I am still a VERY long ways from that, I wanted to keep track from the beginning to help see what’s working and what’s not. 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.)
GOOGLE ADSENSE – $3.55 (The exciting thing is I finally hit the payout threshold of $10, ha!)
IZEA – $0
AMAZON – $0
TARGET – $0
THE HONEST COMPANY – $0
ZULILY – $0
BLOG INCOME TOTAL – $3.55 (Womp womp… luckily I’m extremely stubborn, and still thoroughly enjoying all this, so not giving up.)
What’s exciting and frustrating at the same time is that I had a post go mini-viral (that’s what I’m calling it). I normally get 20-50 page views in a day, and I got over 1,300 one day on my homemade lip balm post. It had over 3,000 shares, but was full of Amazon affiliate links to exactly which products I used, and didn’t get one single click, much less a purchase. I still think they’re tracking system is shady and doesn’t properly track purchases. Oh well, the ultimate goal is not to make my millions on Amazon sales. It was just exciting to get all that traffic!
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