June by the Numbers

Every month, I'd like to give a snapshot of our spending. June wasn't a great month, but I like to think I have some good excuses.

To provide background, I just graduated on May 14th. My wife was out of work for several months because of sickness during pregnancy. With me only working part time, our finances were surviving but not thriving.

I started my new job June 1st but didn't get a paycheck until June 15th. Hilary stared her job in mid June and didn't get paid until early July.

We had some large expenses:

• Mobile Home Repair: $2700
• Student Loan Payment: $216
• June Lot Rent: $180 (at old house)
• Power Bill: $162 (at old house)
• Childcare: $250 (during Hilary's orientation)
• New Cable/Internet + Setup fee: $137
• New desk and desktop computer for Thomas: $140
• Used Golf Clubs: $135 (my Father's day gift to myself)
• Mobile Home Loan Payment on Interest: $151
• New Battery for Hilary's Car: $102
• New work clothes for Thomas: $150
• Several other things...

A graphical summary from Mint.com:

As you can see, June was a bad month for food. I clump a lot of things into the "Restaurants" category. It covers any time we eat out, buy a soda, grab a snack, or do anything related to food that wasn't grocery shopping. This has to be controlled. My goal for food budget, overall, is $425/month. We need to shrink the Restaurant category down by about $400.

We won't meet this for July because our current spending so far is $450 and we are only half way into the month. So far, we have spent $290 in restaurant and $160 in grocery. This is a wake up call, and I'm glad I checked into this. It will help me to be more aware as I finish out July. At this rate, my goal is to be under $625 for food this month. That means for the 17 days left in the month, we have $10.25 a day to spend on food. That will feed a village in Africa but I'm lucky if that covers my lunch at Subway.

Simplicity....self control...patience...stewardship...

These are the traits I need to develop this month as I pursue financial responsibility.

Stay tuned to see how we finish out this month!

Grace to you all,

Thomas