December was a spendy month, $6100 in costs. If you take out the $1300 in gifts (which were discretionary) it was a more reasonable $4800. For more details please see below.
Campground – We haven’t had this many consecutive months in a campground since probably year one. That $650 a month certainly adds up!
Groceries – We went over by $159 which was mainly due to additional food we bought for the holidays. I’ll be curious to see what happens with this now that we are both eating a lot of frozen diet meals.
Dining Out – We went over by $350 which was primarily one meal Lee and Kay had at Halls Chophouse. The rest of us had all had a chance to go there, but they hadn’t and we knew it would be a $300 meal when they went. Glad they had the experience though.
Entertainment – We went over by $107. A chunk of this was books Lee bought when he went back to Columbus.
Truck Fuel – Lee went back to Columbus and used our truck. We also made many, many trips to see the baby which is 16 miles each way. In addition Lee made quite a few trips with Jack down to the beach which is 40 miles each way. In both cases small price to pay 🙂
E-Cigarettes – In an attempt to deal with food cravings I started using the vape pen more. Before you get too judgy this is also my equivalent of having a drink at the end of the day!
Personal Care – I treated my daughter to a pedicure at her favorite place. It was not cheap but it was a great experience.
Shipping – I created a calendar with some pictures of our travels for close friends and family and the cost was mainly for shipping those out.
New Equipment – We bought a dish drying rack, smoke detector for the bedroom, and a new ice machine at Camping World. Ours died unexpectedly and since we use a LOT of ice that was a must replace. On the plus side we really like the new machine. It makes double the ice per day the old one did and the ice cubes are bigger. So far we are big fans.
That was the month and although it was more than we would like to spend we made choices every step of the way (ice machine aside). Not going to bemoan the results when we talk about it ahead of time. Next up is the Year Five budget review. I am really excited about this because we have five years worth of data to talk about…so that should be a fun one for all those number nerds like me.
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Never gonna judge, always going to be your top fan! I love the fact that you are mindful of your spending, and own your choices….Happy Holidays and big hugs!
I really appreciate your posting your budget sheet. It helps me figure out what expenses to track as well as decide how much I can live on per month. Keep posting!
Thanks !
I appreciate the in-depth honesty! Always good to benchmark our spending versus that of others. Happy New Year!