Photo by Patrick Fore via Unsplash.com
I’m so happy to be letting you guys into my budget once again! I’ve put a hold on it for so long (I haven’t made a budget post since June!) because I haven’t gotten a normal paycheck until now– and with my increase in salary, I wasn’t even sure what “normal” take home pay would be for me. I wanted to be positive everything was correct before I showed you.
I also wanted to let you guys know that I’m in the process of switching my budget over to my own spreadsheet, better suited for my needs, from my EveryDollar app. I still love the app and use it occasionally when checking out percentages, but I wanted something a bit more customized to me. So the screenshots I’ll be including in this post are from my own budget template on Google sheets.
As per my base salary increase, I went from taking home $2,862 per month to $2,938 per month. This is a much-welcomed change 🙂
My savings this month are kind of all over the place– I have the WordPress annual fee coming up soon, and I’m leaving $100 unbudgeted this month to create a buffer in my checking account, so I’m short my ideal amount of savings– I spread the shortage across retirement and my emergency fund.
These are my most-updated fixed costs. Rent, obviously, is much much higher after the move, and I’m paying my cell phone bill now (my parents graciously covered this while I was in debt). I also no longer have any subscriptions (!), a choice I made a few months back. I realized I wasn’t using Spotify very much, as I normally just listen to podcasts, so premium wasn’t totally worth it. I’m still deciding whether or not I want to maintain this small sacrifice (sometimes I just really want to listen to my own playlists in the car), but right now, it’s staying the same. I also stopped my tampon subscription through L. because, while it’s a great company and donates feminine care products to girls without them, I switched to mostly using a menstrual cup to be more sustainable. The only monthly expense I still have is the $5/month I donate to the Human Rights Campaign.
My grocery budget increased to $150 by necessity– since living in a more expensive area with a partner, I’ve started spending more on groceries. I think this is because Brian eats a lot healthier than I do 🙂 So it’s probably a good change. I increased gas to $110 to give myself a bit of a buffer. “Other” is only $150 this month because of the WordPress fee I have coming up.
I also wanted to show you guys this new section in my budget, where I keep running totals of all my variable costs. This is the biggest difference from my EveryDollar app to my own spreadsheet– I can easily make note of exactly where/when I spent my money. In EveryDollar, I just add the expenses as I go, and at the end of the month, I just see a bunch of numbers with no explanation as to what I actually spent my money on. I’d rather not go through my bank account to find this out– instead, I can get a much better understanding of my spending from this spreadsheet.
If you would like to get my budget template, click below & subscribe to my mailing list 🙂
But– kudos to EveryDollar on this feature– I still use the app to see the percentages of where my money is going every month. This helps me stay on track and get an idea of how aligned my monthly spending is with my long-term goals.
Hope you enjoyed my October budget post– I look forward to doing more of these now that I know what my take-home pay will be. 🙂
Teachers Talk Money 