October was a reasonable expense month and an above average income month (click on spreadsheet below).
Our total income for October was $8,252.44. In addition to our regular paychecks, we received $1,050 for our new baby. We also sold some items on craigslist for $30, a $50 Chase credit card cash back reward, and earned $26.40 in interest income from our online savings account.
We spent a total of $7,346.87 in October. We actually spent close to budget, if you subtract out $1,845 for cord blood banking and a final $400 payment to our doula. After deducting these one-time expenses, our total expenses were only $5,101.87. This makes me feel a little better about keeping our regular expenses down in October.
November should be another good income month since I receive a 3rd “extra” paycheck. We’ll try to get most of our Christmas shopping done in November, which will inflate our expenses somewhat, but no other large expenses are planned in November.
Hi there!
Many thanks for open and honest discussion. This is a rare treat.
Could I possibly raise an improvement suggestion – if you could make you budget figures slightly larger, to improve readability?
The other things we did with the our budget is to putting together categories – i.e. clothes, food, child, etc.. : -)
Good luck and wish you to have a happy thanks giving!
Thank you for the feedback, Financial Independence. While clicking on the image does make it larger, I realize that it is still lacking in terms of legibility. I will see what can be done to improve it. Thanks for following our blog.
-1MansMoney