Featured Friday

Here comes another “Featured Friday”  post from my friend Carly. (Read her posts on her debt story, and her top money mistakes.)

Here is a post about her and her hubby-to-be’s budget

A [very] rough sketch of my our monthly budget

I love looking at other people’s budgets! I have never found any two the same and none have truly reflected my own personal budget. Here’s a quick snapshot of what mine looks like.

*Note that I have combined finances with my boyfriend and we have joint chequing… so this is for two people.
*Note that I don’t follow this to a tee and it’s actually the first time I have it on a computer instead of sketched out in my daily planner (yes, I use a daily planner that is paper. I’m old school).

Item	Cost	Note(s)
Rent/mortgage	$924	Yup. Makes sense.
Utilities(hydro, water, gas)	$215	Ranges from about $190 to $230 per month.We’re on equal billing for most utilities.
Internet/Cable	$175	Ugh. I don’t like this expense, but as per the boy, it’s staying.
Property taxes	$215	Yuck. That’s a lot. We pay this four times a year.
Bank fees	$0	Yay! We keep a minimum amount in our account to avoid bank fees.
Groceries	$240	I estimate we use $60/week. I usually go after work during the work week to pick up essentials. I should be more like J and meal plan like a boss. This also includes cleaning stuff.
Entertainment	$160	This category fluctuates often. Sometimes it’s as high as $300 and low as $50.
Gas/car maintenance	$480	I typically expect us to pay about $160/week on gas and minor repairs or changes. We typically don’t reach this amount monthly, but I also have winter tires and oil changes to account for. We have two cars, by the way.
Automated savings	$200	Every month, $200 goes into our savings account. Usually for short term savings.
TFSA	$200	This amount fluctuates. If I have more, I put more in, if we have less, I put less in.
Debt repayment	$1,700	Sometimes we drop it by $150 if it’s a hard month, but this is pretty standard.
Clothing	$60	I like to use $60/month for clothes on average because it’s a good pair of jeans or shirt.
Cell phones	$115	For two cell phones (we don’t have a home phone). Not too bad. Could be worse, could be better.
Insurance	$333	Ugh. Gross. House insurance and two car insurance payments.
Totals	$5,017	WTF!?! That’s my reaction. What the flippin’ bird on a wire!??! We do make slightly more than that each month. But holy bananas! I remember when I used to live off of $1,700 a month (1 person). I know this is for 2 people though. I still think I can cut our budget down pretty easily.

Any tips/advice on our monthly budget?! I think I should closely track a month of expenses. It can be quite difficult (tried in the past) because I have to pay for work things upfront, and them I’m reimbursed for them. Work expense range from $200/month to over a $1,000 monthly, so it skews my numbers drastically.