12 Week Spending Review #3

12 week spending review 3

For the last 36 weeks, I have consistently (yay for me) been tracking all of our spending through my weekly “Where Did The Dough Go” posts. I had planned to do this quarterly, every 13 weeks, but we get paid bi-weekly. It would be too inconsistent with 6 paychecks one quarter and 7 the next, so I opted for almost quarterly (i.e. 12 weeks) reviews. So, below is the spending review for the last 12 weeks—showing our spending, saving, investing and incoming income. The weekly averages are in italics and brackets.

Weeks 25-36:

Income $7,501.96     ($625.16)
Pre-tax 401K Contributions $624.95     ($52.08)
Savings $691.96     ($57.66)
Groceries $851.56     ($70.96)
Rent & Bills $3,797.50     ($316.46)
Gas $258.26     ($21.52)
Cigarettes $652.22     ($54.35)
Alcohol $141.13     ($11.76)
Dining out $253.71     ($21.14)
Saved 4 car insurance $120.00     ($10.00)
Puppy Stuff $21.88    ($1.82)
Other Stuff $267.62    ($22.30)
Roth IRA contributions $175.00     ($14.58)
Betterment contributions $20.00     ($1.67)
B-day/Xmas $524.92    ($43.74)
Car Expenses $50.00     ($4.17)

The listed income is take-home pay, so it’s after all taxes and deductions including the 401K contributions. These last 12 weeks, we didn’t spend any money on clothing or entertainment, so they’ve been excluded from the review for weeks 25-36. A couple of months ago, I decided to hold off on our Betterment contributions for a bit and focus on other important areas, so that’s why barely anything was contributed.

Top 5 Categories

#1 Rent & Bills
#2 Groceries
#3 Savings
#4 Cigarettes
#5 B-day/Xmas

 

Total for Weeks 1-36:

Income $22,916.90     ($636.58)
Pre-tax 401K Contributions $1,912.02     ($53.11)
Savings $2,448.80     ($68.02)
Groceries $2,178.44     ($60.51)
Rent & Bills $11,626.50     ($322.96)
Gas $860.98     ($23.91)
Cigarettes $2,001.41     ($55.59)
Alcohol $722.58     ($20.07)
Dining out $746.55     ($20.74)
Saved 4 car insurance $360.00     ($10.00)
Entertainment $58.37     ($1.62)
Puppy Stuff $314.55    ($8.74)
Other Stuff $752.99     ($20.92)
Roth IRA contributions $401.59     ($11.16)
Betterment contributions $120.00     ($3.33)
B-day/Xmas $590.17     ($16.39)
Car Expenses $70.54     ($1.96)
Clothing $26.65     ($0.74)

12 week spending review 3 wks 1 2 3

Top 5 Categories for Weeks 1-36

#1 Rent & Bills
#2 Savings
#3 Groceries
#4 Cigarettes
#5 Gas

 

I think after 12 more weeks of tracking our spending, I should be ready to start using the Jedi Budget. By then, I should have a good idea of where our money goes and what’s most important to us.

 

Have you been tracking your spending?

About Jen Perkins

Likes: saving money, being debt free (aside from our house), zombies, travel, getting money, blogging and dogs. Dislikes: debt, being broke, bunnies, wasting money, not having enough money to travel the world and paying interest. Facebook  ♥  Twitter  ♥  Google+  ♥  RSS

Comments

12 Week Spending Review #3 — 10 Comments

    • I hear a lot of good things about mint, many people love it. I tried it out a while back, but it just didn’t work for me. Tracking your spending can definitely open your eyes to things you might have never noticed about your spending habits. I hope mint works out for you. :-)

      • Mint didn’t work out for me either. It requires too much manual work to bin the expenses. If I do that, might as well do it on a spreadsheet. :)
        It’s nice to keep track of net worth though.

        • I totally hear you. It’s actually way easier for me to track it all myself than it is for me to use mint. Maybe I’ll try it again one day, but right now I’m happy with my system. :-) I don’t want to move my cheese until it starts looking moldy.

    • Does it? I feel like our rent & bills are too high of percentages, but I’m not sure what the ‘norm’ is. I would like to lower them down to at least 45%. I’ll remember to check into Quicken, I’m surprised I never have before. Thanks Miss T. :-)

  1. I think I recall Dave Ramsey saying that your housing should account for 25% of your total income. I posted several of my budgets on my website to compare as well. Thanks for sharing.

    • He’s not gonna like me then. I’d like to see Dave Ramsey find a 2 bedroom apartment for that little around here. Since it’s not really possible, he’d probably suggest we increase our income. I’ll have to pop over and check out your budgets, thanks KC. :-)

    • Thanks Young and Thrifty. :-) Both of us smoke, so when we want to quit it’ll be easier to do it at the same time. Addictions suck!