by Ashley
Hi friends! Happy Monday!
Before we dive into the budget update from October, I wanted to share a picture of the famed wedding cake (discussed here) which I spent 9 hours of my life working on! Pretty impressive, right??
The skull bride and groom, as a fun nod to the fact that they married on Halloween. The bride bought the flowers pre-made from a baker (they’re made from sugar) and the cake is 100% us! She did each tier with a different filling. The bottom was raspberry, the middle was lemon, and the top was coconut. The icing was a homemade vanilla and all was decorated with freshly shaved coconut. I can’t take much credit because the recipe and directions were all the bride’s. I simply helped where I could. Fun girl-bonding activity!
Now, onto the budget….
For your reference, here’s where I wrote about my planned October budget.
And, below, here’s what we actually spent compared to the planned budget:
| Place | Planned Budget | Actual Spent |
| Rent | 1055 | 1055 |
| Electricity | 241 | 241 |
| Water | 65 | 63 |
| Natural gas | 17 | 17 |
| Sprint (2 lines) | 114 | 114 |
| Cable/Internet | 100 | 100 |
| Car Insurance | 55 | 56 |
| Health Insurance | 350 | 350 |
| Trash | 35 | 35 |
| Debt | 1843 | 1752 |
| Miscellaneous | 300 | 412 |
| Groceries | 400 | 408 |
| Baby Purchases | 1200 | 1149 |
| Gasoline | 125 | 113 |
| Saving for Irregular Expenses | 495 | 495 |
| Total Budgeted | 6395 | 6360 |
Some things to note:
I had to make a lower debt payment to accommodate the overage in my miscellaneous spending. As a reminder, miscellaneous is broken down into 4 categories:
- Entertainment: budgeted = $20; spent = $20
- Eating out: budgeted = $100; spent = $109
- Personal maintenance: budgeted = $30; spent = $0
- Other: budgeted = $150; spent $283
My overage was mostly due to wedding-related items and, admittedly, a boss’s day gift I never mentioned here. A small minority was spent on necessities ($23 for new checks and $28 for cleaning supplies). The rest was split between some flowers I sent to my incredible boss at University A (the university where I teach online), a wedding gift, and other wedding “supplies” (I bought stuff for mimosas for the girls to enjoy pre-wedding, and I ended up footing the bill for some sandwiches pre-wedding as well).
I could have saved 50 bucks by not sending my boss flowers. During these lean times, that’s probably what I should have done. But I am really so incredibly grateful to my boss for connecting me with this position and I feel like I’ve really been blessed through this employment situation. It felt like a small token of my appreciation and one that I was happy to give. I guess the whole “gift-giving” thing opens up a can of worms. Throughout my debt reduction journey thus far I’ve been really good with scaling WAY back on the amount of giving I’ve done (and the dollar amount I would spend per gift) and I just didn’t hold back on this one. I’m conflicted because – on one hand I know I can’t afford $50 for flowers. On the other hand, it felt like an appropriate gift at the time and a small portion of my monthly salary. Plus I just got a raise. These are all justifications, I know, but I’m just trying to dig myself out of a hole a bit.
There’s really no other category of spending that is out of line with the original budget, so nothing more to comment on.
You’ll notice that I only ended up spending $6360, which leaves me with some surplus (Note: Remember that although I had only budgeted for $6395, I actually had $6410 to spend for the month – see here).
Since we live on last month’s income and we had $6410 for the month, I was left with an extra $50.
Rather than putting that extra $50 toward an additional debt payment at the end of the month, I decided to add it to our income to increase the amount we have to work with in November (foreshadowing……the $50 is going to be NEEDED for next month! Welp!). I’ll be back later with more on our planned November budget.
And one last parting photo of me and my girls at the family reception that was held on Saturday
Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!
Gifts for the boss should be banned.
I’m a boss. I wish the stupid holiday would go away. I do my job and am compensated for it accordingly. Why should there be a holiday for just DOING YOUR JOB?
Lol, I might be inclined to agree with you in the past (I’ve had a lot of crappy bosses!), but in this situation it really is more of a way to express my appreciation for my current boss. I know it sounds a little cheesy, but I’m really so grateful that this position landed in my lap and it never hurts to let someone know they’re appreciated! : )
I understand your dilemma re the gift for a much appreciated boss. I also understand not telling us about it and just doing it — easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission, ha, ha.
I will suggest that a nice card with a heartfelt note of appreciation would have meant just as much to your boss and it would not have cost $50.
Good job overall for October, in spite of this one little thing!
I agree that a note that says how you truly appreciate a person is more meaningful, not to mention less expensive. Perhaps you can keep that in mind for the future.
I can’t argue with this! This year it was really last-minute (i.e., I saw a friend’s Facebook photo where her desk had been decorated for boss’ day, and I immediately logged into a flower website to send a gift to my boss). But a heartfelt card really would be more meaningful in the long run.
I have read quite a few posts or blurbs in regard to you seeing someone do/have something and then suffering from the fear-of-being-left-out and then impulsively spending or falling down a shame spiral. Not too long ago you mentioned that teacher appreciation day posts on facebook made you feel guilty for not having prepared or purchased a huge, decadent gift.
I think if you really appreciate your boss, your friend, a teacher, whatever – by all means show your appreciation with a thoughtful card or even flowers if you think it is appropriate, but it seems you work yourself into a fury because of facebook posts.
And I don’t want to sound like a jerk here, I just think you put too much pressure on yourself – give yourself a break!
I think you weathered the wedding storm with incredible grace. It’s so easy to justify lots of spending for a wedding.
I think you did a good job overall. Like the others mentioned, maybe something different could have been done for you boss as less expense to you, but I don’t think you should be too ashamed over it. As far as the wedding, I think you did great. It’s awesome that you didn’t have to buy any new clothes for it either. Great job!
Man some readers are super hard to please! I am continually impressed by how closely you stick to your budget. I do our budget every month and am always going over in certain categories…sometimes accidentally but often because of something I chose to do and somehow justified–naughty me!! Yes you’re on a big debt repayment journey but you still have to live with yourself and like who you are and the choices you make. You’ve made tons of sacrifices and if you felt it was important to send your boss flowers as a thank you I think you should be able to do it guilt free! I do think it’s helpful the way readers always challenge and have a different perspective, but I say kudos to adjusting to the lower than expected/hoped income the last few months and keeping your budget on target. Great job!
I think you are doing great sticking with your budget and life as it happens. I am sure having the wedding behind you is a great relief – no more worrying or wondering needed! Just curious did the girls attend the wedding with you or did you make other arrangements for them.
My husband and I do not live near famiy. Whenever we have something come up we have to scramble to figure out arrangements for our children and how much that will cost.
We tried to get a babysitter but had no success (they all had Halloween plans), so I went alone and hubs stayed home with the girls. Saturday we all went together to the smaller “family” reception.
your girls are adorbs!
Yay for not going crazy for the wedding. At the end of the year definitely take a look at you 2014 monthly budgets and see what is going into “other”. then budget that out for 2015 and stick to it.
I do that every year – my goal is to get to close to zero “other” spending. It’s what helped me realize I needed a line in my budget for gifts, my birthday, parking meters and other random stuff that don’t happen frequently but often or large enough to warrant spreading out over the year.
so when it’s time to buy a random gift, i look at how much is in my gift fund and that’s the automatic max i can spend even if it’s for my twin sister that gave me her right rib 🙂
Anyway, the best part is you didn’t go over your budget for the month which is the main goal. Good job!
This is really a good idea!
It looks like you did really well overall for October. I love the wedding cake! I’m glad you were able to keep your costs low but still show the bride that you were there for her during this time. I agree with others that sometimes spur of the moment purchases can suck later, as nice of a gesture as it was to get your boss flowers 🙂