A miracle! In spite of the $200 charge to drain and refill the pool, in spite of paying the hair stylist the tip I forgot to give him the last time, and in spite of running amok at Ikea the other day, as the monthly billing cycle ends I’m under budget by $83!
That improves on last month’s under-run of $42.
Yah, I know: microscopic! Click on the image to zoom it to full size.
One explanation for this little success is that I haven’t been driving my car. Without the 44-mile round trips to lovely downtown Tempe and with no trips to the community college, I’ve only had to buy one tankful of gas this month. Also, I’ve stayed out of Costco, thereby spending only a little more than half the food & household budget.
Classes begin this week, though, and since I have a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule I’ll be burning a lot of gas—probably more than I used to drive to Tempe, since I had pretty much stopped going out there more than once or twice a week. And I’m almost completely out of food and staples: on Thursday, when next month’s budget cycle resumes, I’ll have to make a major Costco run. That certainly will consume the full $300 for Costco in the January-February cycle.
So, I expect that next month I’ll run over budget. And there’ll be no frolics in the aisles of Ikea!
My philosophy is different from the “Money Happens” of SDXB. I think that you often spend less than you think you will, especially if you’re not overly stressed. Surely, now that you’re out of your former place of employ, the stress is down a little, even with all the bureaucratic misery you’ve been enduring.
@ frugalscholar: I hope that’s true.
My experience about the “money happens” phenomenon is vaguely similar. In the past, when my income has been much less than even what I’ll see in 2010, I’ve found that I rarely overspent. Possibly if a person is aware of what’s there financially, one adjusts psychologically to fit within one’s means.