October Recap

I apologize for being so late on posting my recap. You know it's been to0 long when you think back and can barely remember the month! But "making excuses justifies failure" so without further a do here's what our numbers looked like last month:

Savings:

• Since I'm on a biweekly payroll, October was the month of triple paychecks!
• What's even better is after all the bills were paid we didn't need it so a whole paycheck is going into the bathroom savings!
• Our cable bill was super cheap, not only because we gave up many services but because we did it in the middle of the month amd had a credit carry over. So instead of saving $80 on our new cable bill we saved $100!
• Our gas bill was down by $40 and that was before gas was below $3.00 so I'm really excited about November!
• Our grocery bill was down another $100. I'm not sure where all our grocery money was going before...
• We only spent $40 on hobbies this month which is normally upward of $100

Expenses

• Our city water rates went up again. When I first moved here we were paying $25 a month and that was the minimum amount (if you used less water you still had to pay that). Now we are still at the minimum amount but are paying $58.77. That's a big jump in 2 years time.
• The flip side to our grocery bill being down was that our eating out was up by $100. I'm sad to report that we have slipped back to our old ways of eating out once a week. The good news is that we are doing it with friends rather than just because we are lazy and we are still spending half as much as we use to.
• Last month I paid the last of our credit card debit which meant our payment was significantly higher than our planned payment. I planned to cover this with my extra paycheck but our expenses were down in other areas that I didn't need to!
• I had a moment of weakness for dog toys. With the winter season coming up the dogs needed some none outside activities to keep them busy. I spent $100 on dog toys which included a winter coat for Porter, a few food dispensing puzzles, and some chew bones. I also entered a X-mas doggie toy exchange and got some stuff for my swap partner.
  
• Another dog expense was Hank's vet visit and the stocking up of heart worm, tick and flea meds. When you have 3 dogs this really adds up!

DH and I definitely slipped a little last month with the expenses but we have made a lot of positive changes that impact every month's bottom line so we still came out ahead. I know that saving isn't DH's favorite way of living so if a few slips now and then don't set us back into debit and keep us on track for the long term goal, I'm okay with that. I do, however, want to watch the eating out, it's such an easy way to cut back on the budget.

How are you doing?