I try and keep track of every single penny Eric and I earn and spend. It’s not too time consuming and I enjoy it. I decided to compare how our money was spent last year, as opposed to this year because we’ve had a LOT of changes.
For every $100 we earned, we spent on …
2011 2012
Rent and Utilities $26 $29.50
Transportation $17.40 $10
Food $13 $10.50
Eric $9.50 $7
Savings $8 $6.50
Travel $5 $0
I honestly didn’t do that great of a job tracking our budget this year, as my spreadsheet was semi-confusing at times. I planned things out much simpler for next year though. Any cases where you see the spending go down, can largely be attributed to our increase in income.
I am happy to report that my income has increased by 28% since I started my job two years ago! And I hope that my income will increase another 10% after I get my master’s in March 2015! If that happens, that would be a 40% increase in four years!
I hope to get back on track with monthly spending updates, which I failed at doing pretty much this entire year. Here is what I hope our 2013 budget to look like:
We’ve been very loosey goosey with our budget recently, and it’s shown in our poor financial decisions. Our biggest financial goals for this year include:
- Increase savings substantially
- Pay down student loans substantially
- Save up for new car
- Pay for graduate school as-we-go and do not take out any more loans!
In order to make these happen, we have to be more strict! Time to get back on the pay off debt wagon!
8 comments
[…] year, I like to do a review of our finances. I think it helps to sort of check in and see how you’re doing financially and if […]
You’ve done well with your salary increase kudos to you and by the time you get your masters you will be doing even better. Tracking expenses can be tedious at first but when it becomes part of a lifestyle it’s super easy. We keep all our receipts in a binder/folder and once a week on Sunday we input all the data. We did well in 2012 but looking back we made some errors silly ones but at least we caught them but only because of the budget spreadsheet. I don’t think we’d be where we are without it and I’m sure you will agree how important it is. Keep up the good work mates! Looking forward to reading about your 2013 journey! MR.CBB
You’ve inspired me to do the same thing now 🙂 it’s great to take a long term view of your finances so you can see the big picture and make changes where necessary! I tend to get bogged down in week-to-week tracking so this is a good reminder to look at my progress long term.
?? So that great honeymoon trip to Costa Rica was free? How can I sign up for that deal? =)
The goals for next year sound great – especially paying for grad school as you go. That’ll be a big savings long term.
I totally forgot to mention that! I’ve been meaning to do a Costa Rica cost budget recap. The short answer is we didn’t spend any of our earned income on the trip, since it all came from side hustle money (money earned outside of my day job). Thanks for keeping me accountable!
Our biggest spending period is always between Black Friday and the New Year. Since we live overseas we do a lot of online shopping during that period. This year it will bleed into January since we have to pay for my husband’s schooling out of pocket.
Best of luck with 2013!
That’s a heck of an income increase in such a short amount of time…kudos!
Best of luck in 2013 🙂
I slacked off in December…just gotta get back on track. Good luck with everything this year!