September Spending Reflection

This is how it all went down for September.. eeek!

After spending some time with Excel and a calculator, I am able to share a bit about how the September Spending Freeze went in the Waltz household. I like to think we are fairly cautious with our money and try to sock away as much as we can to debt repayment (car, student loans, credit cards, the norm) and there has been such a shift in where our money is being spent since we moved to the East side of Portland and do not spend half what we used to on gas for the cars. In my cutesy pie chart below you can see where the majority of our monies went and compare it to what professionals say your pie of money should look like.

Debt Repayment - the largest piece on the pie! We are using the Dave Ramsey snowball method to clear off our debts one by one.So if it means buying less fun things to pay off previous purchases, then that is how we will roll for that day/week/month/year.

Living & Fixed - these are things like rent, utilities, car insurance, etc. Needless to say we love where we live but it definitely hits the checkbook a bit. But that in a way readies us for a mortgage payment one day too.

Food & Groceries - obviously this covers food and groceries... :)  So I combined our restaurant eating with groceries to make this simpler. It was tough to see that we didn't save what we could have if we had shopped a bit more at the market and skipped on the Subways, McMenamin's and food on the go opportunities. I did fairly well on sticking with 1 Starbucks a week and making a few lunches for work but was not able to achieve total success. I'd give myself a C+ in this area. 

Extras - it was interesting to see that many little things popped up throughout September that didn't happen in the months previous. A surprise car issue that needed to be tended to, a hotel stay purchase for our trip to LA later this month for a family situation and other purchases added up quickly in this area. 


Transportation - I am going to toot the horn here.. Toot! Only 6% of our spending went to gasoline. Had we still been in Beaverton that number would easily be in the double digits. AND we even had a trip to the other side of the state and back in September. Good planning and saving on our part. 


I will continue to personally keep track of our spending but it was good to make myself accountable to a small group of other freezers this past month and see how we all did. 


Maybe I will treat myself to a chai latte, new jeans and a dinner out.. or just sock away the $50 and cook at home with my hubs. Yes, a much better idea indeed. :)