Expenditure tracker - January

As I outlined in my new years financial goals I was going to track my expenditure over the year and see whether I have been keeping in line with my expenditure goals. As a reminder my targets were

• $3,300 per month increase in my share investments


• $1,600 per month increase in my loan offset account (net of interest costs)


• $1,500 per month allowable personal expenditure

As I mentioned in my January net worth post, I found controlling my personal expenditure the hardest. My performance is listed below along with my over / under performance of my relevant targets

• Share investments: +$5,000 ($1,700 over)


• Home loan offset account: -$300 ($1,900 under)


• Personal expenditure: $2,700 ($1,200 over)

I was relatively happy with my combined investment performance. Effectively I was only $200 below my target and this will balance out in the coming month as I allocate money to my offset account and not to my share investments.

The part that I found most difficult (as evidenced above) was personal expenditure. The problem that I have when I look at my performance is that I know in the next month I am going to increase this deficit as my credit card bill for February has already come through and it is not an improved situation.

I suspect that I've underestimated my own cost of living (i.e. I can probably live on $1,500 a month but I'm not sure that I want to) and will continue to evaluate over the coming months whether this is an unrealistic objective.