Thursday 3 April 2014

March 2014 Expenditure Tracker

March is always a bit of a painful month for me - there are always numerous birthdays and anniversaries, it is normally the last gasp of summer so I'm trying to get out and do all the things I forgot to do over the summer and this year I have a lot of weddings and bucks nights which seemed to fall during this time as well.  Last year was similar.

That being said - it was not a complete disaster.  In February I managed to stick to my expenditure targets quite well so I had plenty of cash available for savings in March.

Last month I had mentioned that I got real value out of tracking my expenditure at a much more granular level - I could see what I was spending a lot of my money on and where I could save cash (and also where I was underspending compared to what I wanted to do).  I am still getting a lot of this value but I've got to say that keeping up with the allocation of every dollar spent in my spreadsheet is turning out to be a bit of a headache.  It is not really difficult but it is tedious and unless you're really committed to knowing what is going on with your finances I recommend finding an easier way to do this.  I'll probably stick with this methodology for the rest of the year but I'm definitely changing it next year.

Below you can see my detailed expenditure tracker for this month and the causes of the movements in individual accounts.

Item Mar 2014 Monthly Target Perf. vs Target
Accommodation / Living expenses $1,970 $2,246 -$276
Car expenses $244 $692 -$447
Health / Well being expenses $627 $566 +$61
Entertainment / Personal expenses $1,891 $1,230 +$661
Travel expenses $782 $675 +$107
Other 'big' expenses $2,300 $3,508 -$1,208
Savings / Investments $872 $1,051 -$179

  • Accommodation and living expenses
    • I managed to spend less than my budgeted amount in this category even though I received my electricity and gas bills this month (although it should be noted that these were for partial periods)
    • A lot of these expenditures were front ended when I moved into my new apartment so I don't expect this to ever go over budget again
  • Transport expenses
    • These were also lower than budgeted this month - my main expenses were on fuel and public transport and big expenses like insurance, maintenance and registration will fall in other months
    • I have booked in my car for a major service a few days from now so April may blow out a lot compared to previous months in this category
  • Health and well being
    • I marginally underperformed in this category - I have started taking personal lessons for one of my hobbies which I hadn't budgeted for at the start of the year and these lessons cost quite a lot.  I am happy to spend it but it may mean that this category continually blows out
    • I still haven't looked at my health insurance cost but I will do so in the coming months
  • Entertainment and personal expenses
    • This is where the massive blow out was this month.  Gifts were several hundred dollars more than expected and entertainment and partying type expenses were double what I have budgeted for them
  • Travel expenses
    • I underperformed in this category after I did a short overseas getaway with my girlfriend at the start of the month. I have no real regrets here - it was a great trip and given the lumpy nature of travel this category will either have significant out- or under performance
  • Other expenditure
    • This is where I record my major expenses that I'm saving towards - i.e. my new car, the wedding ring and the future wedding
    • Although I saved less than I have budgeted for, this is not a problem as my bonus will cover a lot of these expenses
  • Savings
Given how badly March blew out last year I'm not overly disappointed with my performance this year.  I'm hoping that it will not impact April 2014 too much (due to a lack of cash and repayment of credit card debt).

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