February Budget

Yup, I'm pretty much done with January.

I'm sporting quite the bruise after walking in Kilally Meadows - the trails are covered in ice about 2" thick - so yes, I slipped while taking a photo. The camera is ok. Yesterday when I was walking through I left my camera at home and walked more carefully. With a walking stick. Lesson learned.

January was an expensive healthcare type of month: renewed a prescription $28, had an eye exam $120 (all is well, in fact my eyes have improved so will be shopping for glasses soon) and dentist $230. You'd think for $230 I'd get more than x-rays, cleaning and polishing...like maybe a gold tooth or two? But I'm set for awhile. Eye exam is every two years, dentist is now once a year from previously going every 6 months, then every 9 months. Yes, I have excellent oral hygiene :) 

I paid for my healthcare expenses from my weekly misc discretionary spending budget line. So I had to be more frugal than usual with my spending. Luckily I underspent in a couple of categories, not by a lot but it helped. $60 was allotted for gas and I only spent $30. $280 was allotted for groceries and only spent $229. $70 was allotted for electricity - the bill was $$56. All the little extras were re-directed to my misc budget and even after buying wine (a necessity) I had a budget surplus of $116. So I had me a little splurge at the thrift shop purchasing 3 items for a total of $12. I'd been denying myself for quite some time - haven't been to a store other than the grocery store since Christmas shopping.

Nothing too fancy - I like trouser style track pants and was looking for grey - voila!

My eye was attracted to the material in this top - it will go nicely over a pair of black tights.

This v-neck boho top makes me think of summer and screamed "Sunfest"! Both tops are very light gauzy material which also packs well :) and can be layered with a tank top or long sleeved top for warmth. Just another wild spending spree a la Jane!

Oh yes, and my Amazon Prime membership was renewed in January for $90. I am very happy with this service. I order a lot from Amazon and while I didn't keep track I'm sure I saved way more than $90 on shipping fees. (my daughter also purchased a number of things under my name in order to get the free delivery.) Also included in the membership is a streaming service while not quite as good as Netflix, it's pretty close. And no overlap of programming.

I also managed to go to a movie ("The Post" with Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks - I highly recommend it! Very timely considering the attack on news reporting in the States), went out for lunch and out to Roxbury's a couple times after volleyball for a pint (and free pizza!). I've also set up a monthly withdrawal to go to Red Cross and January was the first month for that.

So I am really pleased with January's budget results. I still stuck a $1,000 into savings as I try to do every month but did not increase my snowflakes. I'll return to building that in February. I've made up a new budget to begin in February. I've received notice of my pension increases - I wish I could say that the increase more than covers the increase in my bills but my property taxes really went up a lot and there's nothing I can do about that other than grin and bear it. I think overall I came out about even. And that will have to do.

Are you closing off your January budget yet? How did you do this month?