December 2019 Spending Report numbers are in and I’m happy to say I was under budget! Woot! This month has three pay periods in it so this spending report will be a little extra long and the numbers will be a little high– but things are on track and I feel good.
As for the numbers, in December, I was under budget by $225! Holy sh*t, right? Not bad.
December had some decent wins.
December 2019 Budgeting Wins
- I sold my car! To the first buyer! With the help of my dad selling it back in my hometown (thanks, Dad!) Pretty dope. Brought in $10k which is about $2k more than what I was expecting.
- I deposited that cashier’s check and immediately invested it into my friend’s business, which has been returning about 20% every few months.
- Finally, SOMEHOW stayed on budget for personal for once.
- Did not really go on any dates except for the first few weeks of the month, and so I saved about $115 on dating! Cause I didn’t do it! Woo! Cheers to not dating in 2020!
- With all my savings, 401K, investments, and with the sale of my car– my net-worth is now about $25,600! That’s a number! From negative in October to almost $26k in a positive net-worth in December– that’s pretty f*cking cool. How’d I do it? Sold my car. Stayed on track with investments. And saved my butt off.
- I’m pretty consistently spending less on groceries because I’m trying to use everything I already have. Like those dried beans that have been sitting in my pantry. And that random can of tomatoes. And the rice and quinoa that’s been sitting there for a hundred months. It’s testing my cooking skills, and I’ve been impressed by how much good food I’ve been able to make because of it.
This is going to be a less exciting post this time because besides that, there wasn’t a whole lot new in this budgeting period, so we’ll dive right into categories.
December 2019 Spending Categories: Budgeted vs. Actuals
| Planned | Actual | Difference | |
| Groceries | $235 | $234 | $1 |
| Clo Bare | $239 | $239 | $0 |
| Health/Medical | $113 | $113 | $0 |
| Home | $1,700 | $1,700 | $0 |
| Transportation | $301 | $274 | $27 |
| Personal | $257 | $253 | $4 |
| Entertainment | $306 | $322 | -$16 |
| Utilities/Cell Phone | $385 | $335 | $50 |
| Travel | $1,110 | $1,092 | $18 |
| Debt | $2,612 | $2,610 | $2 |
| CBBB | $20 | $18 | $2 |
| Special Occassion | $1,260 | $1,239 | $21 |
| Dating | $167 | $51 | $116 |
| Totals: | $8,705 | $8,480 | $225 |
The f*ck-up’s Explained
There’s no major f*ck-up’s this time, except for again on entertainment. Sixteen bucks over isn’t a big deal considering all the travel and holidays involved so can’t say I’m all that mad at myself for that one.
But again, let’s look at how this compares to the yearly budget.
December 2019 Yearly Budget Comparisons
Clo Bare: Over because Siteground hosting (a whooping $240) came out in December.
Health/Medical: Also over because I changed my yearly goal to less after I quit my fancy gym. This will even out eventually since my new gym membership is only $25 a month.
Home: It’s under but that number will go way up once I move out and get my own apartment (sans roommate).
Transportation: Similar to health, that’s going to hopefully go down because I sold the car! So my hope is to spend $100 or less a month on transportation, total. I even need to spend less than that if I want to stick to what I planned/budgeted.
Travel: Also over but I just went on the biggest trips of my year– I don’t have any other international trips scheduled so this will also even itself out.
Debt: YESSSS! On average I am putting way more on my debt a month than I planned. Hoping to keep that up!
Special Occasions: This is a category (which I continually spell incorrectly– Occasions not OCCASSIONS FFS) I added a few months ago to cover things like Thanksgiving or you know the entire month of December. I blew through that budget so hopefully special occasions won’t be happening in coming months, and if they do, I’ll have to finagle the budget.
Not too bad though, I’m clearly catching up to my yearly goals and that makes me feel better about this budgeting thing for the year.
And without further ado– the December 2019 Spending Report!
December 2019 Spending Report
| Date | Amount | Description | Category |
| 11/22/2019 | $17.00 | Ingredients | Dating |
| 11/23/2019 | $10.00 | Groceries | Groceries |
| 11/23/2019 | $80.00 | Tour | Travel |
| 11/23/2019 | $20.00 | Snacks | Groceries |
| 11/24/2019 | $75.00 | thanksgiving | Special Occassion |
| 11/24 | $32.00 | amtrak | Travel |
| 11/25/2019 | $13.00 | Wine | Groceries |
| 11/27/2019 | $23.00 | gas | Transportation |
| 11/27/2019 | $88.00 | insurance | Transportation |
| 11/28 | $805.00 | Loans | Debt |
| 11/28/2019 | $12.00 | Wine | Entertainment |
| 11/29 | $78.00 | Secret Santa | Special Occassion |
| 11/29/2019 | $25.00 | Sushi | Entertainment |
| 11/29/2019 | $500.00 | gift | Special Occassion |
| 11/30/2019 | $5.00 | craigslist | Transportation |
| 11/29/2019 | $12.00 | drinks | Entertainment |
| 11/30/2019 | $35.00 | oi | Transportation |
| 11/30/2019 | $33.00 | comed | Utilities/Cell Phone |
| 12/1 | $85.00 | engagement | Special Occassion |
| 11/30/2019 | $20.00 | Drinks | Entertainment |
| 12/1/2019 | $850.00 | Rent | Home |
| 12/3/2019 | $230.00 | Airbnb | Travel |
| 12/2/2019 | $30.00 | groceries | Groceries |
| 12/3/2019 | $28.00 | Fam | Groceries |
| 12/4/2019 | $88.00 | Farrells | Health |
| 12/5/2019 | $9.77 | roti | Entertainment |
| 12/5/2019 | $20.00 | Uber | Transportation |
| 12/5/2019 | $17.00 | drinks | Dating |
| 12/5/2019 | $44.17 | ComCast | Utilities/Cell Phone |
| 11/26 | $119.00 | amzon | Personal |
| 12/6/2019 | $1,000.00 | Loans | Debt |
| 12/6/2019 | $30.00 | friends | Entertainment |
| 12/6/2019 | $30.00 | date | Dating |
| 12/6/2019 | $17.00 | ubers | Transportation |
| 12/7/2019 | $50.00 | supplements | Personal |
| 12/7 | $17.00 | gifts | Special Occassions |
| 12/7/2019 | $10.00 | groceries | Groceries |
| 12/8/2019 | $20.00 | hair | Personal |
| 12/8 | $18.00 | brunch | CBBB |
| 12/8 | $18.00 | tea | Groceries |
| 12/8/2019 | $15.00 | Ventra | Transportation/Car Insurance |
| 12/8 | $7.00 | Unisom | Personal |
| 12/10/2019 | $13.00 | travel | Travel |
| 12/12/2019 | $19.00 | tacos | Entertainment |
| 12/12/2019 | $36.00 | dinner | Entertainment |
| 12/13/2019 | $40.00 | uber | Travel |
| 12/13/2019 | $88.00 | day 1 | Travel |
| 12/14/2019 | $22.00 | macaroons | Entertainment |
| 12/14 | $50.00 | day 2 | Travel |
| 12/16/2019 | $16.00 | drinks | Travel |
| 12/16/2019 | $50.00 | dinner and shampoo | Travel |
| 12/15/2019 | $75.00 | dinner | Travel |
| 12/15/2019 | $125.00 | cell | Utilities/Cell Phone |
| 12/16/2019 | $35.00 | hoste | Travel |
| 12/17/2019 | $20.00 | Geneva | Travel |
| 12/18/2019 | $80.00 | Day 3 & 4 | Travel |
| 12/19/2019 | $30.00 | train | Travel |
| 12/19/2019 | $23.00 | sushi | Travel |
| 12/19/2019 | $32.00 | Berlin | Travel |
| 12/20/2019 | $91.00 | Dresden | Travel |
| 12/21/2019 | $25.00 | gym | Health/medical |
| 12/21/2019 | $45.00 | show | Travel |
| 12/22/2019 | $13.00 | scale | Personal |
| 12/22/2019 | $29.00 | gift | Special Occassion |
| 12/23 | $47.00 | food | Travel |
| 12/22/2019 | $15.00 | snacks | Travel |
| 12/23/2019 | $28.00 | Thai | Groceries |
| 12/24/2019 | $142.00 | gift | Special Occassion |
| 12/24 | $50.00 | gift | Special Occassion |
| 12/24/2019 | $50.00 | Beer | Special Occassion |
| 12/26 | $91.00 | Gas | Utilities/Cell Phone |
| 12/26/2019 | $11.00 | Uber | Transportation |
| 12/26/2019 | $14.00 | pots | Personal |
| 12/27/2019 | $46.00 | aldi | Groceries |
| 12/27/2019 | $20.00 | ventra | Transportation |
| 12/28/2019 | $805.00 | Loans | Debt |
| 12/28/2019 | $38.00 | PBS | Entertainment |
| 12/28 | $18.00 | cookies | Entertainment |
| 12/28/2019 | $5.00 | Beer | Entertainment |
| 12/29/2019 | $31.00 | Groceries | Groceries |
| 12/29/2019 | $239.00 | Siteground | Clo Bare |
| 12/30/2019 | $35.00 | ceramics | Entertainment |
| 12/30/2019 | $18.00 | makeup | Personal |
| 12/30/2019 | $200.00 | wedding | Special Occassion |
| 12/30/2019 | $12.00 | tea | Personal |
| 1/1/2020 | $40.00 | Uber’s | Transportation/Car Insurance |
| 1/1/2020 | $40.00 | grubhub | Entertainment |
| 1/2/2020 | $41.67 | ComEd | Utilities/Cell Phone |
| 1/2 | $850.00 | rent | Home |
Total Spent: $8,480
Total Debt: $44,488
Goals, Goals, Goals
Now how did I compare to goals I set for myself last month?
- Stick to spending less on entertainment. I’d like to say $100 for the whole month, but I know December will be tricky because I’m heading to Europe for ten days, plus it’s the holidays. So I’d like to say stick to $200 for the whole month. That seems do-able.– LOL. Nope. I did $300 though which isn’t terrible seeing as I had three pay periods.
- Take a break from dating. I don’t have the heart or emotional capacity to date right now because of everything I’ve got going on. The holidays are a lot especially with a Europe trip squeezed in and I’m really just trying to enjoy Me, Myself and I lately. Selfish AF, sue me.— DONE. Sort of. I went on two dates, spent $50 and said f*ck this whole dating thing. Plus, my tarot card reader told me there will be no love for me in 2020 so I’m good with giving up for now. I got sh*t to do.
- Spend less than $1k on my trip to Europe– should be easy since I’m staying with friends.–Did not happen– I spent about $1.4k but I sold my car so I’m not worried. I ended up having to get an AirBnb for the first half of my trip so that sunk me by $250 and then there were a few other adventures that cost a little more than expected.
- Put another $1.8k on my debt.–DID IT! And actually, I put MORE on my debt– I put $2.6k on my debt. Not too shabby.
January 2020 Goals
My goals for January are pretty similar:
- Save up $5k in cash on hand before I move out into my own apartment. Shouldn’t be too hard since I have about $4.1k in cash savings now.
- Put another $1.8k on debt.
- HERMIT A LITTLE FOR f*ck’S SAKE. I’m so bad at staying home and doing nothing BUT after a month and a half of go-go-go, I’m ready to sleep for a year. Or at least a weekend. I’d like to chill, stay home a little more in January, and get things done. Like how chill and get things done are the same thing for me? That’s how I like to do Chloe time and I need it.
- Sober January! This is financial because drinking is expensive. I do have some “drinks with so & so” set up so I might have a glass a wine on those occasions but besides that it’ll be a dry month for me.
Financial Feelings Coming Up: Moving to a New Place
That’s it for now! Things feel pretty well set up. I’m nervous about moving out and getting my own place because that’s going to really change how much money I put away each month, but I think I’m set up well.
I’m going to maintain how much money I’m putting on debt each month. And ultimately, there’s no point in worrying about it now. My goal is to find an apartment that I like for about $1,500 a month or less.
Totally do-able but I’d LOVE to find a 2-bedroom for that price. I’ll be looking in Oak Park (right outside the city) so, again, should be totally do-able but I always get antsy about not knowing where I’m going to live. It’s weird giving up my city card, and even though it’s only a few miles away from where I live now, it’s still a big change for me. I’m excited because it’ll cut my commute in half, and also, for the first time in my life, other than a few stints where I lived alone for a few months at a time– this will be the FIRST time I’ll have my own place all to myself. I am REALLY f*cking pumped for that.
Your Turn– 2020 Finances
What are your 2020 financial goals? Any money-related resolutions? Share in the comments below!
