Debriefing: May 2016

TRACKING

•  # Buy nothing days : 12
• # times used S’mores Maker (aiming for 8 uses in 2016): 2+0=2
• # times used champagne saucers (aiming for 7 uses in 2016): 3+1=4
• # times ate out: 5
• # activities with friends/family: 14
• # months until home improvement fund: It’s begun as I’ve changed my tax repayment account to this. Next month I’ll begin adding more to it
• % over or under budget: 1% over budget;
• % consumer debt paid off:  100% of the debt being paid since August.

CELEBRATE:

• Stayed under budget while on vacation and had an awesome time!
• Paid off my consumer debt!
• Though I had money to spare, I didn’t spend it.

DIP INTO SAVINGS/CREDIT

• Used the Life Happens line to pay for tickets for an event in October. I’ve begun tracking when I pay for events. It seems that I can expect to pay for events 2-5 months ahead of a ticketed event. So even though I’m budgeting for an event I’m often not prepared for the tickets to go on sale when they do. The Life Happens and Fun Fund accounts are a great help here.
• Used my medical line to pay for ML’s treatment (insurance to reimburse ~ 50%)
• Used my gift line to purchase some items for events this month as well as some looking ahead shopping.

KEEP IN MIND

• Based on my current June budget I will be ~ 13% over budget. Even with this I will be able to pay some of ML’s debt down.
• I may use some of my savings to help offset these costs as the baby shower has been canceled since many of the guest couldn’t attend either of the proposed dates.
• No is a complete sentence! I need to learn how to say it nicely to people when their suggested events do not fit into our budget.

OVERALL

This was an exciting month! I paid off my debt, stayed pretty close to budget and saw the benefits of having my savings lines.