December Finance Check: Where Did My Money End Up Going

Can’t believe it is already December! So time to check where I’m at money wise. In this post I explained why I decided I needed to get a better handle of my money again, created a new budget and wanted some accountability. So here is my December finance check!

How did the new budget do

The budget I wrote for November was a practice one. There were expenses I knew for sure how much I was paying, but some spending categories I wasn’t sure how much I really spent without some observation.

My income in November came a bit under my expectation because I had to take a couple of days off work for sick kids. I’m on a casual contract so sadly no sick days for me. But it also means a lot of flexibility with my work days so it is give and take.

Some spending categories I went over my estimation, like gas for my car ($142 instead of $100), takeaways ($89 instead of $50) and cafe spending ($96 instead of $85).

Thankfully some spending came under as well like groceries ($414 instead of $500), power ($146 instead of $160) and subscriptions ($133 instead of $140, thanks to favourable exchange rates).

I had forgotten to account for Christmas shopping so that was an added expense of about $165.

I also had to add a category for “other” spending, which include things like payment for my university course ($930), osteopath visits (2 x $105) and other spending like random treats or when I forgot lunch for work etc. The other spending was about $1280 all up.

Most of the funds for the other spending came from savings or from sinking funds.

All in all I’m happy I have a better understanding on my spending and now know where I could cut back and work on it.

Finance check: Savings progress

I wanted to recap how my savings progress has gone during the last month. I saved $325 all up, which I’m happy about.

More detail about the goals and what kind of accounts they sit at, in my previous post.

Emergency fund

I made the tiniest bit of progress with the emergency fund, it is sitting at $20 now. It was a $100 but I had to use some.

I’m still only putting in what entirely surplus, which is not much at the moment as you can tell.

Trip to Christchurch

I have finished saving for our trip to Christchurch happening this month. The savings sit now at $1730 so I’ve been able to divert the savings going here elsewhere.

Sleep out

Sadly, the sleep out account balance dropped this month.

I had an unexpected uni course fee that StudyLink wouldn’t cover, which had to come from somewhere. After a discussion with my partner we agreed to take it out from the sleep out account.

The balance is currently at about $6047.

With the rising interest rates, at least the savings account rates are rising too so we’re actually getting some reasonable interest paid to us every month! (Just over $8 per month.)

Trip to Finland

Now that I have finished saving for the trip to Christchurch, I have increased the savings I put towards to get to Finland. And those savings sit at about $3091 at the moment.

I’m pretty happy that the interest rate on this account has gone up to 4%. But I do have to make a proper plan at the start of 2023 (next month already!!) in order to really meet this goal.

Finance check: Investing

As mentioned in my November Finance check post, my investing goal for 2022 was to invest $5,000, which technically should double my portfolio to $10,000.

I’m now at $4,925 invested this year, which feels awesome! $75 to go to reach my goal, which is very doable, as my minimum investment amount is $50/week.

While I have started to use my Finance and Investment Planner by The Curve, I haven’t really massively changed my portfolio or strategy yet.

The planner has great monthly prompts to follow the sharemarket, which I think is good.

The only thing is that it doesn’t have a lot of space to track what you have bought during the month, as I buy through Sharesies one a week and through Hatch when I have over 100USD.

But this has me wondering if I should be buying through Sharesies less frequently, so will look and see how it affects the cost of buying.

I invest a minimum of 100USD through Hatch because of their flat fee, which to begin with was really eating into my portfolio because I was investing too often with too small amounts.

Looking forward

I have written down my budget for December, amending some expenses to reflect what I spent in November and adding some items.

For my car I’ve increased my budget for gas and my warrant and rego are due, so it will be an expensive month car wise. Fingers crossed my car passes the warrant and I don’t have to spend any extra money on repairs! Because I’m not really budgeting for that.

I’ve included $250 to spend on Christmas, but this is just a guess on how much more I’m going to be spending. So, will be interesting to see where this figure will actually land.

Then we of course do have our trip to Christchurch coming up, and I have budgeted that $1,730 towards that. Will see if we spend all of it, or what it actually comes down to! But thankfully, all that money is already put aside, so I really shouldn’t have to touch any other money during the trip.

This is lucky (or good planning!) because my income will be lower in December due to the trip as I’m losing two days of work (again, no holiday pay for me).

I’m going to try to reign in the takeaways and cafe spending, so we’ll see how I go this month! Hopefully I’ll be able to put some extra savings away this month, as my savings goal is only $240, with investing goal of $200.

How did your November go money wise? What are you expecting for December? Let me know in the comments!