March Finance Check: How I (Again) Forgot To Account For Some Expenses

March finance check is here! I’m finding that these checks really keep me accountable on my own spending and really forces me to look at it, and helps me see where I can improve and how! Although no massive amount of visible improvement here this past month, quite a few impulse purchases still!

How did the February budget go

To be honest, since my income has steadied I’ve been spending a bit more impulsively again, which is not great. After all I depleted a lot of my back up accounts (like sinking funds and my emergency fund) when I was on low income, so really I should have started to put money aside again.

Looking at the end result I did manage to come under budget in a lot of categories, but the benefit from that was swallowed by a lot shopping.

There was a few expenses I forgot to also account for, like buying new text books for my new university courses and getting a new registration for my car. Because of all my depleted accounts I had to Afterpay the uni books, which was a bit of a further wakeup call to my spending.

Budget categories where my spending came under budget were subscriptions ($130.06 instead of budgeted $380) because my Skillshare yearly subscription didn’t go through for some reason. I need to investigate it and hopefully get it paid in March instead. Groceries were also under at $205.03 instead of $400, which really surprised me, but I think it was mainly because of paying for the car registration and the uni books. Takeaways was also under at $22 (instead of $50).

I went over in car spending ($157.93 instead of $100). This is quite low though because I had budgeted $100 for gas only, but only spent about $50 on gas. I don’t think I drove my car out of Stratford all month so that would explain it haha! Also my yearly registration was about $109 (perks of having a 1997 car!).

My cafe spending is still a bit out of hand at $81.50 (iced mochas 3-4 times per week and donuts 1-2 per month will do that!). I think I will really need to consider if I will just bite the bullet and accept how much I spend there and increase the allocation in my budget, or try to cut back.

For other spending I had budgeted $200 (and this included $105 osteopath), but my other spending in February was a whopping $590.86. Out of that $113.28 was for uni books and printing for uni materials (I still have half of the uni books to pay). I also sold a few things on TradeMe and the selling costs were $24.50 (postage plus TradeMe), I also bought a $15 voucher for my workmates birthday basket.

From the “other” spending $333.08 was shopping and included some clothes (me and kids), some desk organisation things plus pens, fishing game for the kids and some gardening things (flowers and fertiliser).

All up my spending was $2,976.97 in February, $7.15 under budget!

Finance check: Savings progress

In February I managed to save a decent amount of money, $445, over twice what my goal was! Which I’m really happy about! This was mainly because I finished a $250 parcel (you can read about this parcel system here) and was able to transfer most of it to different savings.

Emergency fund

In February I saved $70 to go towards my emergency fund, which I was really happy about!

Then I spent it all on one my shopping spree and the account balance is back to zero. I’m a little bit disappointed in myself.

But no point being upset about it, just going to have to try to do a bit better in March!

Sleep out

Out of the $445 I put $70 towards the sleep out, the balance is $5,937 at the moment. Which means that the balance increased by about $200 from last month.

This includes about $8 in interest as well.

We had really hoped to start the sleep out this summer, but we have all but buried that plan. We still need to move our woodshed (as it is currently where the sleep out is going to go), which my partner has started. We need to clear out a little area on the other side of our section for it, as it is currently just bush.

But, I’ll keep you posted!

Trip to Finland

$305 went towards to save for our trip to Finland. This has me very happy as I know my savings target will be hard to reach! The total balance at the moment is $4,037.

I might have to make a plan B, and figure out if there will be a way for me to renew my passport in New Zealand. If not, I will have to be able to make it to Finland at the end of this year to renew it.

At worst I’ll have to cut the trip to be a lot shorter than I wanted to go for.

I will look into in March.

Other

My other savings account has still been neglected and still sits at $150. The money is earmarked to go towards my Skillshare subscription.

Finance check: Investing

I only invested $50 in February, which is fine.

One of my investments is now offering a Dividend Reinvestment Plan, which is really cool and I opted for it. It means that I won’t be charged fees for reinvesting the dividends that specific investment pays.

I still need to look at my portfolio as a whole and create a proper plan. But, as I’ve said previously investing is not a top priority this year, saving for the trip to Finland is and emergency fund is a close second.

Looking forward

Just to repeat myself, I really need to get my cafe under control, or accept it as it is. For March I will try to reign it in a little bit.

Impulse shopping is something I need to look out for as well, really think if something is a want or a need. Same goes to grocery shopping, to try to reign in the treats.

This is mainly so I can put money away into the sinking funds and emergency fund, otherwise I wouldn’t mind too much, as long as they weren’t interfering with my other money goals.

Big expenses for March are my osteopath ($105) again and I’m trying to roll over the Skillshare payment (from last month), which is $240.

I managed to put some unused items up for sale in February and sell a few, I just need to keep that up for March and sell the rest. Maybe even see if I can find something else to sell.

There is still about $100 left owing on my uni books (through Afterpay), which I will be paying off in the first half of March. I’m trying to pay for it weekly rather than drag it out with the fortnightly payments.

I still plan to work on my investment strategy and I’m hoping finishing reading Investing With She’s On The Money will give me some ideas this month! I think I have the broad idea of how I want to do it, but still need to figure out which platform would be the best for me.

How did your February budget go? Let me know in the comments!