May Finance Check: Where I Come Well Under Budget
Time for my May finance check! My spending tracker ran out of space so I trialed out a new style I designed. I was pretty happy with it so will see how it goes for a few months!
How did the April budget go
Overall I’m quite pleased with how this month went from the finance side of things and came well under budget for the month.
Income wise I had estimated a quite a low month but was positively surprised (even though there were days I needed to take off sick, for myself and the kids). Also, since it was the start of a new tax year, our Working for Families tax credits were adjusted up a little bit. Not much but still!
I had no major or sudden expenses this month, and couple came under budget.
Power bill was very cheap this month, only $73.31 ($160 budgeted). This is because our power company had been going off overestimations for a few months so we had build up a little bit credit.
Also, for some reason our internet bill didn’t come out of my account until May, so it was $0 for April and will be double for May.
Other budget categories I came under were groceries ($142 instead of $300), gas ($69 instead of $100) and takeaways ($0 instead $30).
Categories were I went over budget was surprise, surprise, cafe spending ($90.50 instead of $80), and I also put extra money into sinking funds ($270 instead of usual $220) and towards my Finnish student loan ($115 instead of $80).
In my other spending I went a bit overboard too, ($356.99 instead of $200). Out of that $105 went to my osteopath, $35 on new shoes for me, $28 to Easter pyjamas for the kids, $57.44 on books, $39.48 on a new drink bottle and smoothie cup, $38.47 at the pharmacy for some pain killers and deworming tablets, $26.10 on some sand toys for our beach trip, $12.50 at the ice cream truck and $15 at our local market.
So some impulse shopping this month, especially the books and the drink bottle and smoothie cup!
All up I spent $2,502.55 in April instead of budgeted $2,664.12. I’m pretty pleased with it, even though I did shop a little bit I came under budget, thanks to our low power bill and internet bill not coming out in April.
Finance check: Savings progress
April was another good month for savings, I saved $485, which I’m really happy with. I managed to finish another $250 parcel which helped as well.
Emergency fund
I put $50 out of the total saved into my emergency fund bringing it to $150.
It is still with BNZ, I haven’t really thought about moving it. I’ll see about that again once there is a bit more money in there.
Sleep out
The sleep out account sits at about $5,509, yes it is lower than last month. My partner needed to take some money out to pay a work related bill. It has been paid back by the client but he hasn’t transferred the money back yet.
I put $50 out of the $485 into the sleep out account and it also received about $9 in interest.
Trip to Finland
Most of the $485 went into my savings towards our trip to Finland. The account balance is about $4,838 now, I have nearly enough money to get flight tickets for myself and the kids (my partner is paying his own flight ticket).
With the rising interest rates the account received about $16 in interest in April, pretty cool!
I also checked the current approximate flight ticket prices, and realised how much more expensive it would be to go for Christmas compared to February for example.
So I’ve decided to post-pone our trip to February, that will allow me to also renew my passport in Finland, as everything would be closed over the holiday period.
I also checked whether I’d be eligible for an NZ citizenship (would allow me to get a NZ passport to make everything a bit easier) and I am! It will cost about $420 to apply so I will try to get that done in May to hopefully allow enough time for the decision to come before I apply to get passports for the kids.
Other
I received the last of the birthday present my mum wanted to give me, but I didn’t count it as income. Portion of the about $170 went towards a bit of an investment on Love of Finance and $65 went to my other savings account.
There is about $105 on the account, as I also but $30 from the monthly savings in there.
This account is for some “bigger” splurge, possibly a facial or something like that, or I might keep putting money aside for it slowly and have it for the Nintendo Switch I want to buy. (I practically collect Nintendo handheld consoles and Pokemon games.)
Finance check: Investing
In April I invested $40, as I had budgeted. I’m currently just investing $10/month on my Sharesies auto investment. I also put $50 aside to accumulate a bigger amount to invest, so that sits at $85 now. I will look at my options when I have $200 in there.
I also received just over $4 in dividends last month. My 2023 running total is $25.70 which is more compared to last year (after April in 2022 I had about $20 in dividends), so I’m making slow progress!
Looking forward
In May’s budget I will have to remember to account for internet twice as the April payment fell out of my April budget.
I will also have my regular osteopath appointment, and will see if I could cut back on my iced drinks. I feel like I’ve really gotten over them and just spend out of habit now.
I will most likely have the $420 expense to apply for my citizenship and I will be spending some money on Love of Finance but I will keep that separate from my personal spending as I’m hoping to eventually make the money back.
Again, my income will be lower than the max because I’ve already taken one week out of work for getting the flu. I feel like I should just budget for at least two days off per month for sickness from now on as winter is creeping on! Then at least if I manage to work all my days it will surplus haha.
My oldest has her birthday in May so that will require some additional spending in gifts and setting up a party as well. I’m leaning towards hiring one of the rooms at our local pools as otherwise we would be reliant on weather and that would really stress me out.
It would an easy set up too, swim and some food with decorations at the room, done. Then just come home and no clean up, maybe some extra plates of food left. I will ring the pools to get some prices to have an idea on how much to budget.
I will also try really hard to not buy anything unnecessary for myself!
How did your April budget hold up?
