“What is measured is improved” they say, so we publicly track our expenses here each month to hopefully fulfill that axiom.
We have a few goals for these monthly reports:
- Keep ourselves accountable and aware of our monthly expenses (do we really eat out that much?!)
- Receive feedback from you on where you see room for improvement
- Reduce overwhelm in us and you that budgeting and planning for retirement expenses is too big and broad to figure out by breaking down each month into specific areas that are more manageable
- Help keep us motivated as we see how little (hopefully!) we are spending
- Keep us mindful of our purchases and aware of any trends in excess spending
- Indulge the naturally curious part of you that wants to compare yourself to us
It’s important to note that these reports are based off our take home pay (after taxes, retirement, and healthcare have been withheld) so you won’t see those listed. We understand that some people prefer to include those items in their overall expense tracking, but that’s not the method for us (although if you want to try to persuade us to change, we are open to your thoughts).
So with that, here are our May 2019 expenses:
Total May Expenses: $4,127
This month was an eye opener for us because we are now beginning to see a trend that we are spending more on travel and entertainment than we think.
If you look at past monthly expense report posts, we tend to spend quite a bit on travel. We had noticed that we were spending on travel and were ok with it because it is something we value, but we also shrugged it off every month like, “this month is just different, we don’t usually have that expense.” But we are now seeing that we do. We pretty consistently spend on travel monthly.
Along with travel comes more eating out, more entertainment, more transportation…you know, more expenses.
So we are finding ourselves a little caught in the middle right now because we love travelling and know that spending that money is more than just an expense, but we are also feeling pulled to save more, so what’s the balance?
If you have worked to find a balance between spending on something you value (bonus if it’s travelling) and saving, how did you do it? We would love any help!
