My big bad spending categories - groceries and "Fun Money" i.e. eating out. Can't believe I spent this much on food this month. Maybe $30 of it was for the book fair treats, cupcakes for Halloween Festival, and candy for trick or treating .. the rest .. no justification. It's like I see that I'm trying to keep under $100 in groceries and my inner self goes NO WAY.
I have about $60 in cash right now, and will be getting another $30 or so tonight from a babysitting job. I'm going to use that money this month for cash. 2% back on my card isn't worth spending 2x my budget. Maybe I can actually keep in budget this month. 
(I will say that most of the groceries from my last shopping trip will keep me for a good week or more from now. Still though~!)
(Professional spending was also up there - that included books I bought at the bookfair, the iPad cover, and some books I bought on Amazon for the library.)
The bright side is that even with the overspending in some categories, I was still able to send $286 to my car savings account (about 22% of my net income.)
I would have made it with just one fill up if I hadn't had to run into big G on Tuesday to return some videos to the G-M District Library. They HAD to have them back to send out Wednesday morning. When I got to big G, I was running on fumes, so had to get gas and decided to just fill up ($3.45/gall) because it was a pretty good price comparatively.
In November I will get 3 paychecks. I budgeted the one I got on Thursday for November, and the other two will be for December. I was thinking about making a trip to ABQ during Thanksgiving break, but I think I won't do that. I will probably do a movie and go out to eat during that week though, but I do have fun money available for it.
I need to buy textbooks for my 3 electives, so I will have to take that out of the $1000 I have budgeted towards my car replacement category. Hopefully they won't cost too much, and hopefully I'll eventually be able to sell them again for close to the amount I pay. Then those funds would go back into the car category.
**I know I said I didn't want to talk about October's spending ... but I decided I needed to post it publicly. Otherwise I haven't really acknowledged the problem.
*I can't remember if I mentioned it or not. But I decided to cancel Ting for now. I just could not deal with the Android after having an iPhone for over 3 years. If they ever support the iPhone, then I'll be more than happy to switch over. Until then, I guess I'll pay the premium to keep my same plan. (I have looked and looked to see if there is anything else out there that would be cheaper AND assure me of not getting cut off if one month I use more data than usual. I've not seen anything in my area which gives me enough assurance to quit my grandfathered unlimited plan.)
Ugh - October Spending ... November *WILL* be better!
November 3rd, 2012 at 08:12 pm
November 3rd, 2012 at 11:20 pm 1351984838
November 3rd, 2012 at 11:25 pm 1351985151
November 4th, 2012 at 02:22 am 1351995737
Sorry on the overspending. I overspent as well, but it is on things that I'll be bringing back to Dubai from my return trip. Ebay is loving me right now.
November 4th, 2012 at 05:15 am 1352006149
The Walmart plans are for Android phones. They do sell iPhones, but it is the contract plan phones with Verizon or AT&T, so it would not be any different. I checked into the non-contract AT%T plan for the iPhone - it would be $50/mo + a data plan. So ... not really any savings.
Yeah, the overspending really surprised me -especially because a lot of it was the fast food places. Considering that I only get into town a couple times in a week at most ... It just goes to show that little amounts add up quickly. I knew before doing the final figures that I'd gone well over the budgeted amounts in both groceries and fun money, but I really didn't think it would be THAT much over.