Actual Expenses: May 2012

Of course my actual expenses are always a bit different than I expect at the beginning of the month.  My May budget was posted here.  Overall, I think this month was a bit expensive, but I'm starting to feel a bit more in control of my spending.

Apartment: It's nice to see this percentage going down.  I had to pay for a week in my old apartment but from now on I'm paying cheaper rent every month! Yay!

Utilities:  I'm happy with this for the moment.  Splitting internet, electricity, water etc. among three people is nice.  We'll have to wait and see what the summer heat does to this.

Random:  I posted a few weeks ago about how there were several things that I really should get around to purchasing.  Well, I now have socks, a new pair of athletic pants (now I have two pairs!), and a new pair of climbing shoes.  I also bought my mom flowers for mothers day, which was more expensive than normal as she wasn't at home.  Overall it was a month full of random purchases that I didn't sufficiently plan for.  This whole budgeting thing is still a work in progress.

Food:  I spent more money on food than I intended to, mostly because we decided to use the money we made from selling some furniture on going out to eat.  We rarely eat at restaurants and it was such a great treat!

Cell Phone, Transportation & Fun:  Nothing exciting here.

Health:  Even though I posted my June budget just one week ago, it has already changed.  I didn't expect to get the bill from my doctors appointment already, but I did and it's been paid.  Health insurance fee's also came up this month.  At this point I think I'm free of health related bills until August!

Emergency Fund:  The normal chunk of my paycheck got deposited.  I'm happy to see that this is growing, even if it's slower than I'd like.

Slush Fund:  I forced the graph to display three significant figures because it kept rounding this up to a full 1% when in reality it is miniscule at best.  Ideally I'd have one month worth of expenses in my slush fund.  Right now, this fund is feeling neglected and has been depleted.  If I didn't have a separate emergency fund I'd be freaking out.

Road Trip:  I realized after the fact that I should have put this into my budget to begin with at the start of the month.  Instead I just allotted any extra money I could towards transportation.  I'm still learning how budgeting works best for me.