Thursday, December 1, 2011

November Budget Recap--Blech!

Consider it another miserable fail.  Possibly even worse than October's fail.  If that's even possible.  Let's just put it this way: I WAYYYY overspent in November.  Can't really tell you how it happened, I just know it did.  Wow. . .  Anyways, below is the recap.

Miserable FAILS:
  • Grocery Shopping--budget is $200, I spent $355.61
  • Eating out--budget is $50, I spent $235.56
I really have no excuses for it.  I didn't even cook Thanksgiving dinner.  I know that my grocery budget may be a little elevated for December since I'm cooking Christmas dinner.  Granted, it's only three people (so far) but I'm still going all out to have a nice dinner.  So, I kind of expect that bill to be a little higher for December.  November's spending was just out of control.  And the Eating Out. . .we won't even go there.  Nothing I can say will make that any prettier. 

I am learning some lessons here, folks.  I promise!  I'm committed to getting this budget to a prettier place so that these recaps won't be so painful.  Hopefully, December won't be as bad.  Well. . .let's go ahead and push that out to January!

There were some very small (OMG, very small!) successes.
  • For my lunch budget, I have an amount of $20.00.  For the entire month of November, I only spent $20.34.  Yes, I went over budget, but when you compare that to my miserable fail in October in the same category (going OVER budget by $41.28), I think I did a pretty good job in November. 
  • I have $60.00 a month budgeted for any pet related items needed for the dog and cat.  I only spent $29.60 in November and I don't anticipate having to spend a whole lot in December in this category since the dog food and cat litter are pretty well stocked.  If it weren't for my old grumpy cat having to eat wet catfood, I'd venture to say I'd spend $0 in the pet department for December.  But, the cat is old and picky and he must have his wet food that I'm running out of.  That's the only expenditure that I expect to have for pets in December. 
I'm really sad that it ended up being such a rough month again.  I'm going to really, REALLY try in December to keep a more proactive eye on my budget and spending so that I can (hopefully!) avoid this end of the month let-down.  It always comes right before the beginning of the month bill-paying stress and that just sucks. 

What about you. . .any budget successes or failures this month? 

2 comments:

  1. I failed. It was ugly. I decided December I am not even trying. January, new year's resolution and all that crap, right? Maybe we could figure out a system to keep each other in check.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, SingleMama. . .I feel you and I'm terrified about what my December budget is going to end up looking like. Eeek!

    I'm down with trying to figure out a system that might keep us in check!

    ReplyDelete

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