The Breakdown
The Normal (Needs) Spending: Rent (Home), Student Loans (Education), Utilities (Bills & Utilities), Credit Card interest fees (Fees & Charges).
Spending update: Starting June 2019, I will no longer be paying my metro card out of pocket. Instead, it is paid out of my paycheck with pre-tax money. It no longer will factor into my spending breakdown, which is only my take-home pay.
Also, I noticed that this spending calculator doesn’t account for “transfers” from one account to another, as in, it doesn’t calculate my monthly contribution to savings, or my credit card payment, or any money that goes into my Acorns account. Rest assured, these transactions are happening!
Unusual (Wants) Spending:
Shopping: What you’re not seeing on the little chart is that I made a massive payment on my CapitalOne Credit Card this month to cover the cost of the laptop I bought Josh for his birthday in June–yay for paying the balance and not getting interest! This was a large amount in and of itself. I am mentioning this because I didn’t have any extra money to spend on other things, and yet, I bought clothes online. This amount was over $100 (you can see my haul here). I am embarrassed because I justified this purchase in my head and yet, I really didn’t have the money for it. This month I dipped into savings to pay for the credit card and these additional online shopping purchases. <This is not healthy.>
Transportation: This month Josh’s parents visited us in Brooklyn. We covered a lot of the costs for getting around via Ubers and Lyfts. We even rode on the NYC Ferry. All that added up for some unusual spending in the Travel and Auto & Transport categories.
Final thoughts:
The good news is that I was under budget for my food shopping this month. But that was more out of necessity for paying off this credit card rather than being diligent about my food budget.
Even the “Entertainment” category is a bit high this month considering what I was working with. My spending joy here is I found two AMC Black tickets that had been gifted to me so we got to see an AMC Movie for free (Toy Story 4!!), but instead of just getting popcorn and drinks, we bought candy too. All the concessions added up to nearly $30 dollars. Basically the cost of the two tickets.
I’m frustrated that I have to really face my shopping problem. I don’t have tons of extra cash lying around to spend on clothes I didn’t actually need (I have a list of items I want in my wardrobe and none of the items I purchased were on it). I need to figure out a better way of curbing my shopping habits. Even “shopping my closet” hasn’t been useful. Any ideas to help with this would be appreciated! ♥
Spending Habits [last month]
Heather Allen 
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