My My how time flies…….. May has been an uneventful month for us. We finally booked the flights for our family holiday this year (fingers crossed the borders stay open). We also plodded along with our renovations, which continue to take a large amount of our money (and our time). To view all previous expense review tagged posts click here.
Top 5 Expenses
There have been some changes to the Top 5 Categories from this month to last month.
Our Top 5 Expenses were are no real surprise for us, and are made up of the following items.
- Renovations (Increased $2,862.62 from last month) = $4,816.25
Notes: This month we completed our the tiling of our downstairs area, and we think it looks amazing. In addition to the tiling costs, we had to redo all the skirting boards, doors, touch up the paint and refurnish all of the downstairs. We are turning our downstairs into a self contained AirBnB so hopefully we can start recoup some of this back in income (which we will document in our monthly side hustle income posts link here). We are aiming to have the renovations finished by the end of Spring 2021, but we are struggling to find bathroom contractors so this date may change. So unless we manage to lock down a contractor soon I expect June to be a lot cheaper than May.
- Holidays (Increased $1,412.34 from last month) = $1987.75
Notes: We finally booked our fully flexible refundable flights to the Gold Coast. It’s funny pre Covid I would never have purchased fully flexible flights due to the cost, but these days its just part of the process. Until we fly in July I’ll be crossing my fingers and toes that we remain Covid-19 free, and the borders remain open. This category should reduce in June and then go up again in July once we have to start paying for accommodation / park tickets / car hire and miscellaneous costs.
- Food and Alcohol (Increased by $457.39 this month compared to last month) = $1006.84
Notes: I’ll be honest I was a little surprised by this as I expected this to be a lot less. In May we gave up alcohol for the month, and so I was hoping to see a little bit in the way of savings from this (sadly not). On the plus side our town got a new Aldi which means that we will save about 45 minutes (and petrol) each week as we don’t need to commute to the next town over anymore.
I analysed the increased costs a little on this category and it seems it was the mid week shops for things we forgot that seemed to do most of the damage. To try and get our spending back on track in June we are going to try and better estimate our food needs to avoid those expensive mid week shops.
- Mortgage (Decreased $249.00 this month) = $994.40
Notes: May was a normal month for our mortgage, and this amount was just our regular minimum repayments. We have opted not to pay extra to our mortgage at this stage, and focus on investing and renovations (personal preference). Mortgage is variable, and payments depend on the number of weeks in each month. May was a four week payment month for us.
- Utilities (Decreased $127.72 this month) = $772.24
Notes: May was a good month for utilities with no real surprises to share. This category includes our Electricity, Gas, Water, Rates, Internet and Phones. We review these expenses yearly (or more often if we see a better deal). If you want to save money on your electricity feel free to read up on our tips here in our article – 5 simple ways to save money on your electricity bills.
Year to Date Comparison
With the renovation and holiday expenses our expenses completely blew out in May. We spent $12,204.15 in May which is an increase of $3,698.16 on last month (and about 5k more than our normal expected spend). This month we spent $393.68 per day which is over $100 more per day than April and $200 per day more than March (ouch…..).
Other Expense Commentary
Restaurants, Eating Out and Activities
May was a another great month for staying in, and as a result this category was in line with our goal for this category. That said we still enjoyed ourselves:
- I went out for drinks with co-workers
- Had dinner and dessert with one of my closest friends
- We did a Tree Climbing activity as a family (which was the highlight of the month)
The total for the month on this category was $243.26 compared with $193.65 last month.
New Expenses (This Year)
No new expense categories were added this month.
Changes we’ve made this month (May)
Nil significant changes made in May to our spending except for the increases in holiday and renovation expenses that seems a little never ending at the moment.
Changes to expect next month (June)
Next month we expect the following changes.
I’m hopeful my wage reconsideration request will be approved in June, which will result in approximately $1000 in back pay. We also have my youngest son’s birthday in late June so there will be an increase in expenses in the present category. We are not having a party and instead we are doing something small as a family. I’m hoping to keep expenses under $200 (we’ll see).
Notes: I track my Income and Expenses via my tracker available on my Etsy Store Link Here .
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