July 2018 Expenses & Financial Update

by Matt Spillar · August 2, 2018

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tracking spending

This is a new series I started a few months ago, sharing a report of our monthly expenses. At the end of the year I shared a recap of our 2017 spending, which showed graphs and percentages that we spent in each category. I decided to take the transparency up a notch and start sharing some monthly numbers. You can check out last month’s expenses here.

Sharing our expenses involves vulnerability, but after contemplating it for quite some time it seemed important. The goal with these expense reports will be to keep ourselves accountable as we continue on the road of being mindful with our spending. It’s also my hope that it will help spark conversations and encourage others to examine their own budgets.

We use Mint to budget and track our expenses. You can check out my writeup about how we use Mint for our budgeting here.

Without further ado, here’s where we spent our money this month:

July 2018 Expenses

Category	Amount	Notes
Housing	$2332.37	Includes rent + water/trash/sewage. The price of living in a high-cost of living area.
Renters Insurance	$14.00
Utilities	$12.24	The benefit of living in an apartment!
Auto Insurance	$268.10
Auto Registration	$251.00
Gas	$139.04	Includes car washes for both cars.
Mobile Phone	$111.43
Internet	$29.99
Entertainment	$48.00	Concert tickets.
Health & Fitness	$99.00	Yearly subscription for wife's Beach Body program.
Groceries	$155.65	Being on vacation for 8 days meant less groceries needed this month.
Restaurants	$122.70
Pets	$351.05	Dog-sitting costs for our vacation.
Shopping	$183.78	makeup, medicine, water filters, other household supplies
Travel	$758.64	Our portion from family trip to Washington DC. Flights were covered with points, shared lodging/Uber costs
Gifts	$39.62
Misc Expenses	$6.54
Fun Money	$110.99
Total	$5034.14	Doesn't include extra debt payments, investments, and giving.

july expenses

Dividend Income: $62.99
Interest Income: $22.87
Side Hustle Income: $682.64

These past few years on our financial journey we’ve challenged everything and trimmed down our expenses, but our spending is still a work in progress.

Overall, we continued a positive trend and kept our expenses remained in line with what we typically spend.

Some highlights this month included our family trip to Washington DC. My siblings and I had never been before, and we had an awesome time exploring the monuments, sights, and history of the city. I’ll be writing a post soon with a recap and pictures form our trip. Travel continues to be an area we value highly, and it is reflected in how we allocate our spending.

Leaving for vacation meant finding dog sitters, which is reflected in the Pets line item. Our car registration was also due this month.

We continue to look to cut back on the areas that don’t matter as much, so that we can put money towards the areas we truly value. Mindful spending is a big focus for us and we continue to improve at it.

Other Financial Updates

By far the biggest highlight for this month was paying off our car loan and becoming fully debt free! We paid off our student loans this past March, and we’re excited to reach this point. This gets rid of the monthly payment going forward and frees up more cash flow. No longer carrying any debt is a very freeing feeling, and has been worth all the effort these past few years. I’ll write a post soon of the thought process we went through with getting a car loan and whether we regret it.

My side hustle with a minor league baseball team is still going full swing, so we had a nice amount of extra income this month. There’s one month left in the season. We had been putting the extra money towards our debt, but now we’ll be able to pad our cash savings and make additional contributions towards our Roth IRA’s.

We brought in $63 of dividend income. This is money that is being generated by our investments, and then gets reinvested right back into those investment accounts. As our investments grow, eventually we’ll reach the point where this dividend income will be used to pay for the majority our living expenses. It’s exciting to see it growing as our investments continue to grow.

Thanks for tuning in to this months expense report, and I hope you’ll check back again for next month’s recap!

Related Reading: Reviewing Our 2017 Spending

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