{"id":141695,"date":"2022-02-08T11:08:56","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T18:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/?p=141695"},"modified":"2023-03-22T03:34:46","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T09:34:46","slug":"budget-wins-errors-extra-expenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/budget-wins-errors-extra-expenses","title":{"rendered":"Personal Finance is Personal: Mindy Tracks Last Month&#8217;s Budgeting Wins, Errors, and Extra Expenses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n      <iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/playlist.megaphone.fm\/?e=BIGPOC1721918719\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe>  \n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wow. So, as it turns out, tracking your spending isn\u2019t as easy as I make it sound on the BiggerPockets Money podcast. (Who knew?)&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I knew it would be challenging to do this\u2014and I wanted to show you that it isn\u2019t easy and that it\u2019s OK to make mistakes. Well, I\u2019m leading by example for sure because I made a <em>lot<\/em> of mistakes last month! (Follow along at <a href=\"http:\/\/biggerpockets.com\/mindysbudget\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">biggerpockets.com\/mindysbudget<\/a><\/span>.<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the last month, <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I over-budgeted in many categories and under-budgeted in others. As such, I\u2019m making a few changes for February based on my January spending, but keeping most of what I had for January in place for February, too. This will allow me to weigh whether January was an anomaly or whether I need to make a change. (I really hate to see so much red!)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019m also figuring out what works best for both my husband and me with regard to accounting for future spending. For example:<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Property taxes are a sure thing\u2014and my January allocation was based on the previous year\u2019s tax bill. I haven&#8217;t actually paid that money yet\u2014but it will ultimately be paid in April and May. It\u2019s a known (or rather a known-ish) expense, so I can budget for it.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On the other hand, travel is a far more fluid expense. We have a travel expense in March that we\u2019ve already entered into the budget because that\u2019s when we\u2019re traveling\u2014but we purchased the tickets in January. So the question is, do you account for that in January or in March?&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Guess we&#8217;ll see how that works out. For now, here&#8217;s my January budget and spending recap for you to follow along with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>Related:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/personal-finance-is-personal-follow-along-with-mindy-jensens-budget-wins-and-losses-in-2022\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Follow Along With Mindy Jensen\u2019s Budget Wins (and Losses) in 2022<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mindy&#8217;s January budgeting rundown: The errors and extra expenses<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let\u2019s go look at all of my errors for the month of January.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First off, when did gasoline get so expensive?!? I don\u2019t do a ton of driving, and I consider one of my early-on, Ramit-style wins to be the fact that I simply do not pay attention to the cost of gasoline (and never have) because:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I cannot stock up on it.<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I cannot shop around for it\u2014it\u2019s always within a few cents wherever you\u2019re at.<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I cannot wait for it\u2014when I need it, I need it <\/span>right away.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Still, gas prices have gone up significantly, and I will need to consider this for the February budget.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Turns out <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amazon purchases also sneak up on you! Carl and I were talking at the end of the day early in the month, and he asked me if I had entered the Amazon purchases into the spending tracker. Nope! It did not even OCCUR to me to enter them into the tracker. Yikes!!! <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, if you are having trouble figuring out why your spending doesn\u2019t match your credit card bills, check out your Amazon account.<\/span> That could easily be the culprit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Also, how do you handle business expenses? <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I completely overlooked the fact that January is when my MLS dues hit\u2014to the tune of $605. I didn\u2019t put these expenses in my personal budget because they\u2019re business expenses that I pay out of the business income. Ditto to client lunches. Is that OK? I hope it\u2019s OK.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The January budget busters<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now let\u2019s take a look at those big-time budget busters: car repairs, clothing, restaurants, and household items.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Car repairs:<\/strong> My car is a 2003 model, and sometimes things go wrong. You don\u2019t throw the whole car out just because something finally broke. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last month, the windshield wipers stopped working\u2014which are a car part that you totally take for granted most of the time. And that&#8217;s especially true when you live in a desert, as I do. But it also snows in my desert, and as such, wipers are necessary.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We thought it was a fuse, so we replaced it and it blew again and again. We finally took it into the shop to resolve the issue\u2014and that was expensive. Prior to this, we&#8217;d actually spent almost nothing on automotive repairs for this car, which was bought new in 2003. So, overall this has been a great purchase.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And, in the middle of the month, an ice storm hit. As we were driving down the road, we hit a patch of ice and slid into a snowbank. When this happened, we broke the ball joint\/knuckle\/something in the wheel well as it slammed into the ice-covered snow.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In turn, the car that we had not done any repairs or maintenance to in years suddenly needed $1,066.95 in repairs. And it happened the very first month that I started publicly tracking my spending. Sigh.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Clothes and shoes:<\/strong> My running shoes were terrible and I needed a new pair. last month. I saved money by buying a different brand than I normally buy\u2014and they were on clearance because they are the ugliest shoes ever (the color is seriously<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">called Ocean Decay). But, this was not an expense I had factored in when creating my budget\u2014so it helped break the budget.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Household:<\/strong> This category is laundry detergent, soap, cleaners\u2014and things like that which are meant for the house. We ran out of every household item in January and I had to buy more. Luckily, I anticipate being under budget in this category in the coming months because I buy in bulk and it lasts for a very long time.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Restaurants:<\/strong> There is clearly room for improvement here. But I\u2019ve also increased my budget for next month because we actually didn&#8217;t go out all that much, and I like going out to restaurants.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That said, not everything was a disaster for my budget in January\u2014and, overall, the budget was actually pretty good. Plus, the car repairs could have come out of an emergency fund, if there was one. Let&#8217;s take a look at what went right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The January budget wins<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here&#8217;s what went right in January:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Groceries:<\/strong> I consider the entire month a massive success simply because my grocery budget was so close to my grocery actual. This happened by being super conscious of my grocery spending the entire month, and there have been months where groceries have topped $1200 easily.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The budget cautions<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have a couple of recurring shipments from Amazon that were set up months ago. These ongoing shipments bill when they ship\u2014and you have to remember to put these things in your spending tracker, too.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Utilities:<\/strong> We have recently installed solar panels, so our electric bills should be negative once the snow melts. We also bought this house more than two years ago, and when we went through our records to try and find a recent gas bill, we couldn\u2019t find anything. It turns out the seller has been paying the gas bill the entire time we\u2019ve owned the house. So there is no historical gas utility data for us to go off of.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Household:<\/strong> This is a kind of catch-all category for us, and will probably ebb and flow with life in general. This month was a big flow&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"hero-block_62df1a82bfc88\" class=\"first:mt-0 hero-block py-4    has-background has-slate-200-background-color has-text-color has-theme-gold-color\">\n    <div\n        class=\" flex flex-wrap lg:flex-nowrap max-w-screen-xl mx-auto px-4 relative lg:items-center \">\n\n        <div class=\"relative z-30 w-full \">\n            <main class=\"py-4\">\n                \n\n<p class=\"has-slate-800-color has-text-color has-large-font-size wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:800\">The Money Podcast<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"my-3 md:my-5 lg:my-8 has-slate-900-color has-text-color wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:16px\">Kickstart your personal finance journey with Scott and Mindy as they break down the good, bad, and ugly of people\u2019s personal money stories. From interviews with entrepreneurs and business owners to breakdowns of listener finances, you\u2019ll get actionable advice on how to get out of debt and grow your money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id=button-custom-event-block_65400b52d0a76 class='button-custom-event'>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/link.chtbl.com\/Money\" x-on:click=\"window.analytics.track(&#039;Money Podcast Blog CTA Click&#039;, {\n      referrer: &#039;https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/budget-wins-errors-extra-expenses&#039;,\n    });\" class=\" btn-shape inline-block no-underline has-background has-theme-slate-dark-background-color has-text-color has-white-color\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Listen Now<\/a>\n  <\/div>\n\n            <\/main>\n        <\/div>\n\n                <div class=\" first:mt-0 relative h-full lg:flex lg:items-center\">\n            <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"object-cover w-full relative z-20 my-0  shadow-xl rounded-md hidden lg:block\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/BP_Money_podcast_square-1024x1024-1-e1660861377128.jpeg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\">\n        <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The month end wrap up for Mindy&#8217;s budget<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All in all, the month was pretty successful in terms of budgeting. We didn\u2019t go completely off the rails but I was also hyper-conscious about my spending. We also tried dry January and aimed to stay out of restaurants.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Going forward, I think the key to sticking to my budget will be remaining conscious of the spending. It\u2019s so easy to let money slip through your fingers when you\u2019re not paying attention.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Remember, you can follow along\u2014or just check in from time to time\u2014at <a href=\"http:\/\/biggerpockets.com\/mindysbudget\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">biggerpockets.com\/mindysbudget<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And now that I&#8217;ve recapped how my budget experiment went, how was your spending in January?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As it turns out, budgeting and tracking spending aren&#8217;t as easy as we make it sound on the BiggerPockets Money podcast. Who knew?!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1687,"featured_media":141703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7119,5182],"tags":[2549,5904,2526,714],"class_list":["post-141695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biggerpockets-daily","category-personal-finance","tag-budgeting","tag-mindy-jensen","tag-personal-finance","tag-spending"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1687"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}