Rae Does the Books

This post could be considered a blatant plug, but be assured that I am in no way affiliated with Goodbudget or any associated businesses.

But dear god, I love Goodbudget. Check out this report:

So that's my year to date spending for 2016, for the first third of the year. It includes pretty much everything except savings, since I have the paid version of Goodbudget and my savings counts as another account I transfer funds into, rather than something that comes out of checking. I've also put about $620 into our retirement fund and $100 to our emergency fund in that same timeframe. Not sure how that would change things, but it's a sliver for sure. :\

As an explanation, "Bills" encompasses rent, utilities (gas, water, and electric), phone bill, cable internet, my husband's health insurance, and our car insurance. "Household" encompasses groceries, gas, and some miscellaneous spending. "Debt" is just our car loan and nothing else. "Leisure" is eating out, Netflix, our Twitch subscription to Geek & Sundry, any games we buy. "Standard" is a little wonky - it should say "spent from savings" or something, I don't know what I was thinking when I came up with that name. But it's just what I spent out of our tax return windfall at the beginning of the year and all it includes is my medical bills and a haircut. 

Still, this honestly makes me feel kind of good that only a little over 8% of our spending has been on leisure, even though I get a little sting of guilt every time I eat out. I would love to do the 50/30/20 needs/savings/wants split everyone seems to recommend, but right now our income just doesn't allow for it. What I really need to do is cut down on our needs, like reducing the per-month cost of my phone bill and maybe cable, because that Bills envelope is a monster chunk of our outgoing funds and has been ever since we moved into this nice apartment. If we can cut down on our monthly necessities, we'll have way more wiggle room, you know?

I can try, anyway. I'll let you know how it goes.