$500 March to Savings

[Herbert Derp]

So it looks like $500 February was a success! I'd like to keep this ball rolling into March. The challenge is to spend no more than $500 for the month, excluding housing costs. Personally I'm pretty sure I can clock in at under $400, but as a stretch goal I'm going to try for under $300. Last month I spent only $318.36 which was pretty close!

Who wants to join me?

[Herbert Derp]

First purchase of the month! $34.86 spent at Walmart.

[marty998]

I can do this (thankyou for excluding housing costs). Lets see, $200 on trains to work, $150 on food, $40 I donated to cricket club's trivia night last Saturday, $15 for a work lunch tomorrow with colleagues. ...$415 already.

No other expenses I can think of...oh shit quarterly electricity bill comes at end of this month...that'll be $125.

/fail

Sorry. tried hard, but no dice. I average $400/month on non-mortgage, non-bills items. But $500 inclusive of bills is a little too hard.

[Debbie M]

Marty, what if you include only 1/3 of that $125 since you'll be consuming only 1/3 of that energy?  Then you can still play!

[Herbert Derp]

Well, I'm past the halfway mark for the month and $252.22 spent so far. Today I stocked up on enough chicken to last at least a month ($2/lb, pretty good deal), and the rest of my food stores are looking good. Hopefully I won't need to do any more significant grocery shopping this month.

[Herbert Derp]

March is over. Here are my expenses...

Rent: $921.41 (includes water/sewage/trash)
Bills: $90.73 (2012 state tax, phone, electricity, and internet)
Other: $179.65
Total: $1,191.79

So not including the rent, I spent $270.38 in March, exceeding my stretch goal by 10%! Compared to February, my total expenses were down $55.88 (4.3%)! Can I go lower in April?

[marty998]

Ok if we only include a third of my power bill which was $139 (dang no idea why it went up so much)....I'm probably under but then it gets complicated cos I paid for my train ticket for the next 90 days...$546.

One week ticket is $52, so I basically get 2.5 weeks free travel by paying in advance.

Food came in under than expected at about $120.