February 2013 Monthly Spending in NYC

This is the current personal budget I use for single-income living in a 1br apartment in Brooklyn, NY.

Over Budget

For Variable spending, I was $128 over budget this month.

• Vacation: I had little idea how to plan vacation spending. In the end, my sister paid for the rental car + hotel while I covered all meals, plus my own personal expenses.
• Cats: Usually I can buy cat food one month and litter the next but this month both were due at the same time.
• Booze: Spent time with friends in the beginning of the month & enjoyed west coast breweries on my vacation.

Under Budget

For Variable spending, I was $152 under budget this month.

• Entertainment: Most of this was for the Brooklyn Half-Marathon’s $75 registration.
• Gifts: I never used to budget for gifts and had put them under “entertainment” instead. This was a bad idea. This year I’m trying to plan for gifts at the beginning of the month to better estimate how much I spend on others.
• Clothes
• Health/Beauty
• Laundry
• Groceries
• Eating Out
• House

Savings & Debt Repayment Plans

Slowly but surely, I am on track for my savings & debt repayment goals this year.

• Savings: $280 deposit – $2,138 balance
• Discover: $370 payment – $3,195 balance

Income

In addition to my normal paycheck, I had some extra income this month:

• Discover Gift Cards: $40 (bought with reward points)
• Tax Refund: $946
• Cat Sitting: $90

I did not redistribute the tax refund money in February since I wanted to wait to see how my vacation expenses panned out. I’ve found in the past it is very easy to under-budget vacation expenses. I already have a plan set-up in March to split the refund between my savings & credit card.