It’s time to talk about July’s budget! In an attempt to budget better and achieve some major financial goals I’m sharing my budgeting process as I try to improve it to work better for our family.

One thing I’m finding most helpful while refining our new budget post-baby is comparing budgeted amount versus actual amounts spent. With that in mind I’m hoping to do budget reviews at least for the rest of this year while we adjust to our new normal budget.

When I planned out our July budget I really wanted to keep a better handle on our variable spending. I set reasonable but not scorched-earch-majorly-in-debt amounts for each category.

Weekly Spending In July

We tracked our spending more closely in July and logged all our variable spending. I even did videos reviewing our spending each week!

While I don’t plan to do weekly spending videos it was a good exercise this month. It got me much more in tune with where we are spending our money and where we can most improve.

July Budget vs Actual Spending

Here’s how we did for the month comparing budgeted versus actual amounts of spending. I will be sharing budgeted / actual.

Bills 

• Mortgage – $1,200 / $1,200
• Daycare – $600 / $600
• Utilities – $250 / $292.65
• Car Insurance – $156 / $159.52
• Gym – $84 / $86.92
• AT&T – $150 / $157.40
• Comcast – $124 / $124.44

Our bills are pretty stable but my numbers were a bit off this month for a few categories. Overall it wasn’t bad with the exception of our how utility bill due to excessive air conditioning.

Variable Spending

I’m hoping to stick with our planned variable expenses so that spending stays under $1,000 for the month.

• Groceries – $400 / $497.73
• Eating out – $150 / $155.87
• Gas – $125 / $109.49
• Gifts – $50 / $41
• Biz – $50 / $54.54
• Shopping – $100 / $146.31
• M Personal – $100 / $99.56
• J Personal – $100 / $140.93
• Starbucks – $25 / $20.90

Unbudgeted

Unbudgeted totals in July: $978.68.

We had a lot of unbudgeted expenses which you could see in the videos. These were mostly medical expenses that were from giving birth in a hospital. Those bills are all slowly rolling in and I’m paying them from the baby savings account we created earlier in the year.

I’m hoping that these unbudgeted amounts will go down over time.

Sinking Funds

I had hoped to bring back sinking funds last month since we would finish our emergency fund, but it took longer into the month than expected since we had some emergencies. I did not contribute to our sinking funds last month so they will start in August.

July 2018 Budget Thoughts

Overall I’m very happy with how July went. We threw all our extra money at our emergency fund and completed that major goal for the year. There are a few areas I’d like to work on as well after seeing how we spent out money for the month.

Hopefully this has been helpful to someone else out there. I’ve found it both interesting and helpful to watch other people budget since I starting learning about how to handle money. If this has been helpful and you want to see more, feel free to let me know!

What I Use To Budget

Below are some of the items I use to budget with! I get a lot of questions about what I use with my planners and the apps I use to keep my budget on track every month so I want to share the budgeting tools I use to make budgeting both functional and fun.

Happy Planner – I use my Happy Planner for everything including budgeting! I find writing down my budget and checking in on paper helps me to better remember and makes it feel more real.

Budget Stickers – I use a variety of budget stickers in my videos from Me And My Big Ideas, Erin Condren and various Etsy shops. I’ve linked my favorite budget sticker Etsy shops I use all the time below (affiliate links):

• Elaine Michelle Studio (youtuber & budget stickers)
• Planner Kate (matte budget stickers)
• A Happy Blue Tree (kawaii budget stickers)
• HoneyInked Planner Paperie (clear budget stickers)
• Planner Envy (bright budget stickers)

Every Dollar – My husband and I both use a shared Every Dollar app account where we actively track our spending. This works best for us since my husband doesn’t use a planner and we have joint bank accounts and expenses.

Mint.com – I’ve used Mint for over years as a passive net worth tracker. It’s a more passive option and I don’t actively update it except for once or twice a year when I want to gauge my net worth progress.

Hopefully these tools will help you with your budget whether you love pen and paper or technology!