May Financial Update–In conjunction with the Living on Less Than $28,000 A Year series, I started sharing periodic Financial Updates about our family’s finances. I don’t always give specific numbers, but I thought it might be helpful for those of you in a similar situation to take a peek at how things go at our house.
Yes, it is already the tenth of June so I am a little late, but here is the rundown of our family’s finances for the month of May.
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Spending
May was a very expensive month for us. Between my son’s 18th birthday and graduation, hosting visiting family and friends for the festivities, and attending an out-of -town wedding, we spent lots of money.
The good news is that we had savings. The bad news is that we were not able to save enough before May started, so we ended up spending part of our emergency fund in order to travel to our friend’s wedding. I am sure this was not a Dave Ramsey approved decision, but we felt that it was important to attend the wedding because of our close relationship with the family.
I did keep our grocery budget in line with my total grocery spending at $493.44 for the month ($500/month budget for six people), and our utilities were low because we did not have to turn on the air conditioning until late in the month thanks to the mild weather in our area.
Saving
We did not save any money this month, but we did not go into any debt (Read here Why We Don’t Have Any Credit Cards.), and we still have part of our emergency fund intact. So while we did not make any progress, we didn’t do too much damage to our finances.
June Goals
Our primary goal for this summer is to spend as little as possible and save, save, save. We want to refund the money we spent from the emergency fund and start saving for a second vehicle. (Read my 3 Reasons You Need An Emergency Fund and How to Get One Fast post.) Life with one vehicle and three family members with jobs outside the home is interesting to say the least!
Were you able to meet any financial goals in May? Leave a comment so we can encourage each other! 🙂
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We had another costly car repair but we were gifted the money so nothing changed for us. We are so grateful as the $1000 in repairs would have put us in a tight spot. My husband is still currently looking for either a new job or some part time work so we can have enough to pay our bills through the year (once our tax money runs out) and start to pay off debt. I’m hoping June (or maybe July at this point) will help bring us closer to that.
That is so awesome Jerilyn! We want to be those people who can pay for someone else’s car repair!
My in-laws are great and we hope to be able to bless our children when they are on their own.
Yes! We finished re-stocking our “baby emergency fund!”
Woohoo! Good for you Jessica! 🙂
That you so much for your posts around your family’s finances. It is so helpful to those of us struggling to know we are not alone. We actually had extra money in May due to a bonus my husband received from work and while we did save some of it and pay extra on our debts I do feel we could have saved more. It was nice to know at least for one month we did not have to struggle and we were able to “beef” up our emergency fund.
Your blog helped me make the decision to be a stay at home mom and put my family first. I only hope I can continue to do that due to health insurance costs rising in 2014 (we have to buy private insurance, we cannot afford the $1000 a month premium at my husband’s job). But I know God has always taken care of us in the past and I need to keep the faith.
Blessings
You are very welcome Karen! I am so glad that you were able to save some extra money last month. Thanks for letting me know I have been an encouragement to you! 🙂