Weekly Spending Update 8/11-8/17

Another week down, another week of not cooking any home cooked meals. But thankfully, that didn’t mean a whole lot of spending on eating out, which normally it would have. I utilized leftovers from my brother-in-law’s graduation party for dinner and for lunches this week I got most of them provided from work. I am fortunate to have a job where drug reps come in majority of the days to provide lunch for the employees. I still try to pack most of the time but it’s nice knowing that if I don’t pack my lunch on a particular day, I may still get a free lunch out of it. 

Total Spending – $626.43

• $6.00 – Busken Bakery Doughnuts
• $456.51 – Car Payment
• $2.20 – Vending machine at work
• $6.97 – Pharmacist CE
• $39.00 – Internet
• $98.71 – Utilities
• $8.49 – Skyline
• $8.43 – Cane’s

I do have a confession to make. For my own personal spending, I do not count the money I spend at the hospital because it is taken directly out of my paycheck. So in essence, if I spend money at the hospital, I never get to see it. Therefore, I know I am only punishing myself if I get food at the hospital. The spending reported above is only represented by my credit card spending and money taken directly out of my bank account

One area I want to work on in the next year is to pay down my car loan. I have the loan through 2023 and right now my car payment is doable for my current budget. However, one getting that extra $450 each month would be beneficial for my savings rate. In 2020 I want to become more serious in paying that off by taking any extra money I have in the month and put that towards the principal of the loan. I had been toying with the idea of paying down my mortgage as quickly as I can but I have decided to make more of a focus on the smaller loan first and then I will be able to put more money towards the mortgage once my car is paid off. 

Another area I want to try and reduce my monthly spending is with my utility bill. With it being summer right now that I much easier said than done. I only have the air conditioning on when I am home. I turn it off when I wake up and then when I get home I try to keep it off for as long as I can. One way I can see improving this in the future with my house is utilizing my built-in house fan. The house was built in the mid 1960’s and the house fan is to be used instead of the air conditioning. I will turn the fan on and open some windows to create a nice cross breeze throughout the house. Check back in the next couple of months to see how my progress with my house fan is going. If anyone has any other advice to keep the utility bill down, let me know in the comments below!

Last week in my Weekly Spending Update, I explained how my internet had been out. In total, I was without internet for an entire week. To get compensated for not having the appropriate service, I called my internet provider to get a refund on my monthly bill. I got reimbursed for the time that I didn’t have internet which came to a $10 credit on my bill for the month. Minus the monthly bill that hit this week, I did a good job keeping spending down by using the opportunities at my disposal to keep my food spending low. It takes a little bit of planning and taking advantage of free food at work to keep my spending in check.

Thanks!

Steven| Rx for FIRE