October 2006 Score Card — Part I: Expenses

Ok, it's reporting time and it begins with the monthly expenses.

Summary:

The daily living costs of October was $1697, slightly higher than that of September when we spent $1649. The increase is about 3% (equivalent to the annual inflation rate ?) However, there are some one-time expenses that I think will not repeat in the future. The expenses also didn't include some fixed items, such as mortgage $1635 (including $400 additional principles), child care $800, and homeowner's fee $190.

The big jump:

Buy-and-sell: Believe it or not, I spent more than $300 this month along on items that I want to sell on Amazon.com, largely due to the $10 off $30 promotion at Buy.com. Since all items I bought have rebates, the actual cost is much lower than what it appeared on paper. I don't know if I can eventually sell all of them (so far sold only one) or not, but it won't be too bad if some get stuck with me, as long as I get the rebates back (there are people really hate rebates, for example, FMF, but I don't).

In addition to the buy-and-sell stuff, I also spent $140 ($40 after rebate) on a laser printer. My current HP print is more 5 years old and I am still using the original toner, but it will come to end soon as I have to shake it well to get a good print. Since the printer is much cheaper than the toner, why not buy a new printer instead of a toner?

Grocery (and Costco): The combined spending at grocery stores and Costco was $540 last month, up $160 from September. The reason was the Costco coupon book we received early in the month. Since I started tracking our monthly expenses in August, we roughly spent $400 on grocery every month ($430 in August and $380 in September). Going forward, I expect our expenses on grocery will be around this level, which counts for a quarter of the overall spendings.

The small drop:

The return of $2 gas gave us some relief at the pump, but not by much, as the cost to fill up our cars dropped from $209 in September to $177 last month. As we enter the winter heating season, the focus will be on home heating bills. However, after checking what we paid the same time last year, I found the prices of heating oil were flat ($2.47 then, $2.49 now). Hopefully, the gas price will stay at this level after the election, but nobody really knows what will happen.

The usual stuff:

All other expenses in October were usual stuff and the spending was close to that of September. In the Others category, we have $14 for tickets, $16 for toy, $20 for clothes, and $15 for books, and they are baby related spendings.

Since I started tracking our monthly expenses in August, we spent $1320, $1649, and $1697 for the past three months and September and October spendings are quite stable. This definitely helps us come out with a budget and get better organized.

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