I know that May was going to be a bit more of a spendy month for me, I had a trip planned to get out of my one-horse town (literally, I have seen 1 horse here, and I am a former horse girl, so I notice stuff like that) and that I was looking to fill in some spots in my wardrobe, and get some things I had been putting off for months. And I did just that, and now I’m going to do a bit of a spending freeze again to reset. In proud news, my credit card balance hit $800 in May, the lowest it has been in years, so I’m pretty pleased with myself.
So, the big stuff, education is a bit skewed on this one, my student loan payment comes out on the last day of the month, and if that day happens to be a weekend then it comes out on the next weekday, and so a few months of the year it looks like I made two student loan payments in a month. And sometimes I do that intentionally (not since I started blogging lol, but I have in the past), but the two student loan payments, and I also signed up for an annual SkillShare, and that got put into the education section of my budget as well.
I also had some unexpected car maintenance, I knew I needed an oil change, but once they got in there I also desperately needed some new filters and transmission fluid so it ended up being a $540 maintenance visit. But they also pulled 27 peanuts (literally) out of my cabin air filter compartment, so it was probably a good thing.
Other than my shopping, my trip to Winnipeg was $660, which I’m pretty pleased with. I was able to use points for the movie, so it only saved me like $16, but still, it was $16.
I spent $105 on a Mothers Day/birthday present for my Mom, a bit more than I would normally do, but she is thrilled with it, and I was able to send it straight to her instead of also paying for postage.
I also bought some things, as previously mentioned, I bought a Nespresso machine and pods, and some organization bins for my bathroom, a perfume, threads for needlepoint canvases, several books (enough to get through the whole summer), some clothes (which you will have seen lots of already in my Week in Outfits posts), and new curtains for my living room and a new desk lamp.
The one area I am a bit disappointed in is my coffee spending, I spent $100.99 on coffee out this month, so I’m not overly pleased with that. Normally, I limit myself to 1 coffee out per week and I definitely did more than that in May, excluding my vacation, I was going 2 or 3 times a week while at home and that was far too much.
I’m going to get into it a bit more in my usual “What I’m Buying in June” but I’m going to really tighten it up this month. This is much more normal month income wise, two pay cheques, one pet sitting job, no tax return, etc. So I can’t live at this rate full time, it wasn’t beyond my May means, but it is beyond my normal means and that’s not sustainable.
Here’s to fiscal restraint in June!
Laura
Thoughtful Millennial 