Hi, friends! It’s time to break down my spending in April. It was a doozy of a month, and I’m not proud of a lot of these numbers. As a reminder, in these spending reports, I do not include anything that comes out of my paycheck before it lands in my bank account. You won’t see anything related to health insurance, FSA payments, my retirement savings, etc. This is about what I spent from my net income. Here’s what April looked like:
Bills (47.5% | -.5% from March) – My overall percentage for my bills category (which comprises rent, phone, electric, Internet, gym, student loans, car payment, and LASIK bill) was lower than March (which was also lower than February) so that’s something!
Food (18.1% | +1.9% from March) – My food spending went up almost 2% in April and that’s because I went overboard with my Ubereats orders. I’m embarrassed at this amount, but these posts are about transparency, right? I spent $288 in April on Ubereats orders. That’s insane! How did I do that? OOF.
Travel (10.7% | +5.8% from March) – I bought my flight to Chicago for The Popcast Live in June, and wow, flight prices have increased dramatically. It was $500 for this flight! I don’t remember paying such a steep price in 2021 when I went to Chicago for the first time. I also bought travel insurance.
Shopping (6% | +.7% from March) – Ughhh… another spendy month on shopping. My spendiest categories were books ($83), kitchen ($50), and home essentials ($46).
Savings (4.5% | +.2% from March) – Same ole, same ole. I’m so glad I have these automated savings set up (for my car insurance, Christmas fund, and a sinking fund for the cats) because I don’t have to think about them!
Entertainment (4.5% | +2% from March) – I had a lot going on in April, and it led to going way overbudget in my entertainment category. All good things, though! There was a fun book club outing, some dinners with friends, a beach day with Bri… I can’t complain! I just need to remember to pull back in other areas when I have a busy month of social plans.
Cats (2.7% | +1.5% from March) – The girls were a little spendier in April. I had to re-stock their wet food and treats, and I got them lots of fun toys for their birthdays.
Subscriptions (2.1% | -.6% from March) – This month, my subscriptions included Patreon, Netflix, Spotify, Paramount+, Canva, Prime, a Substack newsletter I support, and Befunky.
Misc (1%) – I had to pay for my domain registration and my Akismet spam protection plan.
Car (0.8% | -1.7% from March) – I got gas once!
Toiletries/Supplies (0.7% | -2.3% from March) – I bought lightbulbs, a fly trap, and hand soap.
Medical (.6% | -2.6% from March) – I bought a two-pack of magnesium glycinate gummies that my psychiatrist recommended. They aren’t covered under FSA, so this was my only medical out-of-pocket purchase.
Beauty (.5% | -3.3% from March) – Pretty low-key month for beauty purchases, just an eyebrow tinting kit.
Gifts (.2% | -.9% from March) – I bought one item for a friend’s birthday gift.
Overall Thoughts
I was over-budget in seven categories this month: groceries, Ubereats, medical, cats, entertainment, shopping, and travel. The categories that I have the most control over and need to tighten up are Ubereats orders and shopping. I have some solutions to improve these categories:
- I can only order Ubereats once per week, and only for lunch. Lunch orders are generally cheaper ($20-$25 versus $35+) and are typically more satisfying than dinner. The crazy thing about Ubereats is that I’m usually disappointed in my meal. Why do I keep ordering these expensive meals when they aren’t enjoyable or satisfying? Well, that brings me to my next point.
- I need to stock up on easy meals so I always have something on hand. Many times, I’m ordering Ubereats because I don’t have time to cook or the meat didn’t defrost in time or I don’t feel like cooking. But if I have easy meals – like chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, breakfast for dinner – available, I am less likely to choose Ubereats.
- I must get better about my shopping budget. Right now, I have my shopping budget set at $200 per month, and that number can increase or decrease based on what other things are going on during the month. (For example, if I have a hair appointment that month, the shopping budget will have to decrease.) What I’d like to do is use Amazon as my prize at the end of the month. If it’s the end of the month and I haven’t depleted my shopping budget, I can buy whatever I want off my Amazon wishlist. We’ll see if that’s enough of an incentive for me!
This was my worst month of spending above my means: I went over by $350. Life is expensive right now, but I am also not spending my money wisely. I know I will get to a place where I am spending below my means (and I must get there if I want to move to a bigger apartment at the end of the year)—I just have to keep trying to get there and being upfront about the challenges I’m facing right now.
What’s a monthly subscription you have that you love?
Spotify! Worth every penny to me every month.
Yes! I love Spotify and it’s even better these days since I can listen to one audiobook a month now with my membership!
I would say our streaming services are excellent subscriptions. We pay for Hulu and Prime (but prime is a once/year type of thing). I also love the patreons I support – From the Front Porch, Sarah’s Bookshelves Live, Currently Reading, and Best of Both Worlds. I am considering joining the Popcast patreon since I love it so much!
I used to use Mint to track our spending but it changed to Credit Karma and that doesn’t provide expense tracking. But i was so busy with work that it took me several months to figure that out. So now we are going to try Fidelity Full View which I think is free for us since we have a brokerage account at Fidelity. But I’ve lost 4 months of spending data… way to go me.
Also, plane tickets are stupid expensive these days, so $500 for a ticket isn’t too surprising. Granted most of my tickets are bought through my company’s travel center and often only a month out. We usually buy our personal travel tickets several months in advance. We got such a steal on the Destin tickets – something like $300/person but then we were buying 4 tickets so it wasn’t exactly “cheap” but certainly cheaper than I thought it might be!
I *love* The Popcast’s Patreon. It’s so worth it! Their monthly AUAs are hilarious and I think I look forward to them every month (they get downloaded as a podcast episode the month after they air; I don’t watch them live). And I really love the weekly TMYK!
I’m glad you said that $500 isn’t surprising. I was like, “Did I do something wrong?” lol. I *did* wait a little too long, I think, to book these tickets. When I originally looked, they were a bit cheaper. Well, now I know!
Oh, spending is so weirdly emotional, right? Your self awareness is amazing and sending you luck with your goals.
For monthly subscriptions, I’d have to go with my Maintenance Phase subscriber only episodes or the monthly snack box from around the world I got my guy (it’s so fun to watch him and my daughter do taste tests haha!).
Spending can be really emotional – you’re absolutely right about that!
I’ve been curious about joining the Maintenance Phase Patreon. I wouldn’t mind getting some extra Michael and Aubrey banter!
Well- other than the Ubereats I think you’re doing well. It doesn’t sound like you’re being extravagant in most ways. And your plan for cutting back on the Ubereats is a good one- like always, when you’re trying to cut something out of your life (or cut down) the key is having a substitute lined up and ready to go.
You had to buy the cats birthday presents!!! And that’s a cost you won’t have every month.
The Ubereats orders was very eye-opening! It’s definitely time to be more diligent about having food at home that is satisfying and easy to make, so I don’t have to rely on takeout so much!
LOVE the wishlist incentive. I might steal this idea.
We have had a weird financial realignment happen, and we immediately stopped eating out. The only way we made it feel not burdensome was cranking up the amount of food we crave from the grocery store. ALWAYS chicken nuggets and fund frozen apps for the air fryer (if you do not have an air fryer, it makes fried apps at home SO SATISFYING), always stuff to make naan pizza, always brownie mix and M&Ms, etc. We saved tons of money instantly.
I love the idea of having SATISFYING food at home to cook. I think that’s where I get a little tripped up in that I a) don’t have quick meals on hand to make when I don’t feel like cooking and b) if I do have something on hand, it’s not something that’s very satisfying. This is great advice – thank you!
(also as soon as we got back to normal, we ate out 5 times in one weekend, so…)
I’ve never gotten ubereats, so I can’t comment on how satisfying the food is or isn’t. We started getting take out 1x a week in 2020, to support our local restaurants during lock down. I suspect the food arrives at home a bit warmer/fresher if you pick it up yourself vs. having it delivered, since I assume the people delivering have to make several stops, etc. We have recently started going out to dinner on Friday nights instead of getting takeout, and I can tell you that the entire experience is SO MUCH BETTER. The food is better, the presentation is better, all of it. If you’re finding the experience of ubereats to be generally disappointing, I agree that cutting that back makes a lot of sense, and that having easy meals available at home is a good way to do that.
I can completely empathize with the situation though…my downfall is that when I go to the grocery store (almost every day on my lunch break) I will buy myself a bag of chips as a treat, which I then eat in the car on the way home. How can that be remotely satisfying? Why do I do that? Mindless eating in the car? It makes no sense. I started doing it to avoid buying a ‘sharing size’ bag of chips, because no one else eats them, so I end up eating them all in a day or two, and then I feel gross. SO, lately I have been motivating myself by making a mark in my calendar (think gold star, though in my case it’s just a letter N for NoChips (I use C for something else)). I make the mark before I go to the store, so that if I were to buy chips, I would actually have to ERASE the N. I have not slipped once in the month I’ve been doing it. Maybe something similar would help motivate you with your ubereats dinners? I would urge you, if possible, to have your go to meal that you have ready at home be something you enjoy and is satisfying, so that it turns out to be a win-win. Also, expect that when your ubereats bill comes down, your grocery bill will likely go up, though happily not as much. 🙂
Yes, I think the problem with ordering takeout is that it’s always so much better in the restaurant than it is at home! So I’m going to try to figure out what I’m craving when I want to order Ubereats: If it’s the food, then maybe I see if my mom is available for a restaurant date. (Or maybe I go to the restaurant myself to eat the meal!) If it’s convenience, that’s when I need to have a handful of satisfying, easy-to-make meals on hand.
I literally have ZERO monthly subscriptions. I have a few autoship orders for the dog and cat, but I don’t have any recurring payments for Patreon, Netflix, or whatever. Is this weird?
I did pretty well tracking my spending in April until I left for Michigan and then things went off the rails. I’ll need to take some time to try and figure it all out to get my own spending report out there. I think, sadly, as soon as I left Wisconsin, my generally frugal nature fell apart and I began to solve all problems by throwing money at them. *sigh* It might be bad.
Not weird! You’re saving a lot of money by not having subscriptions.
During a time like this, it makes sense that thinking about money and being frugal is not at the top of your mind. You’re doing the best you can. <3
Budgeting is hard… especially these days when everything seems so much more expensive. Sigh.
My most loved monthly subscription is of course for my Peloton. It’s worth every penny to me.
Everything is just so expensive these days! It’s a hard reality. I love your love for Peloton, still! That’s amazing!
Spotify! That’s pretty much it. T has a lot- Shudder, Prime, Netflix, Hulu, – I’m like- WHY? … But he is not a minimalist or a cheapskate like me 😉
LOL, I think I’m more like T in this respect. I have so many! And multiple streaming platforms, sigh.