October Budget

So here's our budget for October. Usually I'd post this on the first day of the month, but it's too late for that so it's got some number already plugged in.

Quick breakdown of our budget:
It shows what our budget for each category is, and then it has a space to record what we actually spend/made.  The 'Difference' column shows how much we over/underspent.  A red difference in the income is bad, as it means we made less than we were supossed to, but a red difference in the expenses means that we came in under budget. yay :)

Our balance at the bottom is what money was left over after all of our expenses.  This is the amount we profited for the month.  I also make notes to explain any unusual numbers.  For example, last month had three paydays instead of two, so our income was much higher than usual.  It was also the first month of bills for our new apartment, so the bills were higher than usual because we were paying activation fees on them.

Below the budget I have a 'Miscellaneous' budget.  Every once in a while a larger expense may come up that doesn't fit in our regular budget.  This may sound like it totally defeats the purpose of the budget, but these are things we pay for with all the extra money we've been setting asside each month.  For example, while I've put my Fashion Design schooling off for a year, I've decided to take a part-time online Small Business Accounting program.  This definately would not have fit into my $50 monthly spending money, so last month when I paid for two classes and my textbooks, I listed the $900 expense in the Miscellaneous budget.  I keep track of these expenses so that when I calculate our net worth each month I'm not wondering why we're missing $900.

So there's the first budget for the blog, we'll see how we did at the end of the month :)  Soon that income won't be so high, and our expenses will be bigger once baby comes along!