May 2019 Monthly Spending Report and Debt Update

Welcome to my May Monthly Spending Report and Debt Update! In this post, I’m going to be sharing a recap of my monthly income and expenses, so you can see exactly how my budget and debt pay-off went this month!

Before we get started, let me share a quick recap of how we budget in our house.

My husband and I keep our money separate.

To begin, my husband and I keep our money in separate checking accounts.

Gasp. I know. Yes, we’ve been married 7 years already, and yes, I know Dave Ramsey says to combine finances. But, honestly, I’m just not at that point yet. He’s a spender and I’m a saver, and I think combining finances—with two people spending from the same pile of money—sounds like a disaster to manage. If combining finances works for you, fantastic! It’s just not what we’ve chosen to do in our home.

My husband and I split the bills.

My husband and I split the bills. I take the mortgage, home owner’s association dues, and property taxes. He takes everything else (car insurance, utilities, and groceries, and cash flowing college for his 20 year-old son). This works for us.

I share my half of the budget.

Hubs isn’t completely on board with sharing 100% of our income and spending plans with complete and total strangers on the internet. Thus, the budget recaps you’ll see here are my portion of the budget only. But, I will share real honest numbers with you, so hopefully you’ll get a feel for how a real budget works and functions.

OK, with all that out of the way, let’s get started!

Income

My total income for May 2019 was $10,874.78, broken down as follows:

$5,538.66 from my regular paycheck from my regular job as a civil defense attorney.

$40 from selling on Facebook Marketplace.

$261.11 from Ebates. (Use my link to sign up for your own Ebates account and you’ll get $10 off your first qualifying purchase!)

$35.01 from a reclaimed property search with my State Comptroller’s office.

$5,000 from my husband’s overtime payout.

Spending

Each month, I create a zero-based budget, allocating my income across all budget categories, until I’m left with 0. You can see my actual budget for May in my saved stories on Instagram.

Any additional money that comes in during the month usually goes straight to debt unless I have some expense I’m saving for. I save my expense reimbursements in a car maintenance fund and use it for all maintenance including oil changes, alignments, new tires, etc.

Here’s how I spent the money in May:

Mortgage - $1,770. We have a 30-year fixed rate mortgage (which I wish was a 15!). We ultimately plan to pay it off FAR sooner, once we tackle our non-mortgage debt and beef up our emergency fund.

Life Insurance - $49. I pay monthly for a 20-year level-term life insurance policy.

Cell Phone - $171. Yes, this is painful. And yes, it’s only one cell phone. I have AT&T and unlimited everything. Too nervous to make the switch to a budget cell phone provider, but maybe one day.

Student Loan - $12,386.94. This includes my $375.63 minimum payment plus $12,011.31 in extra payments. My student loan is the only debt we have, and we have an ambitious goal of paying it off in 2019. A further breakdown of how I was able to send $12,386.94 to student loans this month is down below.

Gasoline - $185. I drive, at a minimum, 50 miles to and from work each day, and sometimes I drive extra for work, attending hearings/mediations/depositions, etc.

Tolls - $120. I have a 3-hour daily commute (an hour and a half each way—JUST to drive 25 miles in horrific Houston traffic). I happily pay extra to REDUCE my drive time down to ONLY three hours a day. This is ridiculous, I know. But, it’s the nature of the beast, and something I’ll gladly spend money on for now, even though it’s outrageously expensive.

Entertainment - $20.52 Netflix and Hulu subscriptions.

Medical/Dental - $305.85. Doctor’s bills and prescriptions, and a $250 deposit for my son’s upcoming dental surgery.

Groceries - $99.91. My husband usually handles the groceries out of his budget, but I picked up some things this month.

Eating Out - $93.81. Always my biggest budget breaker, and even though I budget for eating out separately, I always end up using both my fun money and eating out money for eating out. Last month, I went crazy and spent $217 on eating out. I’m happy to say that I reduced that amount by more than half this month!

Save As You Go - $21. I bank with Wells Fargo, and I’m enrolled in a program that takes $1 from your checking account every time you use your debit card and puts it in your savings account. It’s an easy way to automate savings and helps build your savings up, over time, and you barely notice.

Kid Activities - $100. Registration for summer swim league.

Home Improvement - $116.81. Miscellaneous items needed for the house like air filters, mulch, and a new laundry hamper and shower caddy.

Subscriptions - $10. For Dropbox I use in connection with work.

Miscellaneous - $40. Charges for Target that are on my card. Reduced this number from $123 last month! Big win!

Clothing - $72. I splurged on some new work clothes as my current clothes are getting a little tight. Eek.

Savings

For more information on how I manage my sinking funds, and the 5 sinking funds I think every budget should have, see this post!

This month, we spent a total of $900 on sinking funds, broken down as follows:

Birthdays/Other Gifts - $100. My son gets invited to no fewer than 6,487 birthday parties a year, so this fund really helps when those unexpected gifts need to be purchased. I also used the money from this sinking fund to pay for my son’s birthday party, which, this year, was at a Laser Tag/Arcade funplex.

Christmas - $200. Each payday, I add $100 to a Christmas sinking fund. By the end of the year, I have $2,400 to spend on Christmas!

HOA Dues - $100. I add $50 each payday to an Homeowner’s Association Dues sinking fund, so I can pay the dues without stress or worry when they come due at the end of the year.

Medical/Dental - $500. I usually put $100/payday into my medical/dental sinking fund, but had to increase this amount in May to pay for my son’s upcoming dental surgery. It is so stress free knowing the money is there, specifically allocated for this purpose when medical and dental costs arise.

Spending Breakdown By Category and Percent

Here’s a breakdown by category and percent of my total monthly spending. (This includes spending and sinking funds savings). I love that I managed to send 75% of what I spent to debt this month! Getting closer every month!!!

Debt Payments

In addition to my standard monthly payment of $375.63, I make an additional payment to my student loan (my only non-mortgage debt) on each payday. My extra payments this month totaled $12,011.31, for a total of $12,386.94 sent to debt this month!

Here, I break down those 2 extra payments, so you can see exactly how it’s done!

NOTE: When I budget, I usually round up, instead of budgeting the specific bill amount. Anything left over, I throw at the debt.

Extra Payment - May 1, 2019 = $6,261.31

For this extra payment, $801.57 came from the May 1 paycheck. (See my exact budget for this paycheck on Instagram, in my saved stories). But, where did the rest of the money come from?

• $188.69 came side hustling (affiliate marketing) (earned in April)

• $121.05 came from side hustling (blog income) (earned in April)

• $150 came from Facebook Marketplace Sales (earned in April)

• $5,000 came from an overtime payout I received in April

Extra Payment - May 15, 2019 = $5,750.00

For this extra payment, $342.90 came from my May 15 paycheck. But, where did the rest of this money come from?!

• $5,000 came from an overtime payout my husband received from work.

• $261.11 came from Ebates

• $40 came from a Facebook Marketplace sale (I sold a food processor we never used)

• $99.94 came from my cushion/buffer left over from my prior paycheck

• $4.37 leftover from my standard student loan payment (it’s $375.63 but I budget $380)

• $1.68 leftover from my life insurance payment (it’s $48.32, but I budget $50)

Total Debt Update

I began my debt free journey in January 2017 with $104,901 in student loan debt. I started this month (May 2019) with a student loan balance of $32,226.00. As of May 31, 2019, the balance is $19,954.48. Y’all I made it into the teens!!!!! With this month’s debt payments, I have paid 80% of my student loan, and I’m 80% of the way to freedom! 80%!!!!!!

And that’s a wrap! How about you?

• How did your budget and/or debt repayment go in May?

• Are you making progress on your 2019 financial goals?

• Do you have any questions about budgeting or paying off debt? Leave them in the comments below!

• Don’t forget to pin this article so your friends can see, too! Just click the image below!