Friday, July 29, 2016

A new month

Payday today and I have been totally on top of keeping my budget spreadsheet up to date since last payday so everything was all ready to go for the new month. I'm going to try and track absolutely everything this month, I need to start having a proper handle on normal expenses as well as extraordinary expenses and for more than just a month or two at a time. Let's see if I can keep it up throughout August first and then I can worry about the following months.

So, I cleared out the loose change from my purse and will put that into my Sealed Jar and I took thrity euro out of the bank to do me for this week. I actually had fifty budgeted for this week but I'll see how far I get with thirty first. Ideally, I'd like to have that money to do my weekly shop next Thursday at the market rather than dipping into next week's money a day early, which I do far too often. I did go to the supermarket this afternoon and bought some treats so I've already spent just over ten euro.

From the supermarket:
  • 1 lt. milk (99c)
  • 1 carton of quark (35c)
  • 1 tube of smarties (1.69)
  • 1 packet of crisps (1.99)
  • 1 x 330ml Tannenzaepfle beer (89c + 8c deposit)
  • 1 x 500ml Export beer (49c + 8c deposit) - typically, having thought I'd really like to have a beer this evening, once I got home I ended up drinking a mug of milk instead but the beer will keep in the fridge for a while so it's all good
 Total 6.31 (I also got 25c back for returning an empty bottle)
From the little Turkish shop:
  • 1 punnet of strawberries (1.49)
  • 1 punnet of raspberries (2.99 - expensive as always but I ate the entire thing for my dinner,) 
Total 4.48

And I also topped up my phone, which cost 25 euro. They've changed their plans though, so I may switch to a different one next month. Will have to see if I can keep data down to less than 750mb per month. The plan I have now costs 19.95 per month and gives me 3GB. I usually use just about 1GB. Previously the next lowest option was 9.95 for 500MB per month but they've upped that to 1GB now. However, they've also introduced a 750MB option for 8.95, which adds 300 minutes of calls/texts to all German networks. At the moment I only have free calls and texts to my own network and since starting to work as a freelancer, I have been using the phone much more so this would be a very practical tariff for me. Either way, I think I will definitely be changing my plan at the end of the month.

1 comment:

Fiona said...

We are on a new budget kick starting now as well...or as soon as the last few items of house moving expenses are finalised. We should have much lower overheads now that we are doing the 'live local, work local' thing. I find tracking hard but we need to get back into the groove we had about 12 months ago.