At the end of each month, I’d like to publish our expense report so you can see what we have been spending. Not only does this allow transparency, but also some accountability for Poopsie and I. Knowing we will have to include it in the blog will help us to keep costs down.
January was a pretty expensive month for us. It included the final week of my trip to Tasmania, which was not exactly a budget holiday. We also went to visit my parents for a week. Poopsie had his children for the entire Christmas holidays (six weeks in Australia) so their category was more inflated than it usually would be.
Without further ado, here’s our expenses:
Expense Reports - January 2016
| Category | Amount | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Blog | $71.40 | This is our yearly hosting cost for SiteGround |
| Rent | $1745.80 | Monthly rent. This is reasonably low for our area. |
| Internet | $228.95 | This will usually only be $50 a month. This month, we were charged a final month of usage for my old place, plus an enormous cancellation fee. |
| Utilities | $363.29 | These are the finalisation of my gas and electricity accounts from my old place. |
| Groceries | $433.82 | This is about half the cost groceries would usually cost us with two households. It was a strange month for us though, so I am not sure if future months will be around this amount. |
| Car Costs | $150.03 | This is extremely low, it will usually be higher. We did a lot of travel in January and those car costs are reflected in our travel category. |
| Kids | $2368.83 | This includes child support. Usually, child support and one phone bill is all that will feature in this category, except during school holidays when Poopsie has his kids. He had them for the entire Christmas period, so this reflects that. |
| Mobile | $61.85 | A little higher than usual. Due to the travel, we both used our phones a bit more than normal. |
| Household | $121.38 | This included a subscription to Microsoft Office and a one year membership to Trusted House Sitters . We'd like to start house sitting on our travels so have joined up to start building a profile. |
| Miscellaneous | $34.90 | Mostly foreign transaction fees plus two Udemy courses Poopsie bought. |
| Eating Out | $191.25 | Very high. Most of this was for my birthday dinner out. We want to try and limit our eating out to both of our birthdays and our anniversary. We also got takeout once due to laziness. |
| Entertainment | $25.10 | We went and saw Star Wars and bought my little brother's ticket. Well worth the cost. |
| Clothing | $20 | A new exercise t-shirt for me. |
| Travel | $905.58 | This encompasses the last week of my Tasmania trip and a trip to visit my parents for a week. |
| Gifts | $15 | My best friend had a baby. I bought him a gift. |
There you have it, our expenses. We’d love to hear what you think below.
How did you go saving this month? Can you see anywhere we can cut back?
Please note that the SiteGround link is an affiliate link. If you click on it and decide to sign up with SiteGround, Adventures with Poopsie will receive a small commission- but the price for you does not change. We only recommend products and services that we use and enjoy. All views are our own.
Hi AwP!
I saw your recent comment on Living a FI, so I thought I’d come out of the woodwork and make my first ever blog comment – I’m here, and I’m reading, and I’m appreciating what you do! (I’ve got your posts on my RSS Reader, so I don’t know if they count towards your site statistics). It’s great to have someone else in Australia writing about their journey, there are very few blogs here.
I’ve just started tracking our budget again this year (it’s been a long time since I’ve done that), and wow, your groceries certainly were cheap this month! We are only 2 adults, and we spent over $600 in January. I do see that as a category I can look at reducing, though.
Thanks for the link to SiteGround, too – I am currently looking for a host platform. Can you maybe write about why you chose them, and how you’re finding them?
Hi Mrs ETT, Thank you for your lovely comment. It’s great to know I have at least one regular reader! I agree, there are not enough Australian blogs in the early retirement realm, so I am happy to have my own.
I think most people could probably reduce their grocery spending- us included. We’ll be working at getting it down as we get more used to living together and shopping together.
I really recommend SiteGround. I’ll definitely do a post on it, so keep an eye out in the next couple of weeks.
Thanks again for reading!
hi AwP, just found your blog and have enjoyed reading, it’s very well written. Looking forward to follow the progress towards early retirement and a life of travel !
Hi FFA, thanks for the comment. I really enjoy your blog as well, and to think you’ve read mine is an enormous confidence boost! I’m not yet ready for early retirement but hopefully it comes quicker than planned. Your story has certainly given me some Australian based inspiration.
Your Tasmania trip seems like it was worth every penny! We were in Sydney almost two years ago and if we hadn’t been short on vacation days I would have loved to have extended the trip to Tasmania, and to NZ, and probably a hundred other places. I figure we’ll just have to get back there someday for a significantly longer stay. =)
Hi Mrs PoP, lovely to see you here! Tasmania was definitely worth it and if you ever come back to Australia, you must visit! I haven’t been to New Zealand yet but it is high on my bucket list, I have only heard good things.
Thanks for commenting 🙂 I hope you’ll keep reading