Budget Tracking : Jan 2016

Inspired by my favourite finance blogger - Mr 15HWW, I hope to document my monthly expenses.

I've been tracking my spendings diligently every day and it has become a habit for me to key in my spendings into my spreadsheet. I could do it on the go as well as I synced it to my phone. While there are times when I forgot to key in, I'd do so the following day. This makes me remember what I've spent on and let me know how much I've saved vs my earnings.

However, I don't really analyse my spendings. For eg, if I spend more this month on food than the other months, I don't really care or be mindful of my spendings next month. I see myself as a disciplined and self-controlled lady and also believes in eating well. But my meaning of eating well is not to eat abalone, seafood and shark fins everyday la! It's more of eating healthy or food that I feel happy eating with my colleagues, fiance or family :) Also to share, I seldom eat cold desserts or snack a lot cause I've a really weak stomach (I guess this is a boon for my pockets!).

Also, contrary to the 15HWW household, I'm still living with my parents so, my fixed expenses is.....$500 to my parents LOL and $25 for handphone bills. I understand that this is the time for me to save as much as I can and invest slightly/conservatively! My fiance better buck up in terms of saving hor!


Fixed expenses: $525

• Allowances to parents - $500
• Hp bill - $25

Variable expenses: $653.31

• Food - $140
• Mostly spendings during weekday lunches. I'm blessed to have "free" dinner during weekdays and occasional (ok la, many) "free" lunches/dinners during weekends when I pator with my bf. My bf very poor thing hor? :P
• Shopping - $463.31
• Online purchases like RAM from Amazon for bf and CNY stuffs like abalone for my parents and his mum, dresses for CNY and CNY stuffs from NTUC for my family.
• Transport/Ez-reload - $50
• I don't drive and live pretty near the MRT so $50 is usually enough for my monthly transport, unless I travel to "Malaysia" to visit my bf (you geddit?)

Variable Earnings (not including salary): $926.23

• I'm actually not comfortable revealing my earnings (definitely not my salary la!) but thought that I should offer some glimpse to how I earn extra $ through the following:
• interest rates - from OCBC 360
• selling my items 
• credit card rebates 
• credit card signing perks - receive $ by spending the minimum amount required!

Surprisingly this month, I earned a lot. Mainly because I sold an expensive brand-new item (in 3 digits) that actually covered my variable expenses! 厉害吧！But, this is just a one-off thing la. I've nothing expensive to sell already :(

Till then!