Fresh New Budget!

This was a month of spending……for my trip to Scotland! Everything is paid for by my Travel Savings Account. Otherwise everything else is about the same.

The Good:

• overestimated utilities by $30.00 – the weather has been much warmer than usual for this time of year!
• I underspent for gasoline and food! I went to the grocery store only 4 times over the month spending $197 of my $280 budget. Kazi ate out a lot with friends – that’s the only reason I can come up with why my food spending was so low. Not complaining 🙂 Also had $20 left in the gas account. I’ve been walking a LOT! as it’s been so mild.
• Interest from investments comes due in Feb. and March which replaces a lot of what I spent on travel. 
• went to the 27th annual Firehall reunion! I used to go to the Firehall before they started having reunions ( a loooong time ago!!) – my initiation into the blues! It was an awesome night made even awesomer by the fact that Kazi tended bar that night so my friend and I got in free (“we’re on the list”) and got free beer – love you Kazi!
• Transferred $1,000 to savings – my usual monthly amount. 
• Have enough misc fund money left to purchase more British Pounds Sterling 🙂 

The Bad:

• my original iPad has been gradually falling apart and not functioning well. I used it mainly for reading: both downloading books from the library and purchasing books via my Amazon Kindle app. To me this is a NEED not a WANT (or maybe it’s both!) so I forked over $372 for a new basic mini-iPad. Used savings to cover the cost. I love the smaller size for reading in bed. I can’t tell you how many times I have fallen asleep while holding my big old iPad and the pain when it hit the bridge of my nose was awful! The mini doesn’t hurt nearly so much 😂 !!
• Ummmmm, need to rein in the Amazon spending spree! And iTunes! It’s just way too easy to purchase music and books etc especially now that I have free delivery on many items from Amazon. I purchased several guide books for upcoming travel, a few other books which support my future plans, and a COMPASS! I just need to learn how to use it! 
• Had to pay, yes PAY for a haircut for the first time in 15 years. It was less than $20 but still…
• Renewed my Ancestry.ca membership ($299) paid by savings

Misc Spending:

• In addition to the above I had a nice dinner out
•  went to see “Lion” – the movie about a lost boy in India who gets adopted by a couple from Australia and how he finds his home village using Google Earth. Excellent movie – needed multiple kleenexes however! 
• Paid for Turbo Tax and completed my taxes – yippee! 
• two trips to LCBO (one was for a birthday party of a friend – honest!!)
• have developed an addiction to pistachios!! $10.00 a bag!! Oh well, could be worse…right?
• okay – here’s a good one. Apparently I bought a top and can’t even remember what it looks like! I guess I didn’t really need it, did I?

So a very spendy (in a good way)(mostly) kind of month! 

Bring on March!!