This very great and helpful idea came from Glo. Thanks, Glo!
Anyway, I’ve been freaking out trying to think of ways to save money considering that I already have a budget for everything. All this time I was thinking we’re not saving at all. I feel so especially guilty whenever we’re buying food or dining in at a restaurant. I always tell myself I should cook no matter what. But on the contrary, both IFC and I agree that we need to treat ourselves once in a while… not just in food but also on things like watching movies or shopping.
So I’ve laid out all our earnings and expenses for the last 4 months and made a graph for easier interpretation…
Summary:
38% - savings
18% - rent
10% - padala
09% - other expenses
07% - shopping
05% - groceries
05% - utilities
04% - personal allowance
03% - transportation
01% - restaurants
Notes:
- Rent gets the biggest portion of our monthly expenses… something that is not within our control.
- Utilities include telephone, DSL internet, electricity, laundry and phone cards for overseas calls to the Philippines. We try our best not to use IDD. Our electricity bill only peaks up during the summer because of air conditioner’s use.
- The restaurant expenses only came up to 1% because some of our eat-outs come from our monthly allowances. I still think it is minimal even if you add it up to the allowance’s 4%.
- I am proud to say that the 7% share for shopping included some of the Christmas gifts which we charged to our credit card, thus, paid in January. We’re not really crazy on shopping or should I say, we know how to control the urge. Lol.
- For the “others” portion, there was just an unexpected expense that we incurred last month. Had we have control of it we could have saved a total of 45% instead of only 38%.
Overall, I think we did great!
