June Spending and Expenses

I've just paid the credit card balances on my June/July statements and thought it might be interesting to disclose my largest expenses... for the record, I do use credit cards to rack up those reward points, but I never carry a balance unless I'm purposely using a 0% interest-card, for which I always pay the balance in full when the interest-free period ends.

Amtrak Guest Rewards Chase Mastercard, balance from 6/13 to 7/12 : $895

Selected items:
Wedding gift at Crate and Barrel: $65
Car rental for the wedding: $44
Gas for rental car: $19
Cable bill: $165 (roommate pays me half along with rent)
Charity donation for friends' fundraiser: $50 (matched by my employer!)
Bed, Bath & Beyond for curtains and rod: $54 (included $12 savings using a $10 off coupon and a 20% discount on the most expensive item)
Two Virgin America flights from Las Vegas to NYC (BF purchased the flights there): $358

Discover Cash Back Reward Card, balance from 5/26 to 6/25: $683

Selected items:
Mini shopping spree at H&M: $50
Furniture at Ikea: $121 (YIKES! I don't even remember what I bought!!!! All I remember was the salad spinner, and that only cost $4!!)
Fancy dress to wear at upcoming weddings: $183
Outlet shopping in Freeport, ME: $300 (got some great deals on hiking clothes, work clothes and some fun summer stuff, all of which I've already worn- ya!)
Champagne for bridal shower: $163 (Will be split with co-MOH)
Cheesecake Factory lunch w/ best girlfriends: $35

This adds up to more than my balance, because I also had a credit applied for a dress I returned at Bloomingdales. I immediately turned around and spent that money on the "fancy dress" listed above.

Other expenses:
Rent: Whole apartment is $2700/mo, my share is $1375 (I had to buy my old roommate out of her share of the furniture we bought together, so I'm charging my new roommate a slightly higher rent-share to compensate me for using all of my furniture. My old share was $1465, as my bedroom is considerably bigger.)
Furniture share: $420 (I paid her 40% of the half she paid for our furniture to account for depreciation)
Electricity: $99, split with roommate
Transportation to work: $5/day comes out to $100/mo



Oh- I just remembered that what I bought at Ikea: two large mirrors to hang in the living room, which I should have remembered more easily, since it took more more than an hour to them hang all by myself.

While I don't budget (yet), I have to say that it helps to type out all of these items myself, as it makes a bigger impact than just reading my statement. I spent way too much money on clothes last month, especially because I wear work clothes 5/7ths of my life and on the weekends I usually just go to some of my old favorites. As I've been traveling every weekend, I just stuff my favorites in my suitcase weekend after weekend and so the other items in my closet are being neglected. (I started a large donation pile to address this problem). Thus, I should not be buying so many casual clothes at H&M, Old Navy, etc.... they just won't get worn as often as they should to make them worth it. As my mom used to say, "anything that goes on your a$$ is not an a$$et!!"

I spent more than $400 on travel-related expenses this month. That's actually less than what I spend on travel/hotels/cars most months, because the hotel was free. I paid for a hotel stay in Puerto Rico, but it was in early June, thus was on an earlier CC statement.

Also to be noted are the expenses I DIDN'T have this month. My hotel stay for the wedding I went to was free, because I had stayed at that hotel last year on a ski trip and they totally botched our reservation, so I wrote them a polite complaint letter, and they sent me a free-stay voucher. Yeah! I didn't think I'd ever be up in that corner of the world again, but it's a good thing I saved the voucher b/c it was less than 10 miles from the wedding! (My mom's other favorite saying is, "Don't underestimate the power of the pen!") I saved $190 on the hotel. I also bought my flights via a Jet Blue sale (paid for on my May CC statement) and was even awarded 50 extra True Blue points for it because it was during a special promotion. YEAH!!

Goal for next month: LESS SPENDING ON CLOTHES! I do not need more clothes!!! I also do not feel the need to stay on the forefront of fashion, so there is no need for me to be constantly buying clothes. Plus, I will not be buying clothes right now until I lose another five pounds, so that I'm not left with clothes that are too big once I fit into all of my existing clothes again ;P Too much weekend eating on all of my crazy trips, I guess.