I have this horrible habit of throwing my budget to the wind when I notice that I’m falling off the wagon. I figure if I’m already screwing up, I might as well have a good time doing it.  March was one of those months. I went over my budget in several areas, and then I decided to stop tracking my budget altogether.

All things being considered, things didn’t end nearly as horribly as they usually do when I have months like these. I’m at a point in life where I don’t have many things that I want or need to spend my money on, at least not that I can afford. All the things I really want are in the $200+ dollar range and require budgeting, planning and adulting – meh.

Here is where my accounts stand:

Liquid Assets	Feb-17	Mar-17	$ Change
Cash & Savings	$1,425	$600	-$825
Emergency Fund	$3,009	$3,026	+$17
Short Term Savings	$300	$500	+$200
Long Term Savings	$144	$154	+$10
Illiquid Assets	Feb-17	Mar-17	$ Change
Brokerage	$197	$287	+$90
Savings Bonds	$1,315	$1,445	+$130
Incoming	$0	$76	+$76
Retirement Accts	Feb-17	Mar-17	$ Change
Roth IRA	$13,600	$ 14,492	+$892
Traditional 401K	$15,364	$17.157	+$1,793
Net Worth	$35,354	$37,737	+$2,383
% Change			+6.7%

Goal Progress:

Fund/Goal	Contrib.	Total	Goal	Progress
401K	$1,476	$5,462	$18,000	30.3%
Roth IRA	$810	$2,030	$5,500	36.9%
Emergency Fund	$147	$4,471	$5,500	81.3%
Vacation Fund	$200	$500	$500	100.0%
Vanguard Fund	$10	$154	$3,000	5.1%

I’m still on track for meeting all of my goals! My vacation fund was a super short term goal that I easily met over a span of two months.

Category	Budgeted	Actual	Remaining
Rent	$1,650	$1,650	$0 left
Fixed Expenses	$100	$87	$13 left
Medical	$-	$600
Food	$200	$286	$86 over
Everything Else	$250	$314	$64 over
Total	$2,200	$2,337	$137 over

Rent: I paid the usual: a lot. I choose to live close to work.

Food: I paid only $150 on groceries this month, but I ate out more than usual. I took a friend out for her birthday ($30) and overall was feeling lazy in regards to food preparation.

Fixed Expenses: No surprises here.

Everything Else:

Some extras this month include:

• $40 in gift purchases for the friends I am visiting next month.
• $35 for new floor lamps

Medical Expenses: I don’t include medical expenses in my monthly budget (I am reimbursed with my FSA). But I had a couple big expenses this month all of which are related to my health problems.  I still have a sizable FSA, but may have to wait another year to get my wisdom teeth removed. My health costs this year are a little higher than I had anticipated. Still, they are on a downward trend in comparison to last year.

But the way things are going I may have to start a new treatment that would require monthly infusions.  If it works I’ll need it for the rest of my life. This will be fairly expensive. We’re trying one more thing in hopes that I don’t have to go that route, but it looks likely.

Coming in April:

I’m buying no groceries. And will have absolutely no spending for the first 9 days. On the 10th day I’m going on a 10-day international vacation!

My hotel/lodging arrangements are set, and much cheaper than I expected.  I have a general idea of how much I want to spend on this vacation but I’m not trying to make a big deal about it.

If I can manage no spending in the first 9 days, I will have a $200 food budget and a $250 miscellaneous expense budget to use for my vacation. This would be ideal because I may not even have to dip into my savings for this vacation! A business trip soon after means that I won’t be home for most of April and won’t actually need any groceries this month.