That’s how I rationalize a lot of purchases, “I work hard for the money I earn and it’s just a few dollars here and there!”

When you really start taking a closer look at your finances, it becomes astonishing (and a bit frightening) to realize just how quickly it all adds up. Yesterday I posted a screen shot of our expenses for October and we ended up overspending in the “Groceries, Sundries, Pet Expenses” category by $382.00.

Here’s some more analysis showing how easily and quickly it adds up (at least in our household), with just a few dollars worth of things here and there. The “Groceries, Sundries, Pet Expenses” category came to $1732 and here’s how it breaks down into the various categories. I already analyzed Entertainment and Dining in the last post. About the “Fresh Vegetables” category, that is NOT the only fresh veggies we bought… when I have more time, I break my grocery store receipts down into meat, veggies, bread, pasta and a few more categories… this month, I only bothered to break down that one veggie purchase.

Here’s the household tally. I don’t really think these purchases are unreasonable… only a couple dollars here and there. I don’t usually buy Scrubbing Bubbles because I try to use as few chemical cleaning products as possible, but a friend insisted I buy some to try it. It hasn’t really impressed me. I try to pay as many bills as I can online, but I still need stamps once in a while.

You can’t beat $3.25 for 9 glass champagne glasses… I bought them and gave them to my friend, who is going to whine about getting $3.25 back? Well, as it turns out, she didn’t even have a toast at her wedding. At least if she did, it was after the cake cutting and several hours after the reception started. We left about two hours into the reception. The gifts for my mom were reasonable – I also bought her a recorder on clearance for $6.25 which I think I ended up listing in the Entertainment category, instead of as a gift. My friend – I haven’t seen her in two years and we just had to do lunch. She treated me to a movie, which was free since she works there. My boss totally took over the food for the wedding and I have been buying her a couple of things as additional thank you’s. I actually gave her another gift which came to $42 but it was listed in the wedding tally.

I don’t usually use Dove bar soap, but it was clearance… usually my son makes our soap, using our goat’s milk. But we ran out a couple months ago. I only use eyeliner and mascara… this makeup was purchased for extra to wear for the wedding. I never paint my nails either. This was part of my manicure and pedicure for the wedding.
My misc. category is very appropriately named and usually I only put things in there that I don’t know what the receipt was trying to say. If I put the receipts into Quicken sooner I’d probably be able to narrow it down. The CDs were on sale, can’t pass up that price and the stapler I’ve been needing a good one for over a year. I’ve been making due with two little cheapy models and finally decided to invest in a real stapler.

It’s almost time to pay bills for December, and I will be able to analyze the spending for November.