November has passed and it's really not been easy to maintain the tracking of our finances but my wife and I managed to get everything updated, although sometimes it was filled in a week late. So it's a bit difficult to guarantee complete accuracy but it is to the best of our memory and it seems to roughly tally with our cash at bank so far.
This how the month looked. I've left in September and October so that it provides a basis of comparison and from now on will try to display three months at a time to show a quarterly snapshot.
Looking at the month's results, we essentially did very well except for a huge gaping hole in the area of 'Miscellaneous Spending'. Even though 'Child Expenses' was slightly over the budget, it was justifiable because we topped up our supply of milk powder and diapers, which I may not have to buy some more until January.
But 'Miscellaneous Spending' was more than three times over the budget and that really hurt our wallets. There was one wedding, a baby shower, three birthdays, three dinners with our parents that I covered, some presents I bought for my family to thank them for their non-stop gifts to baby Nat and also the pregnancy check ups for Peanut which I've lumped under this category for now.
And December's not going to be any better because there are three weddings, Christmas presents, a baby full moon, a family trip to Singapore and then Church Camp in Ipoh as well. I just hope that I won't have to dig too much into savings because anything we save from now to June will be for the delivery and baby preparation costs for Peanut.
Moving away from the doom and gloom of miscellaneous spending, the family actually did great in most other categories.
We hardly go out for dinners and indulge over the weekends anymore, choosing instead to hang out at our parents' homes after work on weekdays and on weekends as well. They can't seem to get enough of Nat, who is the first grandchild on both sides and the joy I see on their faces every time they spend time with her is worth making every effort to ensure it happens as often as possible.
As we don't spend much time at our own home, we don't buy groceries except for necessities. We don't really need much ingredients in the fridge because if I'm lucky, I may get a home-cooked meal once every two months or so...I think we must have the emptiest, biggest fridge in the world.
Transportation continues to be significantly below budget because I still take the train to work. At the same time, I had some work trips to Singapore where I can claim expenses. And finally, when I have heavy report work, I usually do it from home and work remotely improving productivity (no crazy, downtown KL traffic) and cutting down spending.
Utilities have dropped significantly as well because we no longer use air-conditioning. It's been raining practically every day this monsoon season and so it's been cool enough to run with fans. And since we're hardly home, we only use electricity for the evenings; it's practically just a hotel room to go home and sleep in every night.
We ended the month beating our savings target of 6% by a tiny margin but I do feel a sense of satisfaction from meeting this goal, modest as it is. I have a feeling December's not going to be as positive but some concessions will have to be made for holiday and peak wedding season, I guess.
Going ahead, it's clear 'Miscellaneous Spending' continues to be the problem child among the different categories and if we are able to find a way to solve it, it would go a long way to enable us to have a healthy financial foundation for our family.
Is there anyway to continue to maintain close relationships if you don't go to birthdays, baby full moon parties and showers, weddings and bachelor parties? I'm rather antisocial as it is already and I may lose all two of my remaining friends...
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