Inaugural Spending Analysis!

I feel naked.

I'll you what -- never have I looked this carefully at spending. I am again shocked, shocked, to see that as a percentage of total montly spend, TAXES completely dominate the pie chart. At 22% of total expenditure (even in months when I "splurge" on dining) on average the next largest category is RENT and that amounts to only 11% -- half the tax figure! Eeegads.

I won't go line by line in this post -- you can double-click the image and see my comments and observations in the notes section. Here are the changes we're making for the remainder of October:

1) No more separate line items for grocery and dining. You can see the obscene combination of those two categories above. We've added "Allowance" and it amounts to $140 for the week. To get my better half involved and paying attention to The Turnaround, we split the $140 and do our own shopping or eating out. In essence, we're each responsible for feeding our own-selves, be it eating out or groceries. This worked great last week -- I had $25 left over and we used that for a cheap meal out on Thursday night. He had $20 left and we used that for the movies last night (go see Serenity). Because of the surprise surplus, we're going with a $120 allowance next week.

2) No more debit card usage. No quick coffees, snacks, books, magazines on the card. If you want it, it comes out the allowance. Want a magazine? Eat less or eat on a budget.

3) Acute focus on the Bank Charge line item. Make sure it's zero in October. Oversights are too costly!

4) Mandatory 10% deposit to savings account with each paycheck. This is going to be hard for us, since there are a few pressing debts to pay. But we need that buffer in case of emergency and need to get into the discipline of saving.

5) I considered eliminating charity until things are under control. Right now, I'm spending roughly $100 per month to causes, which is about 1/5 of what it should be if I were sticking to the 10% rule so to cut this seems ridulously petty. Instead, I'm going to try to stick to the $100 and actually grow my overall contributions by volunteering actual hours -- I learned on Friday that my employer will donate "matching grants" to charity of my choice based on my volunteer hours worked.

6) No extravagancies. No new electronics or sporting equipment or major gifts. A true test of discipline, my birthday is at the end of this month and I know the hubby is going to want to do something special. I'll have to persuade him that a) I don't want anything expensive (I really don't) and b) he shouldn't feel bad about it (he really shouldn't).

7) Explore the whole tax thing. Other than start up my 401K, I don't know what I can do to lower my payroll taxes. Open to suggestions.