September summary

I'll just call out a few key things:
Food spending in September was only $514.20! My belt-tightening efforts paid off. I thought I might even come in under $500 but I bought a couple bottles of wine last night that pushed me over. I was a little over budget on groceries and liquor but well under on restaurant meals, buying lunch, etc. I'm still $300 over budget year to date for food overall, but maybe I can balance this out by year's end.

Areas where I am under budget year-to-date:
Travel: I didn't take any big trip this year, so I have $1300 left to spend in the rest of the year. I'll probably spend about $500 of that in a couple of weeks when I go up to Massachusetts to do some hiking and visit family, and another $200 or so at Christmas, but I should still have some leftover money to put into savings.

Clothing: I have about $300 left for the rest of the year. But I also have a 15% off coupon that is good on any one day's worth of purchases at Macy's this month, and it's that dangerous change of season time, so I doubt that $300 will last long!

Miscellaneous: I have about $300 left. Somehow I managed to buy less random unclassifiable crap, I guess. But who knows what kind of random unclassifiable crap I could spend money on in the next 3 months. Part of the reason I'm under budget is that haircuts fall in this category and I have been getting my hair cut less frequently. I'll have to make that Rule #11: Grow your hair out!

Gym: I'm $650 under budget. This is a weird one, because I pay up front for a year's membership, and sometimes they throw in an extra month or two for free, so this isn't a regularly scheduled expense. If I buy a new pair of running shoes or something, it will go under this category rather than clothing, but I think I'll manage to just save most of this money.

Over budget areas: most notably Household (new futon) and Medical (illness), and also payroll taxes. I'll have to go back and look at how I budgeted that, I"m not sure why I'd be so far off.

Net worth today is $245,124.76! I've already hit the goal I set for year-end. Aside from cash savings and investment gains, what really helped me this month was remembering to submit my work expenses-- over $1000 in reimbursements came through!

Onwards and upwards!