September 2014 Income & Expenses

    September has come to a close and as October has started it is time to take a look back to see where all my money has gone! As expected due to moving out and getting settled in September was a very expensive month in comparison to my previous ones. Luckily income was pretty good as well this month which helped to balance the figurative checkbook.    
 
    So knowing that my rent and food costs would be going up a lot more I'v made an effort to pick up more hours to boost my income some, which resulted in my work income being a couple hundred dollars more than last month. Also with more hours comes a bit more tips which is under my 'other' income. No aquarium equipment sold this month, so its not as high as last time. Dividends were not as high as the last two months either but that is only due to having no quarterly payers hitting my account this month as i mentioned in my dividend update post. All in all not a bad month for income, I brought in about $200 more than last month.

Income	$
Work	1437.09
Other	49.25
Dividends	29.1
Total	1515.44

    So with income being higher, my expenses this month were also quite a bit higher than previous months as well. I spent nearly $500 more this month than in the last month. Which is not too bad on the surface considering rent is $500 more than what I was paying before, however looking deeper there is room to cut down on expenses which I think will happen fairly easily. August in of itself was an expensive month with lots of extra purchases preparing for the move and buying essentials that I didn't have for the apartment. Groceries were about on par with expectations, perhaps a little higher than they might due to buying more of the 'one of items' that only get used occasionally.
 
    September also had some extra costs in it that are out of the normal, such as a new phone and phone plan. I switched off of my Rogers (RCI.B) text only plan onto a Bell Canada (BCE) talk and text plan which required a newer phone. I managed to pick up a refurbished older LG 2 phone for only $75 outright, which was awesome. It has WiFi capability, so I skipped out on getting data and with Bells current promotion the first 8 months of the plan will cost me only $21, so I am quite happy with that. The cost of the phone and activation fee was placed into the Other category, along with some new fish and fish food I bought.

    Travel costs were comprised of buying Subway tokens since it didnt make financial sense to buy a monthly pass for September which would have been $133.75, so managed to save a little bit there. Entertainment wasn't that bad this month either, although I did splurge a little and bought a new game to play. That category also covers alcoholic beverages, always nice to have a cold beer or a bottle of wine with the lady after a long week of working :)

Expenses	$
Rent	750
Phone	21
Travel	112
Groceries	136
Restaurants	54
Entertainment	81
Other	186
Total	1215

    All told this month was quite expensive and I am aiming to spend a fair bit less next month as I wont have the extra costs of buying a new phone/game and to hopefully cut down further on grocery/eating out costs. Travel will be a bit more this month though due to buying a subway pass, however I calculated that I will be using it enough to at least break even and get ahead considering the $40 tax rebate offered by the government. This months saving rate is roughly 20% which is considerably lower than what I have managed to achieve in the past. I consider it very good though due to all the extra costs I have incurred this month and it gives me a better target to aim for this October. I am looking at hitting a reasonable savings rate between 25-40% this month. Lets see if I can make it!