Pay Day May 2014

Now that I’ve survived most of my graduate studies course work (one project left, and so close to done I can taste freedom) I have a bit of time to talk about my budget. I’ll talk in a separate post about living on a variable income while in school, but for the moment we’ll just look at how my reduced income is divided up. My income from disability insurance when I’m not working is a total of $2,795.59.

Housing

Mortgage - $1,564.82

House Maintenance - $315.00

Housing Taxes - $192.00

House Insurance - $72.00

Utilities – $225

Total – $2,368.82

Transportation - $0

Savings - $0

Life

Food - $100

Cell – $30

Internet - $60

Health Insurance – $23.52

Clothes - $0

Gifts - $10

Misc - $10

Big Ticket Item - $100

Entertainment - $10

Social/Sports - $10

Financial Planning - $14

Cat - $15

Slush – $44.25

Total - $426.77

Of Note:

- Since living on a variable and reduced income I’ve been writing how much came in at the top of a piece of paper and subtracting expenses (essentials mostly) in terms of importance.

- Transportation is at $0 since I still have my student bus pass and have a good chunk of change saved for train and taxi rides.

- Savings is at $0 for two reasons. The first is I won’t be making an RRSP contribution since my income will be low (more on investing plans at a later date). The second is I’m concentrating on getting my house paid off to decrease interest costs and meet my 5-year goal.

-I spend a little more than $100 a month on food but I had quite a bit accumulating some I’m working on that. Clothes is at $0 because I have $130 saved up and I still don’t need any clothes.