May Money Diaries // Last Week of May & Final Recap
For the month of May, I recorded my weekly expenses and shared them as my “May Money Diaries” (here’s Money Diary 1, Money Diary 2, and Money Diary 3). Inspired by the “Money Diary” series on Refinery 29 and The Luxe Strategist, I thought it would be interesting to see how I hold up against my budget and long-term financial goals. I think I’m quite disciplined with my spending, but I ocassionally have slip-ups - these usually occur around food (eating out with friends) and coffee shops.
Low Waste Food Haul #3 - Bird’s view of my grocery canvas bag. It weighed 10-15 pounds with the grapefruit, bittermelon, limes, and mushrooms pressing down on my right shoulder.
This money diary is late because my work and personal life became chaotic and I lost track of time. I almost didn’t post this money diary because I was ashamed of its late post timing; but I decided that a subpar finish would be better versus an incomplete ending to my May Money Diary series.
I don’t remember a lot from the last week of May. Examining the notes above, my spending habits aren’t out of the ordinary. The only note that bothers me is that I spent $9.24 for dinner on May 31st because I was really hungry and I needed more time to work on things at home. I could have meal prepped the evening before/morning of that Thursday ... I spent more of my eating out money AND produced waste. Not cool.
My total spending for the month of May:
Groceries: $68.40
Eating Out (Restaurants & Coffee Shops & Friend Dates): $111.92
Shopping: $84.34
Transportation: $57.75
Donations (Girls Run International and AIDS Walk): $57.38
Miscellaneous: $16.50
May Total Spending: $508.21
May Student Loan Payment: $1,200
May Total Earnings: $2,238
May Savings: $2,238 - ($508.21 + $1,200)= $529.79
I’m alarmed that I spent more than $500 on the above categories. As predicted, I spent the most amount of money on eating out, while shopping came second and groceries ranked third. That’s surprising because I thought I would have spent more money on groceries than shopping.
I could have saved $57.38 if I didn’t donate to two nonprofits. While it would have been good to save that, I firmly believe in sharing what you have to support others and I really wanted to support those two nonprofits. I was also aware that I would be earning extra income this month, so I felt comfortable donating that amount of money.
The miscellaneous amount ($16.50) was from buying two vegan pies (and a vegan sunflower chocolate chip cookie, for myself) as a welcome gift for my partner’s parents. I wasn’t given enough time to make something, otherwise I would have made a vegan Filipino dish.
Writing these weekly May Money Diaries was sometimes annoying, but it made me more conscious of my spending habits since I wrote down every single expense. I’m relieved that it’s over and I stayed committed to sharing my financial updates.
I think I did an okay job managing my money in May, but I need to work on curbing my “eating out” appetite. My eating out category was high this month because I was sick the first week of May and I had to eat out because I was too weak to cook soup for myself. (My partner doesn’t live near me so I couldn’t ask him to help me.) In my opinion, $111.92 is a lot of money for eating out and I would prefer only spending $60 - $70 maximum. I’ll need to discipline myself with my eating out habits this summer (June, July, and August) because I’ll be losing one of my babysitting clients at the end of June --> less income. I’ll also need to save more money for the possibility that I’ll be leaving the United States at the end of August.
