Expense Report: October 2014

I’m so glad that I made it through a full month of expense tracking. Taking a leaf from Mr 15HWW, I started tracking my monthly expenses on an app in my phone. It wasn’t all that difficult to do as opposed to being tedious. It’s all about taking my phone out each time I make a purchase and entering details of the purchase into the phone. If I were to procrastinate and not enter any data for a day, I would have to spend at least an hour the next day, trying to remember what I had done and spent the previous day (age is definitely catching up on me).

Total expenses this month chalked up to $3868.23 (including fixed expenses of $1900.99). The ambitious me would like to reduce the expenses by half, considering half of my variable expenses were one-time spends. With no prior data in hand, this month’s expense report will act as base data for next month’s analysis in order to determine how to improve my expenses.

November’s Cost Management Challenges: Reduce the costs of eating in restaurants to $200 and limit shopping costs to $150.

Transportation: $49

I don’t own a car so this is just a log of my commuting charges on the B.M.W (bus, MRT, walk). Most of the costs this month is from my daily commute on the train, along with a single taxi ride.

Food: $526.19

Like most Singaporeans, my largest variable expense is food. I love good food and tend to spend quite a bit in restaurants. More than half goes into Japanese food ($283.86).

Groceries: $68.25

While my mother cooks most of the time and usually shops for our groceries, I still buy some of the groceries that I need, like fruits and vegetables for juices and salads, yogurt and nuts for snacks, etc.

Shopping: $374

Clothes ($79.90) – I bought a vest from Zara earlier this month. Admittedly, it’s not exactly the best use of money considering that Zara’s clothes are neither cheap nor of the best quality for their prices.

21 year-old single malt whiskey ($215.30) – On the way out of the airport from my business trip in Sydney, I bought a bottle of whiskey from the Duty Free Shop.

Slow juicer ($75) and a glass bottle ($3.80) – A visit to Coles in Sydney made me realised that the packaged juices in Singapore were sold at exuberantly high prices. I had the opportunity to buy a second hand slow juicer (made in China) that was only used twice from a friend of a friend for 25% off the price it was sold on Taobao.

Miscellaneous: $412.70

Charity auction ($400) – My company held a small charity auction and I made a successful bid for a bottle of double barrel whiskey and a bottle of Japanese sake. The prices were high but it’s all for a good cause.

Google app purchase ($12.70) – I paid for an Android app to track my expenses. I could have used it for free but I want the additional features of cloud syncing and database export. It’s pricey but there are other apps that use a monthly subscription model which would cost much more in the long run.

Australia Business Trip: $537.10

I went on a business trip in Sydney, Australia for 10 days this month. Fortunately, most of the expenses on basic items like accomodation and melas were claimed under corporate expenses. For the extra days I have extended for my stay, I stayed in Sydney Central Youth Hostel which costs next to nothing compared to hotels and Airbnb apartments. The only splurge in this trip was having drinks with my colleagues at The Victoria Room but the live performances made it all worthwhile!