Expense Report: November 2014
Second month into my expense tracking and I’m starting to get use to doing this. My total expenses for November is up to $3151.21 (including fixed expenses of $1900.99). While I didn’t manage to reduce my variable expenses by half like I wanted to, I’m glad to find that many one-off expenses were greatly reduced. November’s challenge was a partial success because while I failed to reduce the costs of eating in restaurants (for good reas0ns), I managed to reduced my shopping expenses to ZERO!
The biggest impact to my expenses this month was going for a Tonsil operation to remove my defective tonsils that have caused me to fall ill on several occasions. I chose to do the operation this month because it’s the quieter part of the year where there wasn’t a lot of work to do and I could spend 2 weeks on medical leave, working from home. The best thing was that my insurance agent informed me that the operation would be 100% covered by my shield plan because I had bought a rider on top of the basic shield plan previously. As I was spending half of November at home recuperating, expenses should be reduced by quite a bit.
Every week, I’ll be sharing practical tips and invaluable knowledge to guide you on your path to financial independence.
December’s Cost Management Challenges: Reduce spending on snacks and desserts and limit to $30 (50% reduction) for both financial and health reasons.
Transportation: $43.99
Commuting charges on the B.M.W (bus, MRT, walk) went down a little this month due to my 2-week medical leave and working from home.
Food: $513.91
I thought that I would spend less on food after the operation but because the tonsils hurt so much, I spent more money on soft food and desserts.
Groceries: $9.90
I didn’t buy much groceries this month because I couldn’t eat any of them anyway.
Shopping: $0
Woohoo! I actually didn’t do any shopping this month at all. I’m pretty proud of myself for not spending money buying anything I don’t need.
Entertainment: $339.86
Entertainment expenses went up quite a big this month as a Japanese friend was visiting Singapore this month so I brought him to a nice dimsum restaurant for some food. We also had a birthday celebration for a friend of mine so we treated him to dinner.
Miscellaneous: $342.56
Birthday gift ($40) – I contributed some money for a friend’s birthday gift. Well worth the price because he liked it very much.
IC Re-registration fees ($10) – I paid $10 to re-register my IC. Everyone has to do it at the age of 31.
Haircut ($10) – Got a haircut to look decent for a change.
A return ticket to Taipei in January 2015 ($282.56) – I saw that Scoot had a pretty decent promotion for flights to Taiwan and since I had to clear some of my annual leaves early next year, I bought a return flight to go for a well-deserved holiday.