I can't believe it's already February! Goodness, time is flying by this year. I took a look at my spending for the year, and where I did my spending - and where I exceeded my budget.
As usual, the bulk of my spending was on business expenses. This month more so than usual, too. I had to file/pay my sales tax from the entirety of 2014 - and purchase the vendor's license I didn't realize I needed. I also bought a new lens for $1,300 this week. A big ouch, yes. It's one that I planned on purchasing this year regardless, as I've been renting it for weddings. And I decided to get it earlier than expected because it was on sale at my local camera store, I get to deduct the rental expenses on the lens (within 30 days), and there was a $100 rebate at the store that wasn't online. So it's the cheapest I would have gotten it. Nonetheless, it's still an ouch. And I had to draw from my savings account. So I owe $1200 to that account for tax expenses. If I can't make it up before tax time, I'll just pull from the vacation account.
Everything else was pretty usual. I actually ended up spending under my budget for groceries, restaurants, and gas.
I made about as much as I expected to this month - but only because I had about $400 from selling books and camera equipment. The income from my business was about as much short, which was quite the bummer. I really expected to a couple of weddings this month, but with the bridal show being such an epic bust that didn't work out so well.
Thankfully, though, I have a bigger project coming up for the next couple of months - conceptualizing and building out a website for a previous employer. So that'll definitely help cushion things a bit for the winter, when I'm generally pretty slow. Nonetheless, I need to be really picky with what I spend on this month.
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In good news, the dress I ordered online to hopefully be my wedding dress arrived - and it looks great! I'm proud to say that I found a dress for a whopping $35!!!! The dress I found and Nordstrom Rack (shorter, but still really adorable and dressy) was $26, and will be my rehearsal dinner dress.
For anyone who is interested in seeing what it looks like...
Next weekend I'm having my bridesmaids, mom, and future mother in law over for brunch to discuss wedding plans and sift through some of the ideas I have. Really excited to get everyone together - particularly because our moms haven't met yet. Big stuff coming up.
It's been really fun trying to come up with awesome ways to cut down on the cost of the wedding. I'm a very competitive person, and "beating the system" is oddly satisfying to me
I look at these wedding forums where I see girls paying upwards of $3k for flowers, and I'm like NOPE. I'm going with silk flowers - cheaper, and I can keep them forever and use them again. I'm really big on purchasing things for the wedding we can use again. lol. I may be a strangely practical bride, but I can't remember the details of a single bouquet in any wedding I've been to (or shot). Some things just aren't that important. It also helps that we're getting married in a barn, so we can really milk that "rustic" thing for all it's worth
February 1st, 2015 at 08:44 pm 1422823488
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February 2nd, 2015 at 12:45 am 1422837922
February 2nd, 2015 at 02:27 pm 1422887266
@LuckyRobin: Finding a book at the library is a great idea! There is so much information out there between the library and tutorials online. For anyone that's even relatively crafty, I feel like it should be pretty simple. I feel much more comfortable knowing that someone else has successfully made it happen!
@FrugalTexan75 + @Kiki: Thanks so much!