Month One Summary

We're a few days overdue with this, but we managed to survive our first month living at the poverty line. $1260.84 doesn't go much farther than you think it would. We did make room for the few exceptions from the poverty line budget: student loan payments, credit card payments, travel expenses related to a previously planned trip for my sister's wedding, and a business expense involved with maintaining my online portfolio/site.

Overall, we ended up spending all but $7.94 of our budget allowance. We allotted ourselves a $200 grocery "food stamp" allowance, and spent only $187.91 of that.

For most of the month, we made a menu for each week before we went grocery shopping. That helped us make sure we only bought the items we needed and quantities that guarded against waste. We ate a lot of leftovers! We packed lunches for work.

The first 31 days of living in poverty was an adjustment for us in a lot of ways. We used to hop in the car and go to the mall or shopping centers even just to walk around. Because we have to stretch our gas tank more, we've eliminated those needless trips. We used to just go out for dinner or pick up something for lunch. With our "food stamps" those are not possibilities unless we take money from elsewhere.

I've copied in our budget from January below. The only columns I left out were those which we have previously mentioned we excluded. We do tithe (give 10%) our income to our parish, and I didn't put those numbers in here, because those are based on our actual income, not our "poverty" income.

Month:
January		Budget	Actual	Difference
1st-15th
Income:		$630.42	$630.42	$0.00
Expenses:
	Rent	$491.00	$486.28	$4.72
	Gas (Auto)	$40.00	$40.01	-$0.01
	Sprint	$165.00	$161.99	$3.01
	Progressive	$80.00	$80.17	-$0.17
	Hulu	$7.99	$7.99	$0.00
	Misc.	$50.00	$64.76	-$14.76
	Doctor	$50.00	$20.00	$30.00
	Total	$883.99	$861.20	-$22.79
	Difference	-$253.57	-$230.78	-$22.79
16th-31st
Income:		$630.42	$630.42	$0.00
Expenses:
	Electric	$90.00	$84.10	$5.90
	Gas (Auto)	$40.00	$40.10	-$0.10
	Car Payment	$189.00	$185.86	$3.14
	Internet	$55.00	$53.99	$1.01
	Misc.	$50.00	$27.65	$22.35
	Total	$424.00	$391.70	$32.30
	Difference	$206.42	$238.72	$29.70
	Income:	$1,260.84	$1,260.84	$0.00
Monthly Total:	Expenses:	$1,307.99	$1,252.90	$55.09
	Difference:	-$47.15	$7.94	$55.09