At the end of every month, Mrs Budget and I will reconcile our monthly expenses and see what are we spending on, and where we can optimise or cut down our expenses.

We subscribe to the believe that every penny saved is a penny earned – sometimes its easier to save S$100, than to earn S$100, both of which results in the same net worth increase.

In May, here’s what Mr Budget spent on.

Expenses	May
Meals	$286.09
Entertainment	$65.49
Groceries / Home	$202.15
Shopping / Cloths	$7.50
Phone Bill	$40.00
Income Tax	$206.22
Hair Cut	$26.00
Singapore Mortgage	$1,113.84
Others	$644.33

Mr Budget’s total expenditure for May is at $2,591.62, a further reduction as compared to last month’s expenditure of $2,876.07.

Total essential expenses add up to only S$601.23 (meals, entertainment, groceries, phone bill).

If you strip it down further, bulk of the payment goes into mortgage payments and income tax. There was also a $644.33 expenses under the “Others” category made for a miles redemption program as well as a wedding angpao for a friend.

For Mrs Budget, here’s what she spent on.

Expenses	May
Meals	$126.78
Family	$600.00
Groceries / Home	$202.15
Phone Bill	$25.00
Endowment	$303.97
Shopping	$63.34
Gifts (Wedding Festives)	$55.15

Similarly, Mrs Budget also only spent $1,376.39 this month. Total essential expenses add up to only S$353.94 (meals, groceries, phone bill), while the others are variable expenses. Mrs Budget continued her monthly family contribution of S$600 as well as her monthly contribution to her endowment plan.

This monthly numbers also serves as a good indication of our cash flow when we retire, so now we have a good idea of how much we need to retire.

We don’t foresee any big expenditure coming in the next few months, and we will continue to tighten our belts and watch our cash outflow so that we can tide through this uncertain period.

In terms of our expenses, it is hard to further optimize our monthly expenses as we think they are reasonably low and within our expectations.

Our meals and groceries adds up to S$817 per month. If we divide that to 2 meals a day for 30 days, our cost per meal is at S$13.62.

We can definitely aim towards reducing that to S$10 per meal if we want to, but we would have to give up our indulgence like fishes and our love for vitagen, and that would slightly diminish our happiness.

May Meal and Groceries Total Cost	S$817.08
Cost per meal (60 meals / 2 meals a day)	S$13.62

How has May been like for you?

October 2019 Monthly Expenses Update
November 2019 Monthly Expenses Update
December 2019 Monthly Expenses Update
January 2020 Monthly Expenses Update
February 2020 Monthly Expenses Update
March 2020 Monthly Expenses Update
April 2020 Monthly Expenses Update

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