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.

We also continue our tracking to know where our big money outflow is going instead of wondering why is our bank account balance not increasing.

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

Expenses	July
Meals	$302.04
Groceries / Home	$466.11
Phone Bill	$40.00
Insurance	$1,666.00
Income Tax	$206.22
Hair Cut	$10.00
Malaysia Condo Fees	$1,118.14
Singapore Mortgage	$1,020.32
Others	$18.00

Mr Budget’s total expenditure for June is at $4,846.83, a significant increase as compared to last month’s expenditure of $2,591.62.

The increase is mostly due to the annual insurance payment of S$1,6666, our condo quarterly management fee, as well as the TOP fees of Mr Budget’s Malaysia condo, which is finally ready for key collection.

What this also means is that we will need to spend more money on renovation and hopefully we can rent it out soon to get some additional income to cover the cost of the mortgage.

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

Expenses	July
Meals	$218.89
Family	$600.00
Groceries / Home	$466.11
Phone Bill	$25.00
Endowment	$303.97
Insurance	$87.00
Shopping	$147.15

Mrs Budget on the other hand, spent $1,848.12 this month. 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.

For the next few months, there will be huge cash outflow for Mr Budget as he will need to fork out renovation fee for his Malaysia condo, as well as start his full monthly payment for his condo. This will cause a strain on his cash flow if he did not manage to find a tenant soon.

Hence 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$745.82 per month. If we divide that to 2 meals a day for 30 days, our cost per meal is at S$12.43, a slight improvement from June.

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
May Cost per meal (60 meals / 2 meals a day)	S$13.62
June Meal and Groceries Total Cost	S$835.01
June Cost per meal (60 meals / 2 meals a day)	S$13.92
July Meal and Groceries Total Cost	S$745.82
July Cost per meal (60 meals / 2 meals a day)	S$12.43

How has July 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
May 2020 Monthly Expenses Update
June 2020 Monthly Expenses Update

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