A Money Diary: June

You may have noticed we’re big fans of tracking expenses. It’s synonymous with the ethos of this here publication: taking the shame out of discussing money.

Refinery29 has been publishing some interesting weekly Money Diaries lately — while the demographics and lifestyles of their subjects are rather homogenous, it’s still a fascinating look behind the financial veil, and I’ve been reading them with a strong dose of voyeuristic glee.

Budget Planner – Personal Expense Reports, Money Diary

So, this June, I’ve decided to track every purchase I make. It’ll be fun/humiliating, and hopefully, along the way, I’ll learn something about my spending habits and patterns. This is especially necessary for me since I haven’t done any budgeting or tracking since I moved to Toronto and went freelance full-time. I KNOW MIKE, I’M SORRY.

Feel free to follow along with your own diary in the comments! (Also, all amounts are in Canadian $ unless otherwise noted.)

First up, my fixed monthly expenses:

Rent, including utilities: $1450

Insurance (car & apartment): $161.62

Note: I pay $70/month for my cell phone, currently lumped into a family plan — I’ll be paying my parents back at the end of the year. Additionally, they pay my ClassPass membership ($120/month). These were costs they took on when I was making the move to Toronto and unsure about my income situation. (Still unsure!) We’re in negotiations — my reliance on my parents as a safety net is a continued source of concern for me, and something I spend a lot of time trying to reconcile.

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