Just as I expected, once Halloween hit time suddenly went into warp speed! But I didn't want to miss sharing how I spent my personal allowance in the past two months.

This has been such a helpful exercise this year and I'm looking forward to continuing next year. A couple people have requested that I also share how Chris and I spend our joint allowance each month, for which we budget $150 - although I think we aren't as good about sticking to that. One date night + babysitter pretty much takes it all.

Next week we'll have our annual financial summit and go through our 2017 spending. We'll see where we stuck to our budgets well, where we didn't, and how we want to set budgets for 2018. This year was the first year we really got our Mint budgets aligned with our spreadsheet budget and that we consistently tracked and categorized all year. That means we have a year of great spending and saving data to inform our budgets and goals for next year. It's the stuff of dreams, friends!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, here's how I spent in October and November...

What I spent in October:

$11.75 - fall drinks for Erica and myself for our Fall Extravaganza outing

$7.22 - snack with a friend before the Befriend Gin workshop

$11.73 - drink at book club

$14.70 - happy hour at Joyride

Total spent in October: $45.40 out of $100 budgeted.

What I spent in November:

$2.11 - coffee during a Sunday morning work session

$30 - PHX Flea admission, drink, ornament gifts

$12.77 - lunch with a friend at La Bocca and the best caprese sandwich I've ever had in my life

$10.31 - breakfast out with work colleagues

Total spent in November: $55.19 out of $100 budgeted.

September $280.23 out of $100 budgeted.

August $204.48 out of $100 budgeted

July $74.39 out of $100 budgeted

June $92.32 out of $100 budgeted

May $92.21 out of $100 budgeted

April $117.18 out of $100 budgeted

March $101.35 out of $100 budgeted

February 2017: $78.57 of $100 budgeted

January 2017: $126.25 of $150 budgeted