November and December are always the most expensive months for me. This year is no exception. On top of the regular monthly expenses, as I've noted before, my car insurance is due this month for the year, which is a pretty substantial expense.

Plus, for the next three months I'm paying our full rent amount to reimburse Peter for my share of the wedding expenses. He's managed our wedding bank account and covering the big expenses out of that (photographer, venue, food, etc.) We're splitting the cost 50/50, but he feels weird about me writing him a big cheque for my share, so instead of that I'm going to take over the full rent and such until February.

Christmas is coming too. 53 days! That means buying gifts, going to parties and events, and other festive randoms that cost money--baking and crafts and such. I hate the commercialism of Christmas but at the same time, I don't really do anything to minimize it.

Without further ado, here is my budget for November:

Rent: $1,500
Car insurance: $1,222
Car expenses (gas, tire change, oil change, bridge toll, etc.): $200
Groceries and household expenses: $100
Gifts: $500*
Wedding thank-you cards and postage: $125
Miscellaneous: $200

Goals:
-no new clothes. I don't need new clothes. I don't need new clothes. I don't need new clothes. This will be my mantra. (Bet your little buttons I'll be marking catalog pages and leaving them around the apartment as Christmas hints!)
-bring my lunch every day this week. I brought lunch today. Tomorrow I'm on a video shoot all day and catering is provided. So that only leaves three lunches I'll need to pack--totally doable.
-the $500 for gifts is totally a shot in the dark. It could very easily end up being more than this. I'm basing this on a rough guesstimate and the fact that there's no way in hell I'll be done my Christmas shopping during the month of November, as much as I want to think I will, so I'm thinking I'll spend $500 now and X amount in December...but we'll see what actually happens once my shopping list is complete.

Also a little tidbit of note: the wedding thank-you cards and the extra rent money are already in my account. They won't be coming out of my take-home pay (THANK GOD). I've been setting aside $300-500 each month since the beginning of the year to cover my share of wedding costs so even with November's high expenses my account's in good shape.