Estimated reading time: 13 minutes
Get a glimpse into our May 2024 budget breakdown. Discover how we save and spend money with our monthly budget update.
Why I Share Our Monthly Budget
For anyone new to CBB, this briefly explains our monthly budget update.
I look forward to putting this post together as it lets us see where we spend our money.
A budget also acts as a diary for your expenses so you can look back to see success and failure.
Our budget update also lets readers know that we are not perfect and must make changes like everyone else.
We use the tools (Free budget Binder), and I hope you have downloaded your free copy.
Alright, let’s get into this.
Percentages For Our May 2024 Budget
Our year-to-date percentage chart is another way to chart our household budget.
May 2024 Household Budget Percentages
Savings of 57.22% include investments and savings based on our net income.
Our life ratio is 21.75% and contains everything from groceries, entertainment, miscellaneous items, health/beauty, clothing, etc., all variable expenses.
Thankfully, we are under budget in these categories, unlike in April, when it shot up.
Transportation is 1.28%, which covers gas, insurance, and maintenance for our vehicle, which is fully paid.
Our house and vehicle are paid for, and we have zero consumer debt; however, we still pay property taxes and maintenance fees. In April, this cost was 28.78%.
The projected expenses of 12.69% can change based on what we encounter monthly, such as a new item we need to save for.
52-Week Savings Challenge
In December, I started a 52-week Savings Challenge and asked my readers if they wanted to participate.
Below is the jar we created to save the money for twelve months.
Our son wanted to participate, so he decided to save his allowance or any other money he earned.
He’s saving $5 weekly from his allowance in the savings jar.
The yearly total to date, May 2024, is $100 in savings.
He created a Moolah Jar label for his money savings jar, which I thought was funny.
Hello, It is TSFASaver here with my monthly update for May 2024
- In May, I sold a metal set of obelisks –that I no longer wanted for my garden for $30.
- I used up $10.50 in coupons over the month.
- Lucky me, I found $1 in a cart on a rainy day.
- I used $10 of Rexall Points.
- I received a $60 Visa card for the Quaker Rebate (from the recall ages ago) – I spent the card on groceries and transferred the amount to savings.
Instead of buying a birthday cake, I made one that saved me $15 and tasted better, too.
Total: $126.50 into my savings account towards a TFSA this year.
I will try to transfer the amounts ASAP into my savings so I don’t forget to do so!
Thanks!
Grocery Food Savings Jar May 2024 Update
Why will we track our grocery discounts for the entire year?
Tracking Our Grocery Discounts For One Year + Free Printable
I will tally it at the end of the year to see how much we saved buying reduced food products.
Read the 2023 End of Year Grocery Food Savings Jar Review.
We saved $172.87 for May using coupons, rewards apps, and Flashfood.
So far, in 2024, purchasing discounted food has saved us $673.83.
May 2024 Budget Estimation and Actual Budget
Below are two tables: Our May 2024 Budget and our Actual Budget.
Our May 2024 budget represents two adults and a 9-year-old boy.
Budget Colour Key: It is a projected expense when highlighted in blue.
Since May 2014, we’ve been mortgage-free, redirecting our money into investments and home improvement projects.
Spending less than we earn and budgeting has been the easiest way to pay off our debt and save money.
This type of budget is a zero-based budget where all the money has a home.
Estimated May 2024 Budget
We may not need all the money we budgeted for in each category; however, remember the number is only an estimate from the previous year.
Don’t forget to budget for projected expenses because your entire month can fail due to not planning.
Actual May 2024 Budget
Our Canadian Banks
- Chequing– This is the bank account from which we pay our household bills. We use Simplii Financial, TD Canada Trust, and Tangerine Bank. Join Simplii Financial today! Read more about the best Canadian online virtual banks.
- Emergency Savings Account– This money is in a high-interest savings account (HISA)
- High-Interest Savings Account (HISA)– This savings account holds our projected expenses.
Breakdown Of Our May 2024 Budget
Below are some of our variable expenses from April that I will discuss.
Investments
Our son’s disability tax credit was approved, so we are waiting to find out how much we need to pay into it since his diagnosis.
In the next month or two, the investments will increase because of this action.
Mrs. CBB has maxed out her TFSA for the year, but I still have room to contribute, and the same goes for my RRSP.
We also had to pay the government $1200 for our 2024 business taxes *ahead of time and received my 2023 personal tax return in May.
This is why our net income increased, so I didn’t get any bonuses or little lottery wins.
Prescriptions
We spent $337.09 on meds in May to pay for Mrs. CBB’s second shingles prescription.
Prescriptions are covered up to 90% with my work benefits, but the shingles medication was not on the coverage list.
I guess it’s one of those ‘nice to have‘ medications; however, medical marijuana is 90% covered.
That would have been nice to have when Mrs. CBB was instructed to use it to see if it would help ease the pain of our neurological disease.
Back then, she needed to use one bottle a week for $130. You do the math. It was far too much money.
If you catch my drift, she no longer uses it as she couldn’t make heads or tales of her day.
Grocery Budget May 2024 Budget
Our monthly grocery budget is $900 plus a $25 stockpile budget.
We spent $647.43, or $252.57, under budget for our Maybgroceries.
Our grocery cart contains beans, vegetables, frozen pizza, cheese slices, cheese, salad bags, 50% off only, fruits, bread, milk, yogurt, eggs, butter, cream, and condiments.
Occasionally, we have a bucket or two of ice cream and cones for our son. Oh, who am I kidding? There’s always ice cream in the freezer. Haha!
Our stand-up freezer is still half full of shrimp, bacon, pizza, burgers, fish, and meat, so we didn’t buy any.
We stop any meat and fish purchases until we eat what we have.
In May, we completed a freezer inventory and re-organized the freezer.
Mrs. CBB does this because I’m not the family organizer.
Pet Expenses
Our pet expenses in May were $571.76, which is way over budget; however, we took advantage of two offers from Chewy and Amazon Canada.
From Chewy Canada, we purchased wet and dry cat food to take advantage of the spend $80 get $20 back as a credit.
For the next order we place with Chewy, we can apply the $20 credit to our order.
Amazon had various cat foods and snacks on sale with a bonus of spending $75 to get $20 back.
We did this multiple times because why not?
Included in the order were three catnip-filled bananas, which the cats love, although they were $35.
We’re trying everything to ensure our cats mutually stay together without a fight.
The savings were worth it, especially since the wet cat food and treats were on sale and cheaper than at the grocery stores.
In April, we purchased new wet food from Chewy for our cats, and there was one kind they did not like.
Chewy refunded us the $63 for 24 cans and asked us to donate the food to the Humane Society, which we still have to do.
I know the food is expensive (it was on sale, believe it or not), but our vet thinks one of our cats has a food allergy to chicken.
This is why we’ve been spending money trying to find a brand that he will eat that is free from chicken.
Home Maintenance
I bought a few tools in May and made my way to the garden centre at Canadian Tire to load up on bags of mulch and soil.
FlashFood App
Please use my code when you sign up for Flashfood! Money for you and money for me.
Every person who signs up gets a $3 or $5 credit, a freebie Flashfood offers for new app customers.
Also, Flashfood has added a small service fee to every order, which I feel is acceptable.
Use my referral code, MOCD28ZN4, for the $3 or $5 credit.
Your first purchase must be over $15.
Of these two Flashfood photos, we purchased three bags of imperfect apples, avocados, mandarin oranges, and a bag of naturally imperfect pears.
Of the fruit we purchased, I turned the apples and pears into fruit leather.
PC Optimum Rewards Points May 2024
Over 45 days, we earned 119,606 PC Optimum Points, or approximately $119 towards free products.
We started 2024 with under 7 million PC Optimum Points, or $7000, and are working towards $8000.
I know many of you might think this is a massive number of points, and we agree.
The process of saving them started after our son was born in 2014.
Between diapers and formula, we amassed points faster than we could spend them.
Yes, we have redeemed many times, but only during their Mega Bonus Event at Christmas.
Redeem 250,000 points for $500; I believe it was $600 at one point.
Below are blog posts for anyone wanting to learn how we earn PC Optimum Points.
- How To Earn PC Optimum Points Fast
- How We Earned 4 Million PC Optimum Points
- President’s Choice Financial World Elite MasterCard
TD Rewards Credit Card
Our TD Visa has a cash-back balance of $445.56.
Canadian Tire Rewards Credit Card
Dream Air Miles May 2024
Most points are from our house and car insurance, which offers Air Miles.
There was a point where we had to choose Cash Miles or Dream Miles.
Since my family lives in the UK, we felt the Dream Miles would have worked best for us.
I hope to explore this program in 2024 and would love feedback from all of you who invest the time into building miles.
Hit reply and tell me about your Air Miles experiences.
May 2024 CBB Net Worth Update
After tallying three rewards cards, we found $7709.77 in cash/rewards to redeem.
For May, we saw an increase in our investment portfolios by $17,840.84 or 1.64%.
Our cash and emergency savings decreased by $7,787.37, or -3.83%.
We increased our net worth by 0.60% or $10,053.47 in May.
Investing is a big part of increasing our net worth, and it’s essential to prioritize your finances.
Comparing our net income from April to May, we saw an increase of 20.24%.
It was also lovely that we spent 26.6% less in May than April.
During the spring and summer, we tend to see our expenses increase due to renovations and gardening.
Until Next Time!
That’s all for our May 2024 Monthly Budget.
I will be back in July to review our June monthly budget.
If there’s something you’d like to see in our monthly update, hit reply to this email and let me know.
Thanks for stopping by, and please subscribe if you are new to CBB to get my weekly blog post and monthly newsletter.
If you have any specific questions about how we invest our money, please comment below, and I’d be happy to answer them.
Read our budget updates from 2012-current.
Mr. CBB