I came out $400.73 in the black for December 2010 which was a great way to end the year. I overspent by $190.82 in the food budget and I expected to go over, but not THAT much. I only redeemed $1.55 in coupons for the month but I did not buy any coupons that month so it was also okay on that level.

I spent $24.03 on gas for the month which was well below my $$75 budget for the month. Beginning in January 2011 I will roll over any unused money in every category so that it can be used for the following month. In this case, it would have meant that I had an extra $50.97 to spend on gas the following month, so that I could spend up to $125.97 on gas. I think that having the rolling amounts will help me in the months when I spend less and then balance out the months that I spend more. This will be easy to track in Mint as the software allows you to roll budgets over to the following month. I am not sure how that will affect my excel spreadsheet but it will certainly be interesting.

I received a total of $38.90 from Lending Club which allowed me to safely create a new loan for the month to increase my income. I am continuing to invest $25 per month in Lending Club so that I can have this as a little side stream to help with costs relating to the blog as well.

The entire year also went well for me with a net income of  $3172.58 which was $1866.41 greater than how I ended 2009. While this is a small difference between my spending and income for the whole year I must say that I was proud to eliminate ALL of my debt in 2010 by paying off all personal loans, paying off my car AND paying off my credit cards. I started the year off DEBT FREE and revamped my budget so I am looking forward to a better financial year in 2011.