It is the end of the month and I am pleased to report that I came out in the black this month at a total of $42.20 even after all the drama. It is a little bit strange because my paycheck for this month was down by $9.30 as my withholding amount went up. I have no idea why this happened because I did not change anything but I did reduce my zero based budget by $10 to account for this reduction in income.

I got my adsense payment and it really helped to bolster the differences between spending and saving this month. I also got some tiny payments in from Lending Club and Prosper from loans that I have made there so that was also very good cash inflow for me.

I overspent in the area of Utilities because I had that ridiculous electric bill that I was not ready for. Of course I was able to pay the bill in full via my credit card and the card was paid in full by the end of the month but I needed to really watch my consumption of electricity over the next few cold months.

I spent a total of $6 on newspapers to get coupons and redeemed a total of $9 in coupons, for a net of $3 which is not too bad but could also be a lot better. In case you have not been following my CVS posts I also used coupons there but did not include them in the totals for the month. I will be including the coupons spent at CVS from February to get a more accurate image of what I spend and what I save by using coupons.

I went over my shopping (food, personal items, household stuff) by $1.69!!!!! This means that my No Spend January was not successful strictly in terms of actual numbers. I am going to try to have another No Spend month this February to see where I can really cut down on buying ‘things’.

How was your January financially?