Millionaire Librarian

Health 2947

Rent 2700

Culture 2505

Transport 2448

Restaurant 1946

Food 1794

Preschool 1790

Household 1634

Alcohol 931

Utilities and Phone 584

Housecleaner 500

Apparel 485

Beauty 480

Other 458

Pets 188

Social Life 182

Education 40

Total 21,617

3602/month

So looking at the last 6 months, a couple of things stand out. First, our average costs were higher than expected. I was expecting to be around $2,500–$3,000 and we ended up at $3,602.

One area that was higher than expected is health and medical. The gym cost was in there for three months for both of us, and medications — around $600 each for 6 months — were more expensive than we anticipated. We buy medications 3–6 months at a time, which means one big bill that wasn’t reflected in the other budgets I posted. Insurance was also a constant at around $100/month. We didn’t have any major hospital stays or surgeries. We may look into the public healthcare system, which should be a lot cheaper for medications but probably less English-friendly.

There were also some flights in the culture and transport sections that added some cost. Lauren visited friends in Europe, and we have a family trip to the States in December that we prepaid.

Restaurants were probably a little more than usual because we had our water heater repaired in June, which left us without gas for our stove for just over a week, meaning we were eating out a lot.

Food at $1,794 is lower than I might have expected given how much fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat we eat.

Though we are spending a little more than expected, I plugged the new numbers into ProjectionLab and we still have an excellent chance of success on our Monte Carlo. It didn’t even move the needle. No reason to worry.