Nothing too exciting happened in July, except Summer arrived, so we drank a lot. We did dump some more savings into our RRSPs. The husband’s is now maxed out and we will probably do mine before the end of the year. We haven’t done it yet because we just feel nervous being down to one income but we really should do it because we have the cash available. I received my last maternity leave top-up payment from my company in mid-July so I’m now down to just the government provided amount.

Thankfully the markets bounced back a little compared to the previous month which is the reason for most of the growth.

How did we spend our $$…

It’s so nice to see the Home Improvement section at $0 for once. Thankfully the major renos are finished but we’ll probably always be making improvements here and there. It seems to be a hobby of my husband’s to find things that need to be fixed or improved.

Food: This category includes ALL food costs – restaurants, groceries, coffee shops, alcohol. Our restaurant spend was actually lower than usual in July which is surprising for the Summer, but we were under $300. We made up for it in alcohol spend and ended up spending $360 on alcohol in July. Alcohol is expensive in Canada, which I guess is a good deterrent from drinking too much. The remainder was primarily spent on groceries.

Clothing: It looks like we went on a shopping spree, but really, we live in a small-ish town, and I needed a dress to attend a wedding in August so after failing to find anything at our local mall, I ordered about 9 dresses online with the intention of returning what I didn’t like. I did a return a couple in July but the rest will hit August’s numbers.

Furniture: Never-ending furniture purchases when you buy a home. This month we bought an Ikea dresser and high chair. We’ve been without a dresser since we moved in. I actually spent months and months scouring Facebook Marketplace for a dresser, we bought one last month and when we brought it home it REEKED like cigarette smoke. The lady was kind enough to take it back so we didn’t lose any money but that was when I gave up and caved to the “relative” cheapness of Ikea.