CBB January 2024 Budget Update

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

Welcome to the January 2024 Budget Update for the Canadian Budget Binder family.

If you’re new to CBB, this is a monthly budget breakdown so you can see how we spend and save money.

We apply a zero-based budget to an Excel spreadsheet I created and offer all blog subscribers for free.

Why Do I Share Our Monthly Budget?

I look forward to putting this post together as it lets us see where our money was spent.

A budget also acts as a diary for your expenses so you can look back to see success and failure.

After all, we can only be successful if we learn from the mistakes we make along the way.

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.

If there’s any information that you’d like to know or explain about our budget, please share your comments below.

Alright, let’s get into this.

Discussion January 2024 Budget

January was a relatively quiet month for expenses, as it is for most families after the holidays.

Typically, we spend the first month of the year reviewing our 2023 budgets and ensuring we have goals and objectives set for the new year.

Enjoy the read, and as always, I appreciate your kind feedback and suggestions in the comment section.

Percentages For Our January 2024 Budget

January 2024 Household Budget Percentages

Savings of 50.91% include investments and savings based on our net income.

Life contains everything from groceries, entertainment, miscellaneous, health/beauty, clothing, etc.

We were right on the max border in January, so we must monitor these expenses moving forward.

Typically, these are variable expenses, so we need to rework our goals if they get out of hand.

Our house and vehicle are paid and have zero consumer debt, so our repayment ratio is 0%.

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 stated that he wanted to participate, so it was decided that he would save his allowance or any other money he earned.

In the savings jar for January, there is $20 or $5 weekly for his allowance.

Below is a CBB fan joining us in the savings challenge and keeping herself accountable by sharing with all of you.

Hi CBB

I got a good start on my 52-week savings challenge.

My goal was $2 per day or $62 for January, and I saved $143.

I had a head start of $40, which I received as a gift in December. 

Also, $10 was found when I was out for my walk (a ten-dollar bill on a country road !)

$53 –stuff I sold online

$40— a couple of pre-made items in my grocery cart, which I talked myself out of (put back)  and made something at home instead.  I took the money saved and put it into my jar. 

I am hoping for another good month for February.

My new name is TFSA Saver – (I registered with ‘Finder’ earlier, but I’d like to change that).

Thanks for including me in the challenge. 

Grocery Food Savings Jar January 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.

For January, we saved $134.21 using coupons, rewards apps, and Flashfood.

So far, in 2024, purchasing discounted food has saved us $134.21.

That’s Awesome!!

January 2024 Estimated Budget and Actual Budget

Below are two tables: Our January 2024 Budget and our Actual Budget.

Our January 2024 monthly 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 January 2024 Budget

I found an error after posting this: Telecommunication should read $215, not $180, which will be changed in February.

Actual January 2024 Budget

Canadian Banks, We Use

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 January 2024 Budget

Below are some of our variable expenses from January, apart from investments.

We spent $1486.28 less than we budgeted for in January 2024, which I will review below.

January 2024 Budget Category Changes

We discussed increasing our budget categories for birthday, pet, grocery, and telecommunications.

However, almost everything changed after carefully reviewing and computing each budget category.

Mind you, the fixed expenses are those we cannot change since they are what they are.

The variable expenses, such as groceries, health and beauty, entertainment, and so on, can be modified throughout the year.

One of the main reasons someone would modify their variable expenses is because they are spending too much money and are no longer affordable.

For example, if there is job loss, injury, reduced hours, or a fixed expense increase, which leaves less to distribute.

Unfortunately, not everyone gets a cost of living raise or any raise that comes close to matching what is needed.

This is why budgeting is imperative, in my opinion.

2024 Monthly Budget vs 2023

As you will note, some increases reflect our expenses from 2023.

We may not need all of the money we budgeted for in each category. However, it’s better to over budget or under budget for expenses.

Don’t forget to budget for projected expenses because your entire month can fail due to not planning.

Below are the budget categories that were changed for the 2024 year.

Birthdays Car Repair Christmas Clothing Electricity and Water Entertainment Furnace Hot Water Gas Gasoline Health and Beauty Healthcare and Prescriptions Investments Kids Memberships and Sports Miscellaneous Property Taxes Telecommunications Extended Healthcare Pet Prime Membership Ring Doorbell

Household Bills and Expenses

Below is an explanation of the budget categories from January 2024 that were over budget or need clarification.

Grocery Budget January 2024 Budget

Our monthly grocery budget is $900 plus a $25 stockpile budget.

We spent $915.84 or $15.84 over budget for January on groceries.

This is our worst category by far and one we monitor the most throughout the year.

Vehicle Repair/ Maintenance

The more considerable expense in this category was getting my truck oil sprayed for the winter from Krown.

We budgeted this as a projected expense, so we knew we had to pay for it, although the price had increased.

Pet Expenses

We didn’t do badly on pet expenses and plan to keep them lower than in 2023.

In 2023, we acquired a second cat, which doubled our pet expenses.

Admittedly, we purchased many toys for our cats to keep them busy since they are very active.

The most expensive pet costs were buying wet cat food and fees for vet visits throughout the year.

Health And Beauty

I always blame this category on Mrs. CBB since she is the one who spends the most in this category.

This category houses everything from mouthwash to facial cleansers, cologne to soaps, and toothpaste.

Her beauty regime has changed now that she is older and has an allergy to limonene.

For example, she purchases Skincutecials products, which cost over $125 per bottle.

Also, she takes lots of vitamins that aren’t too costly but add up.

Most of what she purchases is from Shoppers Drug Mart, which she buys only during 20x the points events.

The points that she earns are reflected below in our Shoppers Optimum Points update.

FlashFood App

Every person who signs up gets a $3 credit, a freebie offered by Flashfood for new app customers.

Use my referral code, MOCD28ZN4, to get the $3 credit, and your first purchase must be over $15.

We saved $24.46, $19.53, and $74.58 for January = $118.57 on groceries

PC Optimum Rewards Points 2024

We are starting 2024 slightly under 7 million PC Optimum Points or $6830.

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.

TD Visa Cash Back Amount

Our TD Visa has a cashback balance of January 31, 2024 is $404.34.

We will be moving the cashback to our bank account shortly.

Canadian Tire Triangle Rewards January 2024

Typically, my expenses are put on my Canadian Tire MasterCard apart from Costco CIBC MasterCard for gas and groceries and PC World Elite MasterCard for groceries.

We also only shop on 20x or 30x the Triangle Rewards days!

Since we are moving into spring in the next couple of months, I’ll likely use my Canadian Tire rewards balance.

Dream Air Miles

I’m only adding Air Miles because they emailed Mrs. CBB, and we realized we hadn’t invested much interest in the program.

Most points are from our house and car insurance, which offer 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.

January 2024 CBB Net Worth Update

The investment portfolios increased in January by $28,111.94 or +1.81%.

We’ve been lucky to see a significant increase in December and January.

Let’s hope the trend keeps going up. I’ll be topping up my RRSP by about $10,500 to the end of 2023 and continue on the same in 2024.

If you have any specific questions about how we invest our money, please comment below, and I’d be happy to answer them.

Until Next Time!

That’s all for our January 2024 Monthly Budget.

I will be back in March to review our February 2024 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.

Read our budget updates from 2012-current.

Mr. CBB

How To Calculate Monthly Grocery Costs8 Costly Baking Ingredients To StockpileThe Best Way To Track Your Monthly Grocery Expenses (Free Printable)How To Create A Budget When You’re BrokeHoliday Baking Tips On A Budget

The post CBB January 2024 Budget Update appeared first on Canadian Budget Binder.