Expenditure in July so far

As mentioned in previous post, I am going to track my expenditure diligently for the sake of my own curiosity. I was searching through my previous post and found this entry back in 2019! That's like 3.5 years ago! So apparently back in those days, my expenditure is around 4.7k per month. This has come down quite abit as the car has been fully paid. I dont dine outside/drink as much anymore as 2nd kid has arrived. However, these "lifestyle" expenditure has been allocated to spending on the 2nd kid.  I had a post back in 2021 with regards to raising a kid. In the post, i mentioned that it is not that expensive, it all depends on how you want to raise a kid, similar to what kind of lifestyle you want after retirement. You cant expect to spend 10k a month after retirement but only has a 200k portfolio.  Need to be realistic!.

So in anycase, after 10 days of July, i finally have some data. It is interesting as I am spending much more than my usual pattern as there's more "lifestyle" expenditure due to more meet up with friends and ex colleagues. 

There's also more lumpsum expenditure like buying groceries 1 shot to save cost (since i am very free now). Then, there's the spending to prepare for my real estate salesperson exam. Bought a calculator specific for the exam, and also signed up for NTUC membership as that will allow me to get 50% discount on the RES exam. Also pumped more patrol than required during SAF day to take advantage of the additional discount for NSmen. 

Then, there's the annoying car issue out of the blue. Suddenly I have a oil pressure warning light . So initially i thought it is lack of engine oil, so i bought a tub of engine oil from Shell. It cost 120 SGD!  I was in a rush as my son was with me and he was touching everything in the patrol station and curious about everything. When i googled, the same engine oil cost less than 50 dollars online! Why is it like this??? I even drove down to another Shell Select to verify the cost. Its the same.  Can any one enlighten me on this? Now I feel like a goondu.   I ought to be more careful next time. 

Topping up of the engine oil didnt solve the problem. I drove down to a friends workshop and seems like it could be a sensor issue and was advised to go back to cycle and carriage since i still have servicing package with them and I happen to have booked for servicing coming week. In any case, the issue is really weird, the warning light only comes up at less than 1k RPM. I googled and see that perhaps its because of the engine oil viscosity. Something to do with ambient temperature.  However, the car has always been serviced by authorised dealer.  So, I am expecting more cost to come from that. If anyone has any experience on this, appreciate if you can shed some light on it!

As mentioned, I am intending to cap my spending to around 4k with passive income of around 5k. So far it is around 684 SGD after 10 days of July. Bearing in mind i included expenses that should come out from the joint account with my wife and I am still paying for the same amount.  With all these unexpected spending and double counting, it is a good stress test to my own budgeting model. Do note, these are everyday spending. I have not included the fixed cost per month like parent, insurance and the lumpsum to joint account which amounts to 2232 as of now.  

.