Finally! January's Income and Expenses!

Well, I finally got the January income/expense sheet done. I'll put up the December one as well so you can see if we did any better.

Income: Our income was higher because Basil went through our bookshelves and sold anything he hadn't looked at for a while. I wasn't as generous and kept all my books, though I don't have nearly as many as he does either.
Expenses:
A lot of the expenses don't change from month to month, like rent, and gas for the cars remains around $250, though January was higher because Basil had to pay for gas for the company car, but was reimbursed for it. I raised my car payment to $500 and did that again in February. I hope I can keep it up because I actually feel better getting into my car knowing that it's getting closer to being all mine, debt free.
Clothing is something we've really cut back on, though we didn't buy many clothes in December, probably because of the holidays. We only had to buy Basil one pair of work pants in January. I may have to break down and buy a pair of jeans as I only have one pair that can actually be worn in public, unless I don't want to breathe or eat.
Credit Cards: Basil only paid $326 toward the credit cards in December because we were busy buying gifts, and upped the payments to $1012 in January. Yea! It would be nice if we could keep that up, but we both had a lot of overtime in January and both our jobs will be slowing down in the spring and summer.
Dining: I know we were trying to cut out all dining, but we did at least cut it by more than half. We still spent $145 on eating out, but some of that was me eating with my co-workers and other times were when we were picking people up from the airport, etc. I'd say we're doing much better, but we just ate out yesterday for dinner and today for lunch in celebration of my getting two paintings accepted into group shows at two new gallerys. We took my son out with us for dinner which ran $40 last night and today's lunch was $20. I guess we'd better get back to In-n-Out if we want to keep within out budget.
College Expenses: These were down because my son finally filled out his loan forms so I think they're all coming through and I won't have to pay any more tuition til next fall (so I'd better have my car paid off then).
Gifts Given: Under this category, some of the Christmas presents were put on credit cards, and I have a niece who has a birthday in January.
Groceries: We were afraid that groceries would go up since we cut back on eating out, but were pleasantly surprised to find they actually fell by $3. What's up with that?
Household: Our household category is usually small, but before we started this new year, I panicked and replaced our VCR which had died with a DVR/VCR which I'd put on a credit card and paid for this month.
Misc.: This contains all the stuff that doesn't quite fit under any other category: soap, detergent, shampoo, etc.
Postage: Our postage is still high because Basil's been shipping all the books, so hopefully it will come down next month.
Utilities: This remains pretty much the same, except for the Natural Gas bill which apparently we hadn't paid for four months. Neither of us remember getting a bill, and upon checking the accounts, it hadn't been paid since October. I'm not sure who was getting out bills, but now we will be getting our bills via e-mail and will not have one as large as this again. Laundry means the quarters that go to paying for it. I used to have my own washer and dryer and after years of saving quarters I finally felt like a grown up. Now I'm in an apartment and back to saving quarters. One day I will be able to do laundry at midnight if I want to and not leave my house....

So that's it. I'm glad we're in the black for two months in a row. After looking at last year's Quicken accounts, I see we were in the black for only 50% of the year, and the other six months we spent more than we made. Not this year.