Where did all the money go?

In a previous post I came up with what I think our budget is.  Here is a look at the actual numbers for the last 2 months:

May's Actual Budget:
Income: $3,992

Regular bills:
Mortgage: -$1133.01
Property Taxes: -$200
Insurance (home, auto and life): -$258.24
Trash: -$23.30
Gym (with rebates factored in): -$129.57
Internet/Cable: -$107.20
Cell Phone: -$82.32

Somewhat Consistent Bills:
Gas/Electric: -$108.47
Water and Sewer: -$28.19

Other Expenses:
Grocery: -$238.94
Gas: -$471.79
Misc supplies (Stuff like Wal-Mart, Home Depot etc): -$557.41
Oil Changes: -$26.73
Gifts: Not sure on amount because it was mixed in misc supplies
Eating Out -$123.53
Entertainment -$77.62

Irregular expenses:
Medical: -$788.54
Postage: -$15.63
Liquor: -$14.78
Repair for lawn mower: -$37.50

Left over -$430.77

June's Actual Budget:
Income: $3,992

Regular bills:
Mortgage: -$1,133.01
Property Taxes: -$200
Insurance (home, auto and life): -$258.24
Trash: -$23.30
Gym (with rebates factored in): -$129.57
Internet/Cable: -$107.20
Cell Phone: -$82.32

Somewhat Consistent Bills:
Gas/Electric: -$108.47
Water and Sewer: -$28.19

Other Expenses:
Grocery: -$311.58
Gas: -$356.39
Misc supplies (Stuff like Wal-Mart, Home Depot etc) -$488.66
Oil Changes: $0
Gifts: Not sure on amount because it was mixed in the retail store
Eating Out: -$98.48
Entertainment: -$9.97

Irregular expenses:
iPad: -$821.65
Medical: -$137.81
Carpet Replacement Patches: -$350.17
Vet: -$106
Postage: -$24.92

Left over: -$783.93

Few notes: I did not include the gutters or the payoff of the mortgage. I didn't want to list things I expected to use my income on. Our credit card statement does not align perfectly with the month, so May included charges from approximately May 7 to June 6 and June included charges from June 7 to July 6.

OK, now onto my analysis. Over all I give myself an "F" on my budget estimation. I thought I should have $713 left over at the end of the month and both of these months not only did we not have any money left over, but we were negative! I was off by nearly $1,500 in June and $1,143.77 for May.

Some budget busters come as no surprise - the iPad and the medical bills set us back quite a bit. Thankfully the iPad is done (although the majority of the "entertainment" category is from iTunes). I also expect the medical bills to peter out by the end of August, so hopefully we will have better control over that aspect of our budget by then.

What really surprised me was the "misc supplies" category. Wow! I guess when I put the budget together I wasn't thinking of what my husband was spending. I figured I went to a store like Target or Wal-Mart about once a month to buy basic things like toothpaste, dish detergent and cat litter and only spent $75 on average. Well it looks like my husband goes shopping at stores like those too and is also spending money there. I forgot to include clothing in my budget, so some of that is clothing purchases. Perhaps the biggest expense in the "misc supplies" are charges from home improvement stores. I even made the carpet replacement charge a separate category, but we still spent over $200 on home improvement stores alone in the month of June and in May it was nearly $400! My husband's favorite home improvement store is only a couple miles away - probably too convenient! He goes there about once a week and it's not unusual for him to go there more than once in one day. He always has these little projects going (it's been a month since we have parked in our garage due to the cabinets and TV stands he has been working on). I usually think it's less expensive for him to do the projects himself, but after seeing how much we are spending, I'm starting to wonder if that's true.

Everything in the "Regular bills" and the "Somewhat Consistent Bills" was pretty much on track with what I thought. We recently changed Internet and cable provider and they promised our bill including tax would be under $100, and it's at $107.20 so I should look into that. The electric isn't that high because it was charges for usage in April and May and we don't need as much heating or air conditioning as we do in other months. I don't even want to know our bill for July usage will be. Our air conditioning has been running non-stop for several days due to a heat wave we've been having.

I have come in under budget for groceries. That's why it's frustrating because I'm already doing good, but because I do 99% of the grocery shopping I can control it. So I want to do even better.

Gasoline was a little high in May, but we came in under budget for June. It helped that we car pooled to work a few times in June.

So, I think once the medical bills go away we'll come closer to meeting the budget. Now if I could just figure out a way to keep my husband out of all stores, we'd really have a handle on the budget.