A'ight!

Summary first:
I apparently lost about $4! Haha. Expenses there include what I moved from checking to savings though, and I want to keep my checking account under $500, so that's actually about what I want.

Total income was just over 21k, about $1000 more than last year.
$3000 of that went into savings.

I did repay what I owed other people, but after interest on my self-loans, I only paid myself back about $50. That part I'm not as happy about, but at least I'm truly breaking even this year, and I have an additional $800 set aside for a new computer. Once that gets over $1000 (which is what, 4 months? So late summer...) I'm gonna start doing research on and shopping for a new computer.
Well, I should do some of the research sooner, actually, hehe. What I really need to determine is whether the AMD processors have the same multi-threading issues under Linux that they have under Windows. If they don't, then those are a win-win-win for me (cheaper because no one wants them, they're not the biggest corporation in that market, and, um I forget what the third win is)!

Still though, I need to start saving more for long-term stuff.... and I seriously need to look into getting medical insurance. That's just not viable with my current job.

And some before/after numbers:
* Checking account: $397 beginning of year, $390 end of year.
* Savings account: $1186 beginning, $2439 end.
* Computer savings: $80 beginning, $810 end.
* Self-debt: $2066 beginning, $1732 end.
Oh, cool, guess I did pay that down some over the year...

Other points:
Having no interest on savings accounts sucks. Anyone know any savings accounts that have better than a penny of interest a month for every thousand dollars?


Breakdown by category, by % of income:

By absolute numbers, I actually spent slightly more than budgeted in every category, but because I made more than budgeted, by % it came out better in some categories, and pretty even overall.
Another nice point is that my gas budget was quite a bit lower this year (even including the months that the gas tank was leaking... this upcoming year might be even lower for gas! We'll just have to see...)

Car budget was right on target this year, which is awesome, because in December I had about $800 of repairs done... that means my estimates for year-overall costs are actually good.

Rent being underpaid this year is also because I earmarked about $100 for "home repairs/misc" in the first half of the year and never needed to spend it. I'm debating what to do with that for the upcoming year--just strike it from my "needs to be paid sometime" estimates, since it no longer applies?

I have no idea how Misc category was under-spent O.o My budget itself says I'm $24 over-budget, but that includes making up for last year. So maybe next year will be more balanced?

Spent over $2000 on food this year, hoping to trim that down some this upcoming year; it's one of the 'bad' categories that actually increased since last year.

Budgeted savings dramatically increased this year, I'm happy about that.

Taxes went up maybe half a percentage point, can't complain about that. I wonder how much I'll get back..... and when will my W-2s get here? (Hmm, had about $4k in taxes; single highest category!)

Anything I get back this year is going towards paying off my self-debt, I want to get rid of the interest there!

I assume I'm getting a pay raise again, but don't know exactly how much or when it'll cut in. Probably a quarter an hour again.