In spite of switching to cheaper car insurance and cheaper phone service, paying off my cancelled phone contracts as well as unexpected vet and tire bills pushed my spending way up for August. Also, two trips: San Francisco and New Jersey/New York. It was a hotel room in San Francisco and entrance fees to activities there that tipped the balance toward more spending instead of less.
In September I have a chance to make up a ton in the travel department, as we will not be traveling at all, but I’m going to lose a lot to licensing/fingerprints in the process of getting my licenses lined up for travel nursing. I’m hoping to drop dollar amounts in all other categories, though.
Groceries: $485, up by about $60 from July
Gas: $217, up $75 from July, but with my grandma on her deathbed we stayed home a lot that month. I’m actually under both May and June by about $25, even with a road trip across the country!!!
Shopping: $174, up by $130 in July but down by over $100 from previous months, mostly due to buying a lightweight car seat for our trip to SF
Snacks and drinks: $53.66, up $30 since July but down from June, and that’s all of our airport snacks
Restaurants/Fast Food: $70, up $50 but down from June, includes two trips so I didn’t think it was so bad. The biggest expense was Hang Ah tea room, with a $40 bill for dim sum
Travel: $367, our most expensive travel cost yet and is almost entirely from the SF trip. Includes entrance fees to Children’s Fairyland and Muir Woods, airport parking in Chicago, and hotel in SF.
Surprise expenses: $267 vet bill for my sick cat, $73 for oil change and tire patch
Travel nurse licensing/fingerprints: $179
Mother of All Things 
Thank you for reminding me! I had planned to start tracking expenses yesterday and go by two week pay periods but totally forgot. I think I will do it on google docs and will track food, gas, FBA, extras, bills. I have some credit card debt hanging around but not a lot of income to finish it up.