April recap and May goals

Let’s look back at April’s goals.

April goals

1. Come up with a savings goal for Carla’s April savings challenge, post to come Done
2. Try something new; budget bi-weekly instead of weekly to coincide with my paycheck I did it for the first pay, not the second
3. Finish my scarf and post pictures Still not done but there are pictures online
4. Finish my vision board (gotta get this done, it is way overdue) Nope
5. Read 4 books Finished 3.66; Cutting for Stone, Silver Sparrow and 32 Candles and 2/3 of The End of Your Life Book Club
6. Work out 3 times a week Worked out 13 times, it wasn’t 3/wk but on average it works
7. Do another cleanse Done
8. Wake up early every morning to read and/or workout Nope
9. Figure out what to do with all my bank accounts Sort of, the one that’s closing will be moved to PC, the rest remain where they are

Savings Challenge goals

1. Cash only.  I will take out my spending allowance bi-weekly on pay-day and not take out anything else until next pay-day … 2 very long weeks from now.  Dust off my beautiful budget wallet and put it to good use this month. Hide my credit cards.  Hide my debit card.  This girl is going paper only!! I was so good until I went to Costco on Friday 😦
2. Investigate cutting some of my regular costs.  I’m pretty sure the discount on the internet part of my Rogers bill has expired.  Time to see if I can get another discount. Called but the deal was not that great  but I didn’t really look into any other ways of reducing my costs
3. Get back to meal planning to use up what is already purchased.  My freezer is full.  The only thing I should be picking up from the store is perishables; milk, fruit and veggies.  Nothing else, if I want bread I need to get back in the habit of baking some. I planned my meals but didn’t always stick to the plan
4. Minimize eating out.  As I say this I realize I have a dinner tomorrow and a lunch on Saturday already lined up.  I will make a conscious effort on both occasions to eat as cheaply as possible.  I don’t want to isolate myself to save money; that doesn’t seem like a good trade-off. Nope, ate out 10 times 😦
5. 10 no spend days for the month. 8/10 not quite

I think I had way too much going on in April so some a lot of things fell through the cracks.  I really need to revisit my goals mid-month to see how much progress I have made.

So how did I do financially in April?

	Budgeted	Actual
Housing	15%	13%
Transportation	3%	4%
Saving	56%	56%
Debt	17%	17%
Life	9%	14%
	100%	104%

I received a bonus in April and saved 62.5% of it.  But even with this additional income I still went over my budget. 😦 But on a positive note it is less that the 112% I went over in March. 🙂

May Goals

1. Exercise Monday through Friday
2. Finish my vision board
3. Finish my scarf, I’m almost to the halfway point
4. Read 2 books
5. Use only cash and stick to the budget
6. 10 no spend days

I will continue to meal plan as I think it helps.  Other than that I am just going to try to be better.  Could I be any more generic?? LOL 🙂