WSR – 11/26/12

Yes I know I am overdue with this again. 😦 Maybe I should start calling it my bi-weekly spending report. lol

Nov 12 – No Spend Day

Nov 13 – No Spend Day

Nov 14 – +3 survey payment
$10 lunch with co-worker
$150 dentist (I can’t wait for this to go away)

Nov 15 – $53.73 groceries

Nov 16 – $30.50 Popeye’s

Nov 17 – $5 allowance to Diva to pay for her library fines 😦
$2.12 baking soda in bulk to clean with
$9.02 groceries

Nov 18 – No Spend Day

Nov 19 – $57.50 gas

Nov 20 – $15 sushi lunch with co-workers
$10.82 groceries

Nov 21 – $72.77 oil change
$92 chiropractor visit for all 3 of us

Nov 22 – $184.32 Christmas presents
$48.40 groceries

Nov 23 – $24.34 Lysol wipes & nutella for friend

Nov 24 – +$30 payback for the wipes and nutella
$13.78 groceries
$80 wagjag deal for South St burger joint – treats for us 🙂

Grand Total: $674.98 + $184.32 – $33 = $826.30 NET
3 No Spend Days

No bad.  Not great.

I need to take $185 from my sealed pot to cover off my Christmas shopping.  I have a bad habit of saving up money for a goal and then using money out of my regular budget to cover it and then falling short on my budget or feeling very tightly squeezed. 😦

WSR – 11/12/12

Nov 6 – No Spend Day

Nov 7 – No Spend Day

Nov 8 – +22.59 Costco return
$17.86 socks & a book for Diva
$49.59 groceries

Nov 9 – No Spend Day

Nov 10 – $10.47 took my sister to Taco Bell
$1.13 cupcake liners
$2.31 sandpaper
$8.95 groceries

Nov 11 – No Spend Day

Grand Total: $90.30 – $22.29 = $67.71
4 No Spend Days

YEAH!!  A week where I spend less that $70, YES PLEASE!! 🙂

I wonder if I could repeat this … often!?!

WSR 7/29/12

Jul 23 – $8.80 Harvey’s
$16.94 TP
$65.76 groceries

Jul 24 – No Spend

Jul 25 – $11.91 groceries
$13.93 groceries

Jul 26 – No Spend

Jul 27 – No Spend

Jul 28 – $22.59 water bottle
$31.61 dessert for “Ladies’ night in”

Grand Total: $171.54
3 No Spend Days

Not a bad week.  For all that grocery spending I’m not sure why my fridge is bare.  But I refuse to shop until August as I am over my grocery budget by $63.30. 😦  Thankfully it is the day after tomorrow!! 🙂 I am going to reduce next month’s grocery amount by $65 which should be achievable as we are away for a week. 😉

July goals

New month!!  Time for new goals.

My only new goal this month is to work out EVERY day.

I am challenging myself to do Ripped in 30 every day in July.  It is 4 work outs to be done 1 per week with each workout being harder than the last.

 (Source)

Jillian is not nice but she gets results.  And that is what I am after.  I am on track so far.  My legs are hurting.  I can’t say that I will tell you every day that I do this but I will tell you if I miss a day.  Deal?

Did I mention my legs are in pain?

On the financial front I am saving for my August vacation so I am reducing my food spending, both groceries and eating out.  I am aiming for $700 US. 🙂

July’s budget

	Budgeted
Transportation (gas)	120
Food (groceries)	300
Entertainment (eating out)	60
Clothing/gifts	20
Everything else	210
	710

There is a lot of food in my freezer so I will concentrate my efforts on reducing that.

This month I will continue to use only cash and try to better stay on budget.

I haven’t done a fiscal fast in a long while … I wonder if when that can be achieved this month. 😉

June 2012 recap

I only did a few spending reports in June but that doesn’t mean I was not tracking my money.  I did and it was not pretty.

Various expected and unexpected expenses cropped up.  I realize that while I save up for certain things, dentist, property taxes etc, I usually pay for them out of my regular budget not my savings which makes my budget look wonky.

To make matters worst I am not the best with cash.  I find that when I have a few dollars in my pocket they disappear faster than I like.

BUT

With no cash in my hand I tend to over spend as there is usually money in my bank account. 😦

Without further adieu June looked like this.

	Budgeted	Actual	Difference
Transportation (gas)	$130	$59	$71.00
Food (groceries)	$390	$406.06	-$16.06
Entertainment (eating out)	$99.03	$112.98	-$13.95
Clothing/gifts	$20	$71.17	-$51.17
Everything else	$210	$709.56	-$499.56
	$849.03	$1358.77	-$509.74

Between Father’s Day and Princess’ graduation my budget was quickly thrown out of wack.

My only saving grace is that everything was paid for in cash AND I did not have to pull money out of my savings. 🙂

Co-worker’s Confession

Today I had lunch with one of my co-workers who I always thought had it together.

She lives in a lovely house.  Her hubby works part-time by choice.  They “seem” to be doing “okay” from where I am standing.

But we all know that appearances can be deceiving.

Today she shocked me by telling me that one of the things she would really like to learn how to do is budget.  My jaw dropped.

I know budgeting is hard … well not budgeting so much as following the budget.

She told me the only reason they are doing okay is because she makes a good salary.  And while she is saving for her future self she will not choose to not have fun just to increase her retirement savings. (yes you will need to re-read that statement to have it make sense ;))

What I found most interesting about this confession is it came on the heels of her telling me that in a year or so when they finish paying off hubby’s new car she will be looking to get her own new car.  At the beginning of this year she was in an accident that wrote off her car.  They replaced her car with a 2009 fully loaded car but because it’s not a convertible …

I was thinking if I am in the market for a newer to me car in a year or so I could be sitting in the passenger seat of it!!

I find it very interesting how we all handle money so very differently.

 

It needs to be done

It’s time.

Last week I read this great post by Single Ma about focusing all your attention on one financial goal at a time.

On Friday since I was in such a good mood I figured I should research how one decides what weekly amount to put in the magic budgeting jars.

Right now I budget bi-weekly based on pay-day.  It’s great for the monthly expenses but the weekly stuff falls through the cracks sometimes. 😦

Googling how to determine what to put in the jars brought me to Gail Vaz-Oxlade’s website.  I went through all the steps to build a budget.  It calculated what to put in my weekly jars for transportation, food, entertainment, clothing/gifts and everything else.

Without further adieu … ta da!!!

JAR MONEY:	Monthly	Weekly
Transportation	$130.00	$30.00
Food	$390.00	$90.00
Entertainment	$99.03	$22.85
Clothes/Gifts	$20.00	$4.62
Everything else	$210.00	$48.46
Total Jar Money	$849.03	$195.93

This will be my budget for June.  I will try it out and see how it works for me and make adjustments where necessary.  I will take out my weekly amount on Sunday and not a penny more.

Getting amounts for the jar is crucial for operation get out of debt.

A long while ago I found this fantastic debt calculator spreadsheet.  I typed in my numbers and got a debt free date of July 2015.

Well …

Based on my current numbers that date has now been moved out to January 2016. 😦

This is not going to work for me.  Hence the renewed interest in the jars and more importantly following them.

It’s time for me to get serious.

It is going to be hard but I am able have no choice.

Learning to trust the universe

I believe that the universe provides for each of us.  This is not to say that we shouldn’t do our part and try to better our selves and our situation.

In my life I have found that when I start to worry about money, something happens that reminds me there are better things to spend my time on.

For example I was looking for a second job when I got a promotion and more importantly a raise!!

Yesterday I was trying to figure out why I had more money left over than I thought I should have and stressing just a little about if I could make it last until Thursday.  Then I went to collect my mail from my mother’s house and I got an envelope from one of the hospital lotteries I played.

A cheque for $100, the cost of the ticket.  More money than I had before. 🙂

So I’m going to try to stop worrying about money and trust the universe to do its thing.

WSR – 05/06/12

Since the last half of April was a wash I will start with the first of May.

May 1
No Spend Day

May 2
$8.79 lunch

May 3
No Spend Day

May 4
$8.13 lunch
$60 gas
$5 allowance to Diva

May 5
+$32.76 returned a pillow
$48.32 groceries

May 6
+$25.00 Visa gift card from work
$11.93 groceries (on Visa gift card)

Total:  $142.17 – $57.76
Grand Total: $84.41

$68.51 left for the next 10 days. 😦

The only thing I am really concerned with is milk.  I have switched to buying organic.  We go through it so quickly I would debate buying a cow if I didn’t live in an apartment and in a big city. LOL

This fiscal fast is actually a good thing for me.  My freezer is full so it’s time to use up what I have before it gets freezer burn.

Shot myself in the foot

When my laptop died, I lost my budget.  It was backed up to an external hard drive but I did not access it while my laptop was being repaired.

Without a budget I was like a rock star on crack.  I was spending willy nilly without regard to the future.

Now that my laptop is back.  I attempted to see what the damage was.  But I can’t remember everything. 😦  Nor do I want to.

It’s time to pay the piper.

Once I pay all that I am supposed to pay, I should be left with $386 until next pay-day.  

But that’s not the case.

I have … $71.00.

To last me 2 weeks!?! 

Guess who’s having an impromptu fiscal fast???

*slowly raising my hand*

*in my quiet voice*

It’s me.