Kickapoo Joie Juice
Gone.
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2006
I'm in 
This will be my 39th week tracking my weekly discretionary spending in an excel spreadsheet I created for myself.
My goal for August is to keep total spending for the household, not including fixed expenses like insurance, mortgage, and heating/ac/water bills, under $2,000 for a family of four.
Expenses that I will have to work around this month include younger DD's birthday, and tennis and skating lessons for other dd's. (those are definitely discretionary).
I tried to go Cold Turkey in July but had some unexpected issues with extended family crop up, and anticipated spending in August for back to school turned out to occur in July, so I ended up going over in July because of the back to school shopping.
I'm thinking I may try Cold Turkey (which is how many days in a row can you do $0 and literally buy absolutely nothing that you don't NEED), but I have to think about it a little more. Maybe I'll do a hybrid turkey and try for as many $0 days but stick with the original $2k or under budget...
I think it's taken me about 30 weeks of doing written budgeting for me to actually begin to feel comfortable with it. Even with the family stuff in July and the back to school stuff, I still sit down at the computer with my receipts and plug them into the spreadsheet before I do anything else, then stick the receipts in a big manilla envelope. Then at the end of the month if I don't need any of the receipts again I shred them.
I've found if the salespeople put receipts in the bag I lose them (how convenient
) so I always hold my wallet open and stick the receipt directly in my wallet so it's there when I get home.
My favorite annoyance of the week in now when I asked for a receipt and the salesperson would still stick it in the bag, and then I'd get snippy and say "can I please have my receipt?" and make them fish it out. For God's sake, is it that hard to hand it to me?
August 1: $0
This will be my 39th week tracking my weekly discretionary spending in an excel spreadsheet I created for myself.
My goal for August is to keep total spending for the household, not including fixed expenses like insurance, mortgage, and heating/ac/water bills, under $2,000 for a family of four.
Expenses that I will have to work around this month include younger DD's birthday, and tennis and skating lessons for other dd's. (those are definitely discretionary).
I tried to go Cold Turkey in July but had some unexpected issues with extended family crop up, and anticipated spending in August for back to school turned out to occur in July, so I ended up going over in July because of the back to school shopping.
I'm thinking I may try Cold Turkey (which is how many days in a row can you do $0 and literally buy absolutely nothing that you don't NEED), but I have to think about it a little more. Maybe I'll do a hybrid turkey and try for as many $0 days but stick with the original $2k or under budget...
I think it's taken me about 30 weeks of doing written budgeting for me to actually begin to feel comfortable with it. Even with the family stuff in July and the back to school stuff, I still sit down at the computer with my receipts and plug them into the spreadsheet before I do anything else, then stick the receipts in a big manilla envelope. Then at the end of the month if I don't need any of the receipts again I shred them.
I've found if the salespeople put receipts in the bag I lose them (how convenient
) so I always hold my wallet open and stick the receipt directly in my wallet so it's there when I get home. My favorite annoyance of the week in now when I asked for a receipt and the salesperson would still stick it in the bag, and then I'd get snippy and say "can I please have my receipt?" and make them fish it out. For God's sake, is it that hard to hand it to me?
August 1: $0
July started out well but ended up pretty high with all sorts of spending. This month I want to force myself back into line and maybe you guys can help. Peer pressure isn't always a bad thing
