budgeting

Everything I spent money on last week (2/11)

~ joypetite ~ Leave a comment
Photo by Fabian Blank on Unsplash

I’m on a money-saving journey this year since I want to take some time off of work next year. I burned out last year, feel like I have lost every ounce of creativity, and want to make a life pivot (more on that in another post).

I made a strict budget for myself at the beginning of the year and did okay sticking to it in January, but haven’t done a great job in February so far (oops). Here’s everything out of my budget this week that I need to reign in for the rest of the month/in March along with some strategies for the future.

  1. Eating Out: This is always a big one but in the last week (actually the last few days), I spent $110 eating out. I still want to go out and enjoy spending time with my friends, but I think I can cut back.
    • Suggest cheaper places to eat out. For me, the point of eating out is to spend time with my friends and to occasionally try new restaurants. I can suggest cheaper places to eat so I’m not feeling guilty about going over budget.
    • Don’t order drinks. Even sodas! One of the ways to make things cheaper is to only spend money on food and not order any add ons. I did order a coke this weekend because I was so tired and needed extra caffiene.
    • Suggest going for a walk or hike or coffee. All of these are way cheaper than eating out and a walk can help with my exercise goals too!
  2. Nail polish: Not sure why, but I’ve suddenly gotten very into nail polish and so spent $26 buying some new colors.
    • Add items I want to my wishlist. Whenever I want something new I’ve started adding it to the back of my journal with the price, the date, and a terribly drawn picture. It’s fun and also keeps track of all the items I want (but hopefully don’t want in the future)
  3. New jeans: Okay, so I actually only have one pair of jeans and am looking to get a new pair. I saved about half of this in my budget, but the ones I wanted were on sale, so I just bought them. $70
    • Same as above! Add to my wishlist.

In total, that’s $206 dollars I wasn’t really planning on spending, but did. I’m not going to beat myself up about it, but just learn from this and move forward with my next steps.

How are you feeling about your budget so far this year?

Until next time!

Day 42: Expense Tracking

~ joypetite ~ Leave a comment

Now that I’ve written down all my goals, it’s time to track what I spend money on each month. I like to use excel because I find it helpful to physically input everything I spend rather than pulling information directly from my bank account. Here’s a sample of my Budget Spreadsheet for your viewing pleasure.

Basically I input everything that goes in and out, where the money came from (Checking, Credit or Cash) and place it into a category, so I know how much I’m spending on things. I use the following categories, but of course everyone’s lives are different so you’ll have different spending buckets.

Necessities: The big stuff. Rent, water, power, gas. Stuff that I have to spend money on to get to work, have a place to live and eat.

Entertainment: This is anything I do for fun from art classes to going to see a movie.

Food: Grocery bills are counted under necessities, but Food is any extra food I buy out and about that I don’t absolutely need. I’ll admit this bucket has been taking more and more of my paycheck as I’ve settled into my job from being a contractor for awhile.

Shopping: Anything I buy which falls under the clothing/skincare/gifts basket.

Exercise: I could put this under entertainment since you don’t have to spend money to exercise, but I think it falls between an extraneous cost (yoga is NOT cheap) and a necessity (My health is important to me.)

Travel: Blah. This also eats up a large chunk of my paycheck when I do buy things for travel (hotels, airfare!!! or a rental car). I don’t use it often, but I like to have it separate.

I suppose I could break it out into more categories, but this works for me. It allows me to see if I’ve overspent each month and what most of my money is going to (Food! Eek!). Some months are better than others. I suppose the next step would be to track my spending habits over several months to see what my long term patterns are. I’ll work on that.

Until tomorrow. Budget away!