At the end of every quarter, I take a look at our actual spending as compared to what I budgeted at the end of last year. I don’t panic as long as there has been money to pay for everything and we aren’t raiding savings on a continual basis to pay for things, but, especially as the year winds down, I like to have an idea of what changes I need to make to the budgetread more…
Completely off topic note: For those who are interested in an update on our little Junebug, you can head on over to today’s post at Life by Pets. While we should have spent over $650 so far, the vet office keeps waving fees and we’ve paid less than $200. This is, with a few edits, a post I put up over on a financial message board I’m part of earlier this week. One of theread more…
I decided quite some time ago that weddings are all about the dress, and honestly, for various reasons, I wasn’t quite happy with my wedding dress. So I planned an excuse for a new dress. I see no need for C and I to renew our vows, but I thought it would be nice if, for our tenth wedding anniversary, we took a set of anniversary photos. (Our tenth anniversary is over a year away, soread more…
Day Amount Place Category Monday $23.25 Safeway Groceries $7.00 Cigarettes Allowance Wednesday $125.31 Poppy Eating Out $105.30 Concert Allowance Thursday $11.00 Subway Eating Out Friday $172.10 CostCo Groceries $8.75 Half Price Books School Saturday $14.00 Remedy Tea Allowance $31.00 Gas Car Sunday $67.53 Lowes House $21.78 PetCo Pets Wednesday we hit one of the restaurants for Seattle Restaurant week. The total represents paying for J, as well, and he’ll pay us back. We got called onread more…
I’m getting a raise: I got the official paperwork today and the extra money will be on the paycheck I get on April 27. Also on that check will be the 1% increase toward my retirement savings. I do this purposely so that I never miss that extra 1%. It comes at the same time as my average 3% raise (this year it’s 3.75%), so I see extra money on my check and extra money goesread more…
Day Amount Place Category Tuesday $54.00 Gas Car $7.00 Cafeteria Allowance Wednesday $23.00 Doctor Medical $3.00 McDs Allowance Thursday $16.50 Safeway Groceries $2,329.00 Tuition School Friday $7.00 Cafeteria Allowance $70.00 NorWesCon Allowance Saturday $7.50 Safeway Groceries $120.00 Cremation Urn MIL Sunday $3.50 Starbucks Allowance $41.50 Gas Car High spending week because of paying C’s tuition. It still makes me feel rich to be able to cash flow that. I also finally remembered to purchase the cremationread more…
I am very excited to be participating in Women’s Money Week 2012. I am breaking from my usual posting schedule to post everyday this week in support of this project. Today’s post is about Budgeting. Click here for more posts on this topic. There is a part of me today that just wants to cheat and point you to my earlier posts A Budget is NOT the First Thing You Need, A Budget is Not the Secondread more…
I’ve written before about Managing Someone Else’s Money, namely, my mother-in-law’s. Her financial story is a key component to our financial story. She moved in with us in late 2008 because she could no longer afford to pay her bills, her late fees and overdraft charges, and still eat. Without the late fees and overdraft charges, she had enough money for her bills, but she was no longer capable of handling her money. We took over.read more…
2011 Budget 2011 Actual 2012 Budget Student Loans $ 685.00 $ 1,087.00 $ 685.00 School $ 850.00 $ 781.00 $ 850.00 Bills $ 2,135.00 $ 2,183.00 $ 2,190.00 Car $ 190.00 $ 638.00 $ 350.00 Groceries $ 450.00 $ 401.00 $ 350.00 Medical $ – $ 25.00 $ 25.00 Eating Out $ 150.00 $ 159.00 $ 150.00 Allowance $ 200.00 $ 250.00 $ 200.00 Pets $ – $ 181.00 $ 150.00 House $ – $ read more…
This post is about how I determined what to budget for each category last year and how I’m planning to change that, if at all. Here are our budget categories, the average we have spent each month (Jan-Oct) and the budgeted amount (at the beginning of the year- some values have changed) Student Loans: 1,087/685 School expenses: 781/850 Bills: 2,183/2,135 Car: 638/190 Credit Cards: 26/15 Groceries: 401/450 Medical: 25/0 Eating Out: 159/150 Allowance – me: 162/125read more…
