1st Budgeting Pay Period Review

I have done my best to track our spending in the following categories: Groceries/Consumables, Eating Out, Gas and personal spending.  My hope is that we can determine amounts for each category that challenge us to stay within budget, but are also realistic for our life and our needs.  We set rough dollar amounts for each category to give us an idea of what will work, and will review and tweak these amounts once we determine what our spending habits really are.

This is a review of how the first pay period went.

Groceries/Consumables:
Initially budgeted = $250
Actual spending =  $347.35
Yikes!  I think its a good thing this is a category that we can work on to see better savings, though $250 for this category is probably a bit low.  I would like to be able to increase this budget category to $300 per pay period and do our best to reach that goal and then whittle it down a bit.  This category is really broad, includes diapers, dogfood, booze, newspapers (for coupons, of course!), groceries and drug store deals.  Pretty much everything we eat or consume in some way. 

Eating Out:
Initially budgeted = $50
Actual spending = $79.47
Another category where we overspent, but I feel we did pretty good.  This included a trip to Sacramento to take Ashlyn's grandma Tobie to the airport.  Ashlyn and I enjoyed a thrift store shopping afternoon and lunch at Chick-fil-A.  We also had a last minute meal planning fail where nothing really sounded good to me so we ordered pizza.  Dominos put a $26.83 dent into this category, but provided dinner and a few lunches for our family.  I think we can continue to try and stick with a $50 family eating out budget, though we may need to make some exceptions during February when we have Ashlyn's birthday, my birthday and Valentines day.

Gas:
Initially budgeted = $50
Actual spending = $38.19
Under budget, wahoo!  One thing I love about our new van is the gas mileage, that plus the fact that I don't do a ton of driving makes this category an easy one for us on a normal basis.

Spending Money:
Bob's initially budgeted = $50
Bob's actual spending = $29.77
The majority of Bob's spending was on lunch while he is working.  This is something we need to focus on.  He was within his spending limits but I'm sure he'd enjoy spending his money on something fun occasionally, we need to do a little more lunch packing and a little less McDonalds buying.

Hailey's initially budgeted = $100
Hailey's actual spending = $106.33
YES!! This impresses me, big time!  I'm a shopper.  This amount was spent during our thrift store shopping day, a Redding trip to Joann's & Michaels and included a few birthday items for Ashlyn!

There were also a few random expenses & purchases that came up during this period, $14.20 in ebay fees and $40 that we spent on a chair from Red Bluff Needs.  Not just any chair, Dannon's favorite "Awesome gamer chair!"

All in all, I think this was a good start to our budgeting attempt!  Tracking our spending in these areas will help us to be more aware of where the money is going, and which areas we can focus on improving.  I'd like to also start keeping track of the money I bring into the house by selling items on the facebook buy/sell groups I'm a part of and Craigslist.  More on that to come with our next pay period review!

2013

Well, 16 days late, but....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Bob and I kicked around some ideas for goals to work towards in 2013 (and we do have things we want, erm.. NEED to work on) but what we ended up coming up with is a 2013 Bucket List!  We had a little mini New Years Day adventure and took the boys out to breakfast at the Black Bear Diner in Paradise.  Going out to breakfast on new years day is becoming a tradition, 2 years in the running now!  Anyway, on our drive home we came up with this list that I jotted down on the top of the to-go box that was holding my mini apple pie.  In no particular order, here is our list:

Boys baptised
2 camping trips
Visit 2 new Food Network restaurants
New ink
Find a church
Real vacation (Tombstone, Lincoln City, Great Wolf Lodge)
Volunteer opportunity
5K
Attend 1 sporting event
Geocaching
Family emergency kit
1 new recipe/month cooking together
Monthly dates

These are all things I'm really excited about!  A few are a little more daunting to me than others (finding a church and participating in a 5k), but I really feel like this is a great mix of experiences and things we want to do together and as a family this year.  I really want to focus more on living with purpose.  There is always going to be the daily grind, but I want to feel confident that we are experiencing life in positive ways, and ways that might be a little different than how we normally do things.

In addition to our bucket list for the year, we are focusing on building and following a budget.  Its hard.  We're not even completely 2 weeks in to the first budgeted pay period and I feel like I've blown it.  I need to remind myself though, that we haven't "blown it" we are learning.  Its going to be a process and if we can improve a little bit each month, by the end of the year we should have a handle on this!

Here is a rough outline of what our household budget looks like right now.  It always looks great on paper, but doesn't carry over quite how I would like it to in real life.  The biggest blessing of all is that Bob has a great job, and even though we don't have it all, and often have more month than money, we have a roof over our heads and food to fill our bellies!

Monthly Expenses - $2000
(rent, water, PGE, Directv, Sprint, Allstate, AT&T, car payment, Rx's)
Gas - $120
Groceries/Consumables - $500
Eating out - $100
Personal spending - $250
Debt Payoff - $200
(Tier 1 - Court, Kohls, Chevron, Sprint, Orchard CC)

I'm trying my best to get a handle on this budget thing.  We're not friends.  Yet.  My hope is that since a lot of our budgeting categories are going to be per pay period, that I can track our spending and update here as a way to stay accountable and also as a way to see where we started, and how we finish.  My biggest brag so far is that we had a debt free Christmas AND paid off the balance on the Kohls card in December.  According to www.undebt.it we are set for our Tier 1 debts to be paid off in April 2013.  I think we'll have them out of the way before that!

Here is to wishing 2013 is happy, healthy & successful!

21 Days - Day 13

I have fallen off the wagon.

I'm feeling a little yucky this morning, but I'm ready to get back on track.  I actually first wrote that sentence as "I'm ready to try to get back on track," but I remembered the earlier reading and re-wrote it without using try. I'm not going to TRY, I'm going to DO IT!

So.. its currently 7:25am and I'm on my first cup of coffee. This post is going to be a little different today as I want to post my list of goals for the day, and for the week.

Today's Goals:
 2 loads of laundry from start to finish (including put away)
30 minute pick up of my bedroom, including putting away folded clothes
30 minute pick up of entry/toy area/living room
30 minute pick up of boys room
Clean kitchen table
Pick up dining area
Sweep dining room floor
Catch up on 21 Days reading


This Week's Goals:
Strip diapers
Cut quilt
Clean shower/tubs with the vinegar/dawn solution
Stay on track with 21 Days challenge

My Beautiful Fall Family!

I've been slacking a bit, I know... generally how things go around here!  I'm anxious to get back on track tomorrow!

Here is a sneak peak into how we spent some of our Veteran's Day since Bob was home from work.

-{Today I am thankful that we are able to capture so many moments in pictures, and thankful to my family, our photographer turned friend and shutterfly that all indulge me in my obsession! }-

Photo Card

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Handwritten Wishes Christmas

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21 Days - Day 7

Do it.

The end.

-{ Today I am thankful for coffee.  Minimal sleep last night, and just as many responsibilities today.  Coffee is fabulous! }-

21 Days - Day 6 Recap

Another weird day.

The old ways are creeping up.  The feelings of failing in one specific area, and then carrying over into that poor mentality of "if I already screwed up in this one area, then I might as well stop trying".  I don't want to give in to that.  The point of this challenge is to grow past that.

I am needing to start over on my goals today (Day 7) and focus.  When my time is up, its up.  End of story.  I was looking online last night for election coverage, and then spending extra time on facebook reading people's reactions.. all of that was over my time limit.  I justified it to myself because it was election night, and because we currently have a listing on our local buy/sell facebook group and on craigslist... There are always ways to "justify" your bad choices, I don't want to do that, I just want to make these changes and stick with them!

Anyway this is what was heavy on my heart last night in light of the election results and I wanted to share my thoughts/feelings here as well.  This is what I wrote on my facebook page this morning.

I was considering the divide in our country, and it nearly brings tears to my eyes to remember the feeling of unity and standing strong together post 9-11. It shouldn't take an extreme act of terrorism to unite our nation, we should be working towards that with every decision, every election, in every political offi

ce and school. We need to raise our children to be proud patriots, to have strong values, morals and work ethics. We should respect the elected officials in positions of authority whether we voted for them or not. I might not agree with the individual, but I respect the office. The way our country is divided and the flawed system we have for elections makes me sad, not specifically the outcome of the presidential race.

 

Looks like its back to our regular scheduled programming kids!