It’s been one week since Operation: Stop Spending Money
began and so far I think it has gone well.
Especially for the first week ever on a true zero balance budget. I separated all of my envelopes by how my
paychecks fall. Since I get paid
biweekly, I’ll be refilling every paycheck approximately half of my monthly
budget for those items. My monthly
budget is:
·
Home (groceries/house supplies/basic
toiletries/paper products/cat food/any food related purchase, including
restaurants): $300/month ($150/paycheck)
·
Personal (mostly for clothes, cosmetics, and any
entertainment expenses): $100/month
($50/paycheck)
·
Gas:
$90/month ($45/paycheck)
Things like rent, car insurance, cell phone bill, etc., all
get paid directly out of my bank account.
I tried to give myself a reasonable amount of money so that I wouldn’t just
get frustrated and quit. It’s not quite
perfect yet, but I’m not 100% sure if that’s because I didn’t give myself
enough of an allowance in personal or home.
When I replenish my envelope funds next Friday (payday), I’ll probably
keep the amounts the same and see how it goes.
I’m really hoping that I can get by on what money I have in envelopes
through next week but I won’t be too upset if I have to “borrow” $40 from my
bank account to get me through just so I can still enjoy the holiday season,
especially since I’m not traveling home.
Right now I have $4 left in the home budget (mostly due to
an unexpected rodent problem due to a neighbor who is less than immaculate) and
two or three restaurant splurges I should have avoided (once I left my lunch
for work on the counter at my house, which not only caused me to have to buy
lunch but also ruined a frozen dinner.
This left me one meal short for my week.). I have $20 left in my personal budget and $20
left in my gas budget. I did go off completely
off plan once due to a necessary midday wardrobe malfunction that lead to me
putting $30 on a credit card. (Full
disclosure: I still have money in my
checking account but all of my bills for the first part of the month haven’t
been deducted yet and I wanted a bit of a buffer zone so the money I have
sitting in my savings account didn’t get moved over to checking. Plus, my interest rate on that card is pretty
low so it’ll only end up costing me around 50 cents to get it taken care of
next month.)
In theory, any money that doesn’t get spent in the home
budgets roll over into my travel fund.
The travel fund doesn’t really get funded like a regular envelope
though. It’s just any extra, unexpected
income that I might get. For example, I
just upgraded my cell phone and may be selling my old one on Craigslist or
eBay. Since that’s not money that I
banked on coming in to pay bills or direct to another purpose, that money would
go into the travel fund. The gas fund
will keep rolling over in case emergency or unexpected travel by car is needed
(this would have been great to have earlier in the year for a death in the
family). And the personal money left at
the end of the month will roll over month to month into a clothing allowance
envelope because clothes, especially winter clothes, aren’t cheap, wear out,
and require replacement/dry cleaning/mending/alteration, etc. (If I had had this earlier this week then I
wouldn’t have put any money on my credit card!!)
On Monday I’ll go over some plans that I think might help in
planning my budget for the upcoming year
as well as some mini goals to hit by certain dates.
Do you work off of a
budget of any kind? If so, what works
for you?
What percent of your
take home to you commit to household needs and groceries? I think I’m around 11% total for all home purchases
including groceries.
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