I’ve decided to have a goal
within a goal this month. That goal is
to re-evaluate my two big goals each week to see how we are doing. I set 2 goals for September.
1.
Get control of
family spending
2.
Track my eating
Taking a look at our family
spending didn’t upset me and make me want to cry like I originally
thought. I took everything we HAVE to
pay and made a list. This is what it
looks like…
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House
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Car
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Personal Loan
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Prime grocer
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Daycare
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Car Insurance
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AT&T
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Veterinary
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Verizon
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Dominion Gas
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Electric
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Waste Management
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Water
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GE Card (A/C unit)
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Citi Card
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Sears Card
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Fifth Third (5/3) Card
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Capital One Card
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The 22 items listed are all
bills that HAVE to be paid monthly and accounts for $3200 each month (we
recently paid off the one’s crossed out).
We bring home on average $4600.
So why does it seem like we never have any money? Easily explained, we don’t meal plan and we
blow sometimes $600+ a month on groceries.
We are commuters (30+ minutes each), so we both have to have a vehicle
and gas cost $380 a month. $5-$30 on
fast food (WHAT?!?!) and various $5 we need this/that/the other shopping. It all adds up!
So I broke it down and got
the smack in the face that I’m the one over spending. I’m the impulse shopper or “oh, we need this”
instead of waiting and planning for it.
This month we are looking over what we spend. Even though I’m using a couple of different
online programs to help me track, I’m also writing everything down. I think it’s going to really help us when we
put our budget into play in October. I’m
really optimistic that we can get this figured out.
Now, goal #2. Tracking my eating. Why is this so hard for me? I tracked 5 out of 7 days. I tracked better in the morning, than the
evening and by the end of the week I wasn’t tracking at all. I did weigh myself yesterday morning b/c we were planning on having pizza
(the first time in over a month) and I know that I have very little control
when it comes to pizza. I only had fast
food twice, once was Subway, which is not completely unhealthy, but you have to
pay attention. Enjoying a foot long Cold
Cut Combo (hey, it was on wheat bread) w/ pepper jack cheese and light mayo, w/
a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and 2 chocolate chip cookies isn’t all bad,
right? RIGHT?!?!?! Omg, the amount of calories consumed there
should have been the only thing I ate all day.
Was it? Nope, I ate dinner that
night, didn’t even try to limit my calories.
The other day was Friday, I had Chipotle taco’s for lunch…chicken, w/
all the fixings. Definitely need to only
consume one of those a week. Heck, even
cut it back to once a month! That is the
goal! Menu plan and cut out the fast
food or impulse eating.
I honestly think I'm in a good place with our goals this month. Let's see what next week brings!
Budgeting is hard, we all like to spend money like there's no end to it.
ReplyDeleteThe meal planning can be fun. What I like to do is find 8 meals that we like or want try try and I shop for them. This is for 2 wks (this takes into consideration of leftovers and maybe a day of restaurant food). I mostly stick to slow cooker meals because it's just easier for us.
You can pull out the non perishable ingredients at night to have it ready and whoever is the last to leave the house in the morning/afternoon just throws everything in the crockpot. Because we have a big household I double the recipe.
Knowing your dinner is ready when you get home definitely reduces that chances that you'll stop for fast food. You'll have a nice hot meal for dinner AND lunch for the next day =)
Oh, I also buy crockpot liners because I hate washing it out and clean up is soooo easy!