The Budgeting Battle Continues...

For some strange reason in this day of wonderful technology & fancy Excel spreadsheets...I'd rather write down my budget on a scraggly sheet of notebook paper. I'm not sure why, I think it just makes it feel less official to me. I have to do spreadsheets all day at work, and those are official, so when it comes to my money I think a spreadsheet seems to be so final and in concrete to me that I shy away from it. Am I making excuses? I don't know...as long as I find something that works for me and stick to it, right?

Last month I committed to make a budget and stick to it for the rest of the year and see if i have extra money...so far...that'd be a so-so. I have managed to save more money, so that's a definite victory. The hardest part is the food situation for Mr. Man & I. It's easier when you're budgeting for one...and with your own money. How in the world am I supposed to budget in Mr. Man as well? I don't know when I'll pay for us to eat or do things...and another thing, we tend to eat out a lot more when we're together. Where as, I can just find something at home and be satisfied...how do I help Mr. Man see that we've got to be more careful now because his money will ultimately be my money and vice versa. We have to start building great habits now, especially since we're all entitled to fall off the money management bandwagon from time to time, good habits are a must.

Okay, back to the matter at hand...the budget for November and dare I say December. The good news is that I've managed to save up $1300 to do Christmas shopping with. Mom says that it's plenty to buy gifts and then have some leftover for regular savings or my credit card. And I'm praying I can somehow muster the strength and courage to not buy myself a gift every time I buy someone else one. That's probably my biggest challenge for the holiday season. I don't spend much on anything else, besides my ungodly high rent, but that's another story all together.

I am following my budget challenge to myself, I am still committed and I can will do this. Enough said.

YAY to Unplugging!!!

I am happy to report that my roommate & I committed to unplugging everything that doesn't require electricity while away from our home and my electricity bill went from, drumroll please....$64.22 to $34.89!!!

I do realize that some of this may be due to the fact that the heat is now on, but it's been on since we received our last electricity bill. I'd also like to compare this electricity bill to the one from October of last year. However, I'm not sure Dominion's eBilling is that savvy. I'm sorry Dominion...I stand corrected (blushing). Our electricity at this time last year was $46.22, so it did go down...and we didnt' even unplug for an entire month.

Anyway, savings is savings...and I'll happily take my $29.33, divided by 2, thus $14.67 all the way to the bank! YES! I'll let you know how it goes next month.