The past 60 days, financially, have been challenging.
(just so you know we are mostly working with a Dave Ramsey plan, with a few modifcations because we are incapable of doing exactly as anyone tells us)
My car repairs.
A weekend away
DH’s truck repairs
My illness. Not that bronchitis is a spendy sort of illness but the fatigue leads to dinner out, take out & poorly planned shopping trips costing more than budgeted.
Plus the coming costs we have yet to absorb.
Kids uninsured dental appointments & possible orthodontia appt
Xmas shopping
Thanksgiving with family in FL & the trip costs (several dinners out & two hotel rooms)
So DH & I sat down with the budget spreadsheet and had a come to Jesus meeting. (which is much funnier if you know I’m a Wiccan and DH is agnostic)
We went over, line by line, everything on the bank statements, added up all the categories & sorted by costs(man that is a lot of money on dinner out & OMG Amazon!), discussed where to cut back to make up for the shortfall (dinner out & Amazon), what to transfer to pay what amount, how to stop us both from spending the same $100, etc.
Despite ending up over budget the past two months, we are actually doing fairly well with budgeting. See, we stuck with it for 6 months and it was 3 large expenses (2 unexpected) that threw us off. Usually we only manage 3-4 months and then a slew of minor crap from poor planning (dinner out) derails us.
Yes, we blew it.
But!
We made it 6 months before blowing it this time!
We should celebrate!
With dinner out!
6 comments:
I keep track of our spending online (we do most of it on VISA since we get cash back on it; however we never carry the balance forward and therefore never pay interest), and although sometimes we stick to our numbers, most of the time our budget serves as more of a "woah woah woah" for my wife to slow down a little as we approach the limit.
Ore celebrate with something from Amazon! Good on for lasting so long.
Rinda
You should totally celebrate!
I think I am going to start entering every giveaway on the internet to help pay for christmas. I've won 6 this year, and free presents would be very useful. That's my tip.
I hate finances.
Good for you! Been feeling nickeled & dimed here too....since school started! They just always want money! lol
Way to go! I have such a hard time with bugeting and so does Gadget Guy. He keeps talking to me about using Dave Ramsey's method, but we haven't even opened the book.
You pretty much just summed up the financial planning strategy to which we subscribe - otherwise known as WHEW. THAT WAS CLOSE. WHO'S HUNGRY FOR CHINESE?
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