In January, one of my financial goals was to track ALL of my spending on a daily basis for all of 2007. I am currently on track with that goal. At the end of the month, I total up categories, look at areas that I’ve under and overspent. Then I move on to the next month. But now I’m asking myself, what am I doing with that information.

Well, first of all, I used that data, to determine the amount of money that I’ve spent on medical expenses this year and used that information to get an estimate on how much I probably will spend in 2008. I used that info to make a decision on the amount I would like in my Health Savings account.

I used the grocery data to realize that I have grossly underestimated my grocery expenses, so I am doing 2 things. I am working harder to make my grocery money work for me. AND I have increased my budgeted amount to a more realistic number.

I am looking at house expenses to get an average of money put toward the house, so now I can create a more accurate number in my budget for house stuff/repairs.

I have seen that I grossly overspend on entertainment and need to adjust accordingly. This is going to be my focus for the next few months.

Its great that I have been keeping track of my spending, but unless I use the information, the time and effort that I’ve put into this project has been wasted. So in the upcoming week, I am planning on reviewing all the data to get a better idea

Well, the A/C went again. The last visit from the repair guy was a last ditch effort to see if it would limp through this summer. Obviously, it won't. I have the cash to get the new unit, but I want to pay myself as soon as possible.

Also, there was a glitch between my hot water heater timer and my brand new hot water heater, so I had the installation guy come back out to take a look. It took him 5 minutes, but it was fixed.

Today I:
-woke up at 6:45 am.
-was at the grocery store by 7:30 am to buy veggies and some staples
-made food to take to work
-called & set up an appointment with the a/c guy
-called & got 1 more car insurance quote. I'm just waiting to talk to the company who has my homeowner's insurance to see if grouping them together would save me a few bucks
-met with the hot water heater guy
-went to work for overtime from 11:30 am to 4:30 pm
-came home & cleaned the kitchen, living room and downstairs bathroom
-made dinner and premade food for tomorrow.

now I'm resting, playing on the internet & reworking my budget a little.


I'm actually going to be under budget for groceries this pay period! Yay I have $17.56 left of my $50.00 gift card that I'm using for this pay period. I'm going to save it for when soda is on super sale again. I like to stock up when its at its cheapest

So other than groceries paid by the gift card, I had a no spend day today.

Tomorrow, I'm working 8am to 8pm (3 hours OT). I've packed breakfast, lunch & dinner to take with me, as well as some snacks.

I've been running the house fans, but not the a/c since the a/c isn't working. But even if it was, I'd probably have it off, its been so beautiful in the last few days.

My goal for this week is to pack my meals all the way through Saturday. I say that sometimes and I don't follow through. But I will this time. I actually put a sticky note on my debit card. It says "A/C", just as a reminder. When I was saving for the house, I had a sticky with a picture of a house on it. Its a strange little motivation, but hey, it works for me

For entertaiment this weekend, I'm getting a few movies from the library. I've been watching old Poirot movies, which is fun. I have plans to do some organizational and cleaning stuff around the house this weekend. It should be pretty frugal

A few posts ago, I made the declaration that I was not going to spend any more money on eating out for the rest of the month. Yup, well that only lasted a few days. I'm in the second day of a migrane and instead of taking meds and staying home, I'm in training at work for a new job that I DONT want to do, that is causing a lot of stress for me AND doesn't get me paid any more. Plus, the tylonol just isn't cutting it.

Today, I ate some food from home & bought take out today. AND I'm planning on doing the same tomorrow.

I've been using some of the leftover money on my birthday visa gift card to pay for the food. Now its gone & I'll be using cash.

On a brighter note, I had a $20.00 gift card to Bed,Bath & Beyond, where I bought a Black and Decker Wet/Dry Vac dustbuter (with 20% off). This way I can clean out my car easily. There are no electrical outlets in the front of my house & I've been pondering how to vaccum out my car easily... I had planned on buying a long indoor/outdoor extention cord & dragging my vaccum outside, but this is a MUCH better idea.

I also got a 3 draw plastic container. I've been wanting one to hold my nails and picture hangers and screws and stuff. I've been using an old tissue box, but this way, things will be much more organized & easy to see.

I also used some cash to buy my mom a pack of those magnetic clasps for jewelry. She's been looking for them for awhile & I saw a pack when I was at the register. She's been buying me a lot of meals recently, so I was happy to get them for her.

I did get 8.5 hours of overtime in last week. I'm probably going to get about 4 to 6 hours in this week. Then I'm going to try to get 4 hours in on Monday (the holiday). And another 4 to 6 hours throughout the rest of next week.

Once June starts, OT will only be able to me on Mondays (my day off). So I'm going to try to take advantage of them for the full month, but we'll see.

I'm reworking my monthly budget. And I'm going to work on setting weekly goals for myself. I'm taking care of that over the weekend.

I also need to shop around for car insurance since my company is increasing my rates and I'm sure I can do better. The company has been good to me, but its getting way too costly.

I love listening to Dave Ramsey's show. I like his Baby Steps. I like the straight up, to the point advice he gives. I think he has a common sense approach to finances.

Now, I started paying attention to my finances before I ever heard about Dave. I had made a budget and given myself goals and set out to achieve them in a manner somewhat similar to Dave's.

However, there are 2 things I feel conflicted on... stopping retirement savings altogether and paying off all my debt with only $1000.00 in an emergency fund.

My parents talked to me for years about the importance of retirement savings. Iras, 401k, ect. I can't seem to get my dad's voice out of my head when I think of stopping the contributions. SO I am bringing it down to 5%, which will allow me to still receive the company match.

Since I am a single woman, living alone, I feel the need to have a much higher emergency fund to feel comfortable. I feel that I need a larger safety net because if something happens, such as breaking a leg & ending up in the hospital, I'm the only person I can rely on to pay my bills.

So I have set a higher emergency fund goal. Its not quite 3-6 months of expenses, but its definately more comfortable. PLUS I do have another source of savings that I'm basically pretending isn't there.

When I bought the house, my county had a down payment program that provided me a $5,000.00 loan towards my closing costs. I had the cash, but I accepted their loan because for the first 3 years, it is completely interest free. So I have my $5,000 cash in my ING account, earning interest and waiting to pay off off the loan in September 2008. If there was ever any major problem, I could touch it, but I REALLY wouldn't ever want to. So I really just pretend it isn't there.

I feel comfortable where my emergency fund currently is at $4,600.01 (I need to update my sidebar numbers). So from now on, all my extra income from overtime, bonuses, ect is going straight to my private student loan. This is something that my parents cosigned for and although they do not have a problem with it, I really want to pay it off as quickly as possible. Then I will work on my Federal student loan.

I'm going to be working up a projection to get the Private loan paid off in 2 to 3 years. Definately doable.

I have been stressed and sick and whatnot recently, so although I've been doing overtime, my goal is to destress as much as possible this week.

So in the interest of relaxing, I stopped by the library & picked up a few things:

-Green With Envy: Why Keeping Up with the Joneses is keeping us in debt (by Shira Boss)
-Save Karyn: One Shopaholic's Journey to Debt and Back (by Karyn Bosnak)
-Haunted Honeymoon on dvd (an old Gene Wilder flick, very funny)

I also have the Total Money Makeover to get through.

At the end of the month I'll be cancelling my Netflix subscpription (I've paid through the 25th). So in preperation, I've requested several new(er) movies from the Library. I'm in line behind several people, so hopefully it'll be my turn around the time that I cancel Netflix.

And as for Netflix, I currently have at my house The Good Shepard, The Guardian, and Unhitched.

Financially, I'm still meeting my goal to track all my spending. I've done very well with this. Each day, I write down any spending in a tiny notebook I carry with me. Then each night, I update it into an Excel spreadsheet. Its been a good system so far & my goal is to track for the whole year. I'm almost halfway through!

I also need to redo my budget, I have some changes that I want to make on it.

As for an overtime count:
Last week I did 15.5 hours
This week I've done 11 so far, with a goal of 16.5 plus any Sunday hours available.

Well, my ear infection is back & since I didn't use my primary care for the first appointment, the only way I'm going to get antibiotic is to go in to see her, so I'll be spending $20.00 for the office visit & $10.00 for the generic antibiotic. Not fun.

I'll be heading in for overtime tomorrow, I'll be working around whatever time I can get the doctors appointment.

I have to call & set up an appointment for someone to come in & get the large bees nest in my gutter. I'm not able to take care of it myself. I'm probably looking at $100.00 for the visit

Today, I bought groceries (part of the normal budget) and new sneakers. I got a pair of New Balance for 32.00 on sale. My last pair of sneakers lasted about 5 years, so I don't mind spending a little more to get long term wear out of them. My old sneakers were ruined when I mowed my lawn. (I didn't think ahead and they turned green). Well, they were pretty grungy anyway & since I wear jeans & sneakers to work on Fridays & Saturdays, so its definately time to get a new pair.

I've been shopping around for furniture for my deck. I think I found the set I like, and its a little more than I was wanting to spend, but definately less than most places. Then again, I might hold off on buying a table & chairs altogether. Mainly because I don't know what I want.

On the upside, money-wise. I got a 25.00 credit on my chase amazon credit card. They had a promotion, so I used it for some normal purchases (paid it off immediately) and got the $25.00 credit. I've also received a $5.00 Pinecone check.

Also, I'm looking at $10 to $20 for switching to online statments for my checking accounts. I'm not sure if I'll get $20.00 since I technically have 2 accounts with the same bank, but we'll see. The deposit will be made to the account by 5/30/07.

AND the best expected income is a gift card that I'm hoping to win at work. If I make 160% of my personal expected production for April, I'll get a $400.00 gift card to wherever I want. As of Thursday, I was at 174%! I'll probably ask for a prepaid visa card, so I can spend it as I like.

Well, I'm hoping that May will be as frugal a month as possible. I'm reviewing my monthly budget & I'm going to try to find some areas that I can do better. There always are

Well, I was sick for about a week and a half. Lots of time off work (all paid), but no overtime. This week, I'm still recovering, so I've decided to do no OT this week either. Plus, I've already scheduled off for Friday & Saturday for my birthday.

On the spending front, I've been very very bad. Being so sick, I haven't been feeling like cooking, so I had some food delivered & my mom dropped some stuff off for me (which I reimbursed her for).

Plus I ended up in the doctors office twice, once on the weekend. Since my primary doctor doesn't work weekends, I ended up in the local medical center (not hospital). I had to pay a $30.00 specialist copay instead of my normal $20.00 copay, plus all the meds, but it was necessary & I'm FINALLY feeling better.

On the planned spending side-- I bought a push lawn mower. $134.99 from Sears (with my parents retiree discount). Then I bought a bike chain & tarp to cover it since the townhouse doesn't have storage for the mower.

Although I spent most of my time last week sleeping, I did get the energy to go buy handles and pulls for the vanities on both bathrooms. They were gold, but all the fixtures on the bathrooms are silver, so I switched them over.

Then I bought some Allen wrenches ($17.99) in an effort to fix the existing towel bar that keeps falling. It didn't work, so now I have to buy a towl rack. I'm getting sick of hanging the towels on the door & over the shower curtain pole. I'm keeping the Allen wrenches though, because they'll come in handy for later projects.

And while I was sitting on the couch all week recovering, I found out that I have bees. Big ones with a nest that's in my gutter. Lucky me... why, oh why couldn't one of my neighbors get it?? There's no way I'm going to be able to get up there to spray the nest, and no spray will reach it since its on the roof, so I"m going to have to hire somebody.

AND the worst part about being sick was that my bedroom tv broke, so I couldn't lie comfortably in my bed, I had to veg on the couch for the time that I was awake.

When I first started having problems with the tv, I actually took it apart, fiddled around with some wires and it worked fine again. Then it completely blew up the other day. Definately not fixable.

So I'm in search of a new tv. I know its a bad habit, but I fall asleep to the tv and I'm having a hard time without the white noise. I think I've found a good price on one, I've been doing a lot of research. So I'm going to pick one up tonight after work.

On the upside, I haven't used my heat in about 2 weeks. All the windows are open & in the last 2 days, I started using ceiling fans. Only in the room that I am currently in. I can't wait to see my electric/gas bill this month

And here's a cute story about my 6 year old nephew! Last weekend he went to TWO birthday sleepovers for friends. On Monday, my mom was telling him that it's Aunt H's birthday this week and she asked him what do you think we should do for it. He says to her "Oh, maybe she'll have a sleepover!" And I know in his head, he was picturing my parents, him, my sister & some of my friends all having a sleepover It was very cute.

So I decided to have him over for a sleepover on Friday, then on Saturday I'm going out with my best friends, Sunday will be family stuff.

I'm hoping to be on track with spending. I need to hit the grocery store & organize some stuff around the house.. its gotten a bit messy due to being sick.

Today is a no spend day! And I'm working 6 hours of OT. When I get home tonight, I'm going to be premaking food for the week and cleaning. I feel better when I'm organized, so I've been working hard at keeping my house clean & planning my food.

I've made a meal plan for the week. Since I'm pretty much working 7 days a week, I'm planning a lunch out each week. Just to give myself a break from working 10 hour days then coming home to cook. Its all within my budget, and my diet. As long as I plan ahead

I'm going to get my March totals together. I've been keeping up my goal of tracking ALL spending for the year. 3 months down, 9 to go!

I had this whole nice entry about budgeting & paying bills... then I lost it before I published it. And yes, it was human error

ANYWAY... I really like it when people show how they budget & pay their bills...its always interesting to see other people's processes, so here's mine.

I get paid bimonthly on the 1st and 15th. I have 2 checking accounts, which get direct deposit. ONe is for regular bills (gas, groceries, spending, student loans, medical, personal, car insurance, gifts, oil change, cell, cat, and clothes), the other for house bills (mortgage, cable, netflix, water, sewer, electric, trash).

On the first, I take 1/2 of my monthly budgeted amount for gas, groceries, spending & mortgage. Then I pay 1/2 of my bills. On the 15th I take the other 1/2 of my monthly gas, groceries, spending & mortgage & I pay the rest of my monthly bills.

This way, I pay everything on time, because A,B,C are paid on the 1st and X,Y,Z are paid on the 15th. It works nicely for me.

Sometimes I move money from one catagory to another, but I never had to dig into my savings. So if I'm under budget on gas, I may use the leftover for groceries.

Well, thats my system & it works for me!

Overtime Update: My goal has been 10 hours a week. I had 14 last week and only 6 hours this week, but it balanced out. It looks like our overtime is going to extend through April too (this has never happened in our department before). But its GREAT for me!! Mostly I'm sacking the money away, but I would really like a better digital camera (than the freebie I got from the bank). Its something that I've been wanting for a long time, so I'm going to put some of my overtime towards it. And I'm going to do a lot of research to find the best price out there