The way I run my budget is this. When I get paid, I have every dollar allocated to a category. I put all extra money into either savings or towards my student loan. Once I’ve paid my bills, I’m usually left with money for gas, groceries and incidentals in my checking. Once that amount is used up, then I’m ‘broke’. Lately, I’ve noticed that what I do, once the funds have run out, is I use my credit card (which I pay off monthly) to ‘cover’ myself until the next paycheck. Then I’m using money that would be going to the student loan to pay the credit card.

So this month, I’m challenging myself to completely stick to my budget and not use the credit cards. I last used a credit card on October 1st. I haven’t used the card since. I have money set aside for my party and for my vacation. So there really is no need to use the cards at all. I’ll keep you all updated of my progress.