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Weekend Spending Round Up

November 13th, 2006 at 02:02 am

Spent a fair deal of cash this weekend on entertainment and optional things:

Friday: $3.50 at Farmer's Market for a 1/2 peck of apples. Money well spent.

Saturday evening: $10.50 on movie tickets for Mr. Bean and myself to see the Borat movie. I had high hopes, but was under impressed. Movie started off on a bad note when the guy sitting next to me kept saying "What a Dump!" about Kazakhstan. It made me sad.

Sunday:
$24.96 at JCPenney on 2 items of clothing. Both were priced well, but neither was a necessity. Feeling a little wasteful about this.

$3 at Big Lots for some household cleaners. Great prices here on detergents, soaps, etc. I will try to keep it mind to look there for laundry detergent next time we're low. I think the price cheaper than grocery store even with a coupon.

$3 for day pass to indoor swimming pool. I'm a runner, but feel an injury coming on, so decided to swim today instead and give my legs a rest. I was the only person in the pool for most of my workout. It was great!

Now that I'm tracking everything in Quicken, I find myself much more conscious about what I spend. However, I'm not using budgets. I've been concerned that it would seem too restrictive. Any thoughts?? Pro / con? Maybe I'll make a goal to set up some budgets and then test it out for a month or two.

The upcoming week should be fairly low-spend.

Posted in Spending | 7 Comments »

7 Responses to “Weekend Spending Round Up”

  1. tinapbeana Says:
    November 13th, 2006 at 02:13 am 1163383984
    1163383984

    perhaps set up a budget for only a few aspects of your life, to help you ease into the transition? set yourself up for success: budget something you know you can succeed at Wink for instance, budget the household cleaners and supplies, or the bills, or groceries if their consistent.

    for me and DH, everything is budgeted except our allowances. my allowance is mine and if i want to blow it all in one day that's my choice. justno gas or lunches out for the rest of the week! having personal money to 'blow' on a whim makes a big difference in our house.

  2. threebeansalad Says:
    November 13th, 2006 at 02:20 am 1163384427
    1163384427

    Thanks Tina! Good idea on breaking into the budget thing slowly. I left a message on your blog, but didn't realize I was still in the archives, so it ended up getting posted on the Oct 31 entry. Anyway, I see in your most recent entry that you're not a Feline Pine user, so it's not that impoertnant. Thanks for reading!

  3. lrjohnson Says:
    November 13th, 2006 at 04:45 am 1163393116
    1163393116

    I entered lots of months in Quicken before I did a budget. (uh, almost 8 years.) It was really handy for me to really eb able to see what my expenses were, not just for a month but over the long haul-otherwise, i'd never be able to know what to budget in some categories. (For example, personal care and toiletries....this varies from a dollar to over $50-if I get a hircut and stock up on items.) I did reduce spending based on having to enter it...I just was much more aware.

    If you aren't currently spending more thatn you make (if you are you need to budget asap) then I'd recommend getting in the entering in Quicken habit, before you budget. Even if you wait just a month, the entering of info will be habit by the time you are budgeting.

    By the way, when I started using Quicken I stopped using cash. It's hard for me to record every penny out of a twenty....I'll use my debit for a $2 purchase, because i can track it. You may not want to use a debit or credit, I understand...I'm just saying that cash purchases are hard to track.

  4. janH Says:
    November 13th, 2006 at 04:51 am 1163393491
    1163393491

    I, too, balked at a budget. Didn't think I'd want to stick to it. So what I had was rather vague. A couple of months ago, I set up a budget spreadsheet (with help from Hubby on how to work the computer) in Excel. I LOVE it! I enter everything everyday. I can tweak as needed while I learn to use it. For instance, I don't have an allowance system yet. I didn't have a category for Hubby today when he bought a CD. So we took a little of the overflow from another of his "vices" accounts and used it to make a music account. So easy. The numbers automatically readd themselves and we can see the results and stay within our paycheck. We've seen where we spend and where we save. It has challenged us in a fun and creative way to see how we can make it within the amounts. The funny thing is that we enjoy ourselves more with the little things we do. And it is a weight off my shoulders that I didn't know I had. I think you should try different ways of budgeting until you find something you enjoy working with. Ours is a sort of envelope method. We have a total at the top of each category column and subtract each day's bills and spending from the amount. It automatically gives us the remaining amounts at the bottom and automatically readds across the bottom to show how much is left. There are other add and subtract features we use and it's way cool how the computer does it for you. I've learned a lot, but couldn't have done it without Hubby's knowledge of the program!

  5. LuxLiving Says:
    November 13th, 2006 at 12:56 pm 1163422596
    1163422596

    What the others have said is true - you'll have to find what works for YOU and your family. I tried Quicken - hated it! I did envelopes - borrowed too much! I did zero based budgeting on paper - could do & worked except for the months when I forgot a category -goofy girl. Then I tried Jesse's

    Text is
    http://www.youneedabudget.com
    and Link is
    http://www.youneedabudget.com
    and it works the trick for me! What JanH is doing sounds much like
    budgetmap.com and others use an online envelope system like mvelopes.com. Whatever you use, do give it an honest shot but then if it doesn't work for you move to something else until you find the fit that's right for you! Good luck and we're rooting for you! Smile

  6. Ima saver Says:
    November 13th, 2006 at 01:04 pm 1163423046
    1163423046

    I am not a computer person, all I can do is type, I know nothing else. I have use the plain old envelope method for 40 years and it works for me. I write my weekly budget down, cash the paycheck and put the cash in the envelopes. Twice a month, I pay the bills. take the cash out of the envelopes and put it back into the checking account.

  7. threebeansalad Says:
    November 13th, 2006 at 01:53 pm 1163426011
    1163426011

    Thanks everyone! I will try a budget-- I'm actually kind of excited for this experiment. For the past few months that I have been using Quicken I have not been spending more than I make, but I'm sure it has happened in the past. I'll cehck out http://www.youneedabudget.com later today.

    I agree it's hard to track cash. I've taken to Mr. Bean's solution and only track whole dollars spent for cash-- I'm exact with credit / debit purchases. For example, if I buy something that's $3.16 and pay with 3 bills and a quarter, I only write down $3. I will admit that somedays when I want to buy a little snack I end up rooted around in my change purse and if I can't buy it in change (meaning I don't have to write it down) and I won't buy it!

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