I have been very convicted lately about budgeting our monthly everything :). The confession part - I have NO CLUE HOW TO! Seriously - I've tried to keep track of spending... but I forget to about 4 days in. I've gone through all of our monthly bills, divided them by 12... and now I have a lovely set of averages. I "know" how much I want to spend on different things (groceries, back to school stuff, gifts) but I rarely stick to my set amount. So today, I decided to try something new with the grocery portion. I bought a gift card. Sounds dumb, eh? But - this could work! I figured that it's September 1, I could buy a gift card for the WHOLE month of grocery shopping. Used cash... not credit for those wondering :). When the gift card is at $0.... I'm done getting groceries for the month. We'll have to live off what we have (I can hear the kids panicking already....). Our basement holds the "Schwadmart" - my stash of extra stuff, so we wouldn't be starving. We might not have bread... but we'll have 10 packages of Betty Crocker cookie mix!
I'm determined to cut back spending (this is VERY hard for me... I LOVE a good bargain!) on "stuff"... so we can save more for our future (college, retirement...).
On a side note - I've started canning... and LOVE it! Seriously... it's SO easy. EVERYONE should try it! We're going to pick apples this weekend (YEAH!!! I'm SO EXCITED) so we'll have some yummy applesauce soon :). Just thought I'd share...
Anywho - what do YOU do to make sure you're not overspending? Any tips for a budget incapable person??
Ha! I used to bring a calculator with me to the store, and add things up... when the cash was accounted for, I had to put things back or stop... it worked though!
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