Monday, January 28, 2008

Day 15 and Doing a Budget

Our FPU homework this week is to do a budget for the next month. I've already started on it a little bit. The idea is to spend your money on paper before the month actually starts, then you'll have a plan. Dave says it won't work the first month, or the second month, it won't start really working until about 90 days of it. It's sticking with it that's important.

The nerd (that's me) is to prepare the budget, then have a 'budget committee meeting' with the free spirit (that's Tom) and go over the budget. This is hard for me, and I don't really know why. I can do the budget on paper, but for some reason when we sit down to talk about it, I get really sensitive and 9 times out of ten, we end up in an argument. So my goal is to really work on that, because we are on this together and arguing about it isn't going to get us through it. Talking and communicating about it will. If I can have the budget pretty much worked up by tonight, we can talk tonight and go over the budget and be ready for February 1st.

Now for some updates:
1. We didn't buy any extras at the ballgames that we went to last week!!! YAY for us! My goal is to do the same this week-only pay the entry fee to the game.

2. We didn't eat out at all last week or over the weekend. Tom didn't bring home any Sonic drinks, but we did agree that he could get one before he went to practice on Friday evening. When I went grocery shopping Friday night, I normally would have stopped for a drink at Sonic before I came home, but I didn't.

3. I have a menu planned up for this week and next week, plus got sandwich stuff and other easy stuff for ballgame nights.

4. We did not get the plastic over the back door yet, I was too buried in my homework, so I'll shoot for next weekend on that one.

5. I listed some books on Half.com to help with the EF (they haven't sold yet). I also listed some child care books in the swap shop corner of our association newsletter. I also hope to go through some toys and see if there's anything I can sell there. Goodness knows I have plenty of them. (just ask anyone who helped us move. LOL)

So goals for this week:
1. Continue to only eat at home and avoid Sonic drinks.
2. Get the plastic over the door by next weekend.
3. Work on getting the Christmas club account set up.
4. Finish up cash flow plan and have budget committee meeting.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are doing amazing! Honestly reading this makes me strive to do some of the same things so that I do well with what extra money we are getting while John is gone.

KiddoKare1 said...

Thank you, Mandy. Hey, if you're interested in any of these forms, then we can make you a copy of the CD. (Dave Ramsey doesn't mind people making copies of the budget form CD as long as they don't sell them).

Anonymous said...

Yes please do I would love to have it! Just give it to my mom to give me lol Thanks!

Mom Thumb said...

We used to always get into arguments about the budget. When it comes to money, people are quick to get defensive about the way they spend it. When we were setting up the budget for Jess' college expenses, she and her dad were at each others throats and I finally had to step in and mediate. Money issues can be explosive. Good luck with your meeting!

KiddoKare1 said...

Glad to hear that we're not the only ones who argue about it. LOL. My problem is, I sit there and analyze every look on Tom's face and I get sensitive if he makes suggestions. But working on that, working on that......LOL!