Our Family Budget Report Card
The challenge we set ourselves this month was to try and live on $20 a day. The first of the month we were able to do this remarkably well, and on average we spent only our allotted amount of money. It wasn’t easy and left us all cranky and tired of being so stingy. For the first half of the month - I would give us an A (and I am a tough grader). The second half of the month I wouldn’t want to say that we totally fell off the wagon of our family budget challenge - but we totally fell of the wagon. I can provide all sorts of reasons to rationalize this (unexpected bills, a trip out of town, house guests) but really I have to meet it square in the eye - we get an F for the second half of the month. It doesn’t feel good to publicly declare this - but we have to be honest with ourselves and others - $20 a day just didn’t cut it. All told, our average is a C for the challenge, which technically is passing, but it doesn’t feel like we passed. I look at the lack of savings we have at the end of month and I sigh in annoyance at our balance sheet. But it’s not all bad. We have learned many things to help us manage our money in the future:
1. Even if we give ourselves more than a $20 a day budget, we need a budget to live by and to follow as closely as possible.
2. We will continue to use cash so that we actually see and feel the amount of money going through our hands each day.
3. We will keep looking at receipts and using coupons, because we saved over $40 this month by doing these two things.
4. We will continue to use cloth bags at the store - in total we received $5 from grocery stores this month for using our own bags.
5. Items that we consume a lot of (milk, yogurt, bread, eggs) we will buy in bulk.
6. We will continue to cut out luxuries (I haven’t bought chocolate the second half of this month to make up for our spending sins).
7. We have to spread out our spending. If we get an item of clothing or book one pay period we have to wait until the next pay period to get something else.
8. Spending money now doesn’t feel good and we need to preserve that psychology. That might sound strange, but it is true. If we ever want to get ahead, we have got to spend less and save more - that is all there is to it!
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One Response to “Our Family Budget Report Card”
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Hi, I found your post on Kirtsy! Kudos to you for undergoing such a challenge! I read a little bit of your story and it sure does sound like you’ve learned a lot of lessons the hard way.
I struggled my whole life with budgeting, and recently I stumbled upon a great trick that also utilizes cash spending to stay on track. (I like cash, it’s that physical thing that helps the mind appreciate what’s happening, isn’t it?) We have a budget for various categories, and on payday we simply withdraw enough cash and divide it all into envelopes by category (except for the bills which we pay immediately online). When we want to spend money on a category, it comes out of the envelope! When the envelope is empty, end of story!
We do make some exceptions for using the debit card online, but we always reconcile everything with the cash envelopes. The only times we’ve spent outside the envelopes is when medical or safety issues came up. When we bought our car seat, for example, we had to put our “household/clothing/personal” envelope into debt.
Anywho, I could go into a whole post on the topic, but you get the gist, and maybe it will give you some ideas as you make revisions to your strategy! Good luck!
At hippie dippie bébé I’m focusing on DIY for frugal green living and voluntary simplicity, drop by anytime! Oh, and your story about hot water and vinegar: oh so frugal and oh so good for the planet too!