Week one down, bring it week two!

So far my October has been going MUCH better money-wise! I stuck to my goal for the first week and only went out to eat twice -- once at Chili's for $10 (the boy covered the tip) and once at this awesome bar for our girl's night, which was only $12. I stuck to the stuff I like that's cheaper, which included an AMAZING caprese salad that was almost as good as in Italy! I'm proud of myself to sticking to my guns and not breaking my goal on my first week!

This coming weekend my friend is coming to visit, which could be a little tight on my budget... I'll have to think of some cool stuff we can do that won't cost me a million dollars. :)

Till Debt Do Us Part

I'm spending my Saturday night in this weekend, since I didn't feel like going out in the cold or watching the football game. And it's a good thing too, since I happened upon this fabulous show called Till Debt Do Us Part. Have you guys ever seen it? It's like a money Supernanny for grown ups! She basically comes in and gives them challenges to help them revamp their lives and get out of debt. The one I saw tonight had a couple who spent SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS over their income every single month. And $2,000 of that was on groceries and eating out!! I was floored. I can't imagine spending so much money on food (and as we've seen before, I spend a lot of money on food...)!! Such a cool idea for a show, rather than people just calling in and asking people for advice. If you've never heard of it, check it out!

Happy October!

Happy October, everybody! One of my favorite months, not because I love Fall (cuz trust me I don't), but because I LOOOOVE Halloween! I already bought mostly all the pieces for my Halloween costume, on a budget of course! I'm so ready to go. :)

I don't usually do monthly goals, but since September was such a shit show regarding my finances, I've decided to set some concrete goals for myself this month. And here you go:
1) Save $100 towards my friend's CA wedding (Travel Fund)
2) Limit eating out to no more than two times a week
3) Do NOT go over budget
4) Try out two new healthy budget recipes (I already have one in mind!)

Alright, those are all I can think of for now, but it's not a bad thing to start small. :)

Biggest Fail Ever??

Hey, remember how I had such high hopes for my first cash-only month?? Well, I crashed and burned, folks. And not like, crash-my-bike-and-scraped-my-knee crash, more like the-plane-fell-out-of-the-sky-in-a-burning-ball-of-flame crash. I ran out of cash for the month last Sunday... and just. kept. spending. It's like I blacked out or something for the last month, and am only now being shown what happened. I mean what was I doing? I'm currently about $135 over budget for the month, which may not seem like a lot, but when you realize it's over 10% of my monthly salary... ack. And the worst part is, it's all on food! I was trying to keep track of my cash to see where it was going, and of what I remembered to write down, this is how it went:

$33- Random snacks (Gatorades, candy bars, dairy queen, etc.)
$92- Meals (at restaurants or fast food)
$28- Breakfast (gotta let the boy stop convincing me to go to the Waffle Shop every Sat morning)
$13- Part of a Halloween costume
$6- Used books
$4- A puzzle

So there you are folks-- I never really realized just how much of my "Fun/Entertainment" money was really just spend on eating things! I don't even have anything to show for it (not even extra poundage... thank goodness for small miracles).

I'm so frustrated, but I can't let myself get too down. Just gotta watch better this month and try harder not to be so loosey goosey with my money. It's just gonna be hard because I'll have even less money to work with. But let's hope October is looking brighter...

Where Should I Get My Tattoo?

I've been like a madwoman in the past few weeks, participating in study after study. I got my brain electricity read (NOT fun), did a word memorization task (kicked butt!) and also visited some random webpages and then filled out surveys. From doing these three studies, I ended up with a fresh $51 in extra cash! As I said before, I *heart* easy experiments that pay you. And there are so many of them to choose from!

And what might I be doing with that extra money? I got quoted for a tattoo today... fifty bucks! Remember how one of my goals for this year was to get my second tattoo? Here goes! I didn't make an appointment yet because I still have to figure out some details, like what exactly it will look like and where it will be, but it's awesome that their minimum is only fifty. I am thinking of a small little sun somewhere, to remind myself of Italy. I'm thinking on my ankle, or maybe on my side under my arm. So I'm opening it up to you guys for ideas- do you have any ideas of good spots for a sun tattoo?

Happy Birthday to My Car!

My car turned 1 year old last month! I should have a birthday party for it, one year is such a big birthday. ;-) I can’t believe it’s already been a year. And the great thing is, I only put 7,2600 miles on it! I’m under average, which is excellent, which means less wear and tear on my car!

And you know what else is cool? How much of my loan I’ve paid down in just one year. $1,774! Granted, it’s a 0% interest loan, but still, it’s cool to see that much progress on it! Not nearly as depressing as my student loan, which pretty much never even budges despite all the money I throw at it.

September = Cash Only (Kinda)

Alright, here we go! Today marks the start of my very first "cash-only" month. I've never done this before, so I'm going to start small and just use cash for my Fun and Miscellaneous categories. That's where I overspend the most, so we'll try this and see if it helps. But that means I'll have $195 in cash just... laying around. It seems weird to have that much money out at one time, even though that's what I did in Italy for the whole summer. Guess it's different with dollars since this isn't usually how I roll here. But anyway, good luck to me! And good luck with all of your budgeting adventures for September too! :-)

(In other news, it. is. so. HOT.)