Where it Went 3/02 - 3/15

I narrowly avoided my old nemesis, the Evil Overdraft Monster this pay period. All because I forgot I had to go to the eye doctor. Oh and I bought concert tickets, but since the latter was put on a credit card I just now paid them off (will be accounted for in the next budget).

In short, I blew my budget, but I needed an eye exam because of all the problems I've been having and while my insurance pays for all the opthamologists I've been visiting, opthamologists know nothing about contacts and can't give me a prescription for them. And, as I've explained before, while contact prescriptions are only valid for one year, most insurance companies (including mine) only pay for a complete eye exam every two years.

Today, I get to spend even more money ordering new contacts online. I opted not to order them from Walmart where I had my exam because I found the same brand for much cheaper at lens.com.

Anyway, long explanation over. Here are the dirty details.

Budgeted/Actual

Joint account - 400/400
Defaulted Student Loan - 260/260
Credit Card - 200/100
Groceries - 75/82
Health - 60/50
Gym - 33/33
Charity - 20/25
Misc. - 185/170

Concert Tickets - 0/200

Eye Doctor - 0/92

Which means I need to account for $117 in the next pay period so everything resets itself perfectly. Boo.

I am, however, very excited to be able to see again...especially with all the concerts and fun stuff we have planned for the warmer months.

Budget 3/2 - 3/15

The extra paycheck plan is in effect. Since the month of March will have three paychecks, there's a little breathing room in this one....which has to go to my joint account for our joint debt and fun stuff pay off account....including the upcoming Mexico trip.

There's a lot happening that I haven't been able to write about yet. One of us may be getting a new job. We owe taxes. We have a list of wants a mile long and are trying to learn about patience and compromise. Sometimes we're really freaked out or frustrated about money. Welcome to married life, I guess. I will hopefully have some news really soon.

In the meantime, I figured I'd make myself accountable and do a budget post while I dream of Mexico, a trip that's still months away but already being paid for thankfully and not so thankfully.

Starting Balance = $1233*

Joint account - 400
Defaulted Student Loan - 260
Credit Card - 200
Groceries - 75
Health - 60
Gym - 33
Charity - 20
Misc. - 185

*Includes $45 being taken out after taxes (boo!) for my pension buy back.

Miscellaneous seems really high right now but I'm hoping to make an even bigger credit card payment. Just don't want to set myself up for failure.

It snowed today so I have warm happy Mexican vacation thoughts on my mind.

Where it Went 1/19 - 2/01

I'm Sallie's Niece and I like clothes. This is actually a new thing. An inspiration to lose weight. Turning 31. The doldrums of winter. Anyway, I hate most of my wardrobe and have been working to systematically replace all of it. If only the budget were limitless.

So with that small caveat in mind, here's how I did with my money compared to the budget I set:

Budgeted/Actual

Perkins Loan - 200/200

Mexico Trip - 630/630

Credit Card - 200/300*

Health - 85/46

Groceries - 0/22

Misc. - 153/168

This spending includes $58 in half.com payments from my decluttering project.

*So yes I sent $300 to the credit card but that was basically the amount I charged on it. :-(

I had this business idea to bring in more money so I spent $35 on exploratory costs for that. It's on hold now as I'm too busy and broke to devote to it what it needs.

I also spent $90 on my new niece, $30 of which I will be paid back for. Damn cute baby clothes.

The rest was spent on clothes for me, which sounds like a lot but since I was at the outlets I got some great deals. And it's all clothes for work pretty much so I can get a lot of use out of them.

Anyway, since the credit card balance didn't go down I sent another $300 to it today, which will be detailed in my upcoming budget post.

Budget 1/19 - 2/01

Woo hoo, my paycheck is $16 higher than the even higher paycheck I got last time. Still not sure why they decided to reduce Social Security contributions when they probably need them most, but that's not for me to decide.

And....we booked a trip to Mexico! Mexico here I come, baby! We have a family member's destination wedding to attend, and I'm excited because I've never been South of the Border. To go, however, we need diligent budgeting. Luckily, with this paycheck I should be able to pay the balance of our must-pre-pay room for four nights. We got a suite for a great price! It even has a jacuzzi and was only $20 more a night than a smaller room.

So far we can only afford to go for four days but the airfare may make more sense for us to go for a whole week. Still, we have a few months to figure that all out. Here's my budget with Mexico on my mind:

Starting Balance = $1268

Perkins Loan - 200

Mexico - 630

Credit Card - 200

Health - 85

Misc. - 153

I've already paid $500 towards Mexico today, plus the credit card and the Perkins Loan. The challenge is to not exceed $153 in two weeks of miscellaneous spending. I think I can do it! It will be worth it when I'm on the beach. Also I have $25 in my wallet from last paycheck (hee hee).

Where it Went 1/05 - 1/18

I am happy to report that in addition to joining a new gym, I joined Weight Watchers a little over a week ago and am already seeing positive results.

The ongoing process of getting rid of clutter in my apartment yielded an additional $80 this pay period, which helped subsidize the membership fee (I paid for three months in advance I think). It didn't help all the overspending as I really wanted some household stuff too. The challenge of living in a small space is sometimes you have no place to stash stuff but I hung up some shelves and bought those special space saving hangars (they work!).

In addition to my January charitable donation, I also made a political contribution of $28. Speaking of giving, Nicole over at The Budgeting Babe has also pledged to give to 12 charities in 2011! I've been a fan of her blog for years so I'm excited my post caught her interest.

So that's how the cookie crumbles. Here's how I did compared to the budget I set out two weeks ago:

Budgeted/Actual

Sallie Mae - 407/407

Defaulted Student Loan - 260/260

Sprint - 74/74

Credit Card - 200/100

Health - 85/65

Charity - 50/78

Gym - 33/33

Weight Watchers - 0/65

Misc. - 148/227

I plan to post a little more on my weight loss journey and hopefully share some tips that have helped for me. Right now all I can say is track everything you eat and get to the gym as much as possible and you will see results.

Budget 1/05 - 1/18

A new year means a fresh budgeting slate. You may have noticed I took a little hiatus from regular budgeting towards the end of the year. But as the saying goes, "when you fail to plan, you plan to fail." So here's me getting back on track,

Starting Balance - $1252 - even though I opened a Flex Spending Account and my federal taxes went up, my paycheck is only $5 less because the feds (for some illogical reason) decided to take less money out for Social Security.

Sallie Mae - 407
Defaulted Student Loan - 260
Sprint - 74
Credit Card - 200
Health - 85
Charity* - 50
Gym** - 33
Misc. - 148

*My first charity of 2011 will be announced soon!

**I'm rejoining the gym. Call me a Resolution Maker. Just don't call me unmotivated to get fit!

Where it Went 11/24 - 12/07

Sorry this post is so late in the day. Got stuck in mandatory training all day. Have some money news and general life musings to write about, but not enough time to write them.

In the meantime, here's where my money went the past two weeks compared to the budget I established:

Budgeted/Actual
Roth I.R.A. - 500/500

Perkins Loan - 200/200

Credit Card - 200/200

Groceries - 75/0

Health - 45/130

Gift - 100/160

Misc. - 151/140
Clothes - 0/110

This budget reflects $14 in additional income earned.

I managed to get some great gifts for my husband and brother (who is deployed for Christmas). And I got some new work clothes since it is freeeeezing out.

Health costs should be abating soon I hope. Can't wait for my FSA to kick in!

Budget 11/24 - 12/07

Happy (almost) Thanksgiving! I have a lot to be thankful for this year. First and foremost, my job. I was just thinking back over the past two plus years since I started this blog and all the things that have happened.

Right around this time two years ago I was losing my job. And remember that time I wrote about my "rich" parents' Thanksgiving traditions and everyone yelled at me? (Good times)

But then I got a new job with a better salary, soon to be followed by a cost of living increase.

In the midst of all this, I got engaged, moved six months later, and married my excellent husband. We also saved a bunch of money for said wedding and honeymoon.

I paid off an old collections account that had haunted me for years....and I paid off one of my student loans!

Just two weeks ago my sister had a baby, the grandchild for my parents, and I became a proud aunt.

I have a lot to be thankful for, including this paycheck I will now spend:

Starting Balance - $1271

Roth I.R.A. - 500

Perkins Loan - 200

Credit Card - 200

Groceries - 75

Health - 45*

Gift - 100**

Misc. - 151

*This may be higher. I really won't know for a few more days but luckily there's my good old friend the miscellaneous category.

**We have a gift account with enough to buy presents for family but this money is allocated to buy my sweet hubby a present.

Hope everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday!

Where it Went 11/10 - 11/23

Here I am, still haven't left town yet to get on the road to see family for Thanksgiving. In fact, we probably won't get on the road until sometime tonight. I greatly dislike the highways in general, but especially at night before a huge holiday.

But at least it gives me some time to write up a budget review. So here's where my money went the last two weeks compared to the budget I set for it:

Projected/Actual

Sallie Mae - 407/407
Defaulted Student Loan - 260/260
Sprint - 74/74
Groceries - 150/97
Professional Fee - 155/155
Health - 45/160
Misc. - 180/183
Gifts - 0/50
Clothes - 0/120

Overbudget in a few categories and the health costs will continue to be higher than normal for at least a short time. It's not something I regret, as it costs money to make myself better (and yes I'm being purposely vague for the time being).

I did manage to bring in $47 in additional income the past two weeks which makes up for some of the unbudgeted expenses.

And I held off for the longest time on buying clothes but faced with the upcoming holidays and the Moth Massacre of my sweaters I gave in and bought some new stuff.

That's how the pumpkin pie crumbles. Stay tuned for a new budget post.

Budget 11/10 - 11/23

It's a girl!!!!!!!!!!! Sallie's Niece is now an aunt. This morning my niece arrived safely into the world, a few days late but healthy as can be. I get to meet her in a couple of days - the beginning of three weekends in a row away from home, but I won't focus on that just yet.

So here's the budget for the next two weeks. I will finally make it to the grocery store, even though DH will be out of town next week, so we'll barely be home together for the next couple of weeks. I still need to eat and we're running out of things I can make dinner out of!

Starting Balance = $1271*

Sallie Mae - 407

Defaulted Student Loan - 260

Sprint - 74

Groceries - 150

Professional Fee** - 155

Health - 45

Misc. - 180

*I upped my 457 contribution again. I'm a little schizophrenic about that sometimes, but I know I won't miss the $14 every two weeks and my retirement savings could definitely use a boost. I also started a FSA finally, but that won't kick in until the beginning of next year.

**As much as I would love to go out and buy Christmas presents or get my hair highlighted, I am spending some money to increase my professional certifications. I am hoping I eventually see some outside income which makes this expense worthwhile. And if not, it can't hurt on a resume.

And since I've mentioned Christmas....DH and I decided we're not going to spend a lot of money on gifts this year. We have savings that he's been putting aside all year for presents and we have a couple of things picked out for people...and that's it. No more overspending on the holidays! (Except maybe adorable baby things for my new niece.)

Where it Went 10/27 - 11/09

Brrr. It's cold out. And we've already had our first snow. It seems like we are entering winter. Our first married winter. Awww. Sometimes when I get impatient and it seems our goals are so far away, I remember we have each other and that's important. :-)

Speaking of freezing, I've been on a mission to eat our freezer and pantry, which explains the no groceries purchased over the past two weeks. Truthfully a few things were picked up at the corner store but no big grocery runs were made. Among the yummy comfort food I've made is this awesome slow cooker BBQ chicken. Try it out. It's amazing and so easy to make!

But now, the budget report. Nothing too crazy here. I got some photos framed as part of my decorating phase I'm going through. And despite prior claims, I did manage to spend more money on Halloween preparations. So here's where my money went the past two weeks as compared to the budget I set out:

Budgeted/Actual

Roth I.R.A. - 500/500

Perkins Loan - 200/200

Credit Card - 200/220

Groceries - 150/0

Health - 45/65*

Misc. - 190/195**

Charity - 0/100

Household - 0/54

Halloween - 0/50

*DH paid my $20 copay when I didn't have any cash on me but I'm including it in my budget nonetheless.

**Since I had zero checks left, I ordered 2 boxes from Checks Unlimited for only $15 after googling a coupon code. I also got free return address labels. This was way cheaper than the $35 per box my bank was going to charge me.

I've been selling some old books on Half.com so this budget also reflects about $25 in sales in case you were wondering why things aren't adding up exactly.

Budget 10/27 - 11/09

Sometime in the next two weeks my sister will be giving birth and I will become an aunt! Yay! I mean, it's projected to happen soon, but who knows. This is the first sibling of mine to have a child so it's all pretty exciting. This has nothing to do with money really since I've already given plenty of loot to my unborn niece and nephew but I thought I'd mention it. :-)

Although I guess once it happens I may have to hop on a bus if DH can't come with me to visit my family. I'll think about that more in the days to come.

Exciting news - I opened up a new Roth I.R.A. last week. I know as part of my 2010 financial goals I listed maxing out my Roth, but I neglected to mention that I no longer had an active Roth account. Like the impulsive idiot that I was back then, I had opened up an account 5 years ago or so and started putting $50 a month into it. When times got tough, however, I drained all the money. :-(

The good thing about my new Roth account is that I opened it with the same firm my financial adviser works with so I have to actually mail him a check in order to make deposits, thus making it a whole lot harder to withdraw the money in a moment of weakness.

Anyway, with that explanation in mind, here is my projected budget for the next two weeks time:

Starting Balance = $1285

Roth I.R.A. - 500
Perkins Loan - 200
Credit Card - 200
Groceries - 150
Health - 45
Misc. - 190

I doubled my usual payment on the Perkins loan now that the Law School loan is gone.

I'm leaving some flex room in the budget in case I have to pay another doctor's co-pay or buy a bus ticket to see my sister.

Luckily (and not so luckily) Halloween is already taken care of courtesy of the spending spree.

It's pretty doubtful I will be able to come up with the entire $5000 by April 15th to max out my Roth...but I am now 1/10th of the way there so I consider that some progress. :-)

Here's hoping I can pull in some additional income in the next few weeks - more on that later.

Where it Went 10/13 - 10/26

Boo for this budget report. Not fun "boo" as in ghosts and Halloween but boo as in "boo hoo, I''m broke" or "my boo boo costs what?!"

After declaring I was gonna go out and spend some money, well, spend money I did. Then...I had a bit of a health scare, resulting in the following charges:

Urgent Care Center co-pay - $20
E.R. visit co-pay - $70
Prescriptions (including those not related to the health scare) - $20.
Grand Total = $110, which puts my total health care expenses at $180 in the PAST TWO WEEKS if you count the random $30 I owed my OBGYN.

Seriously boo to all of that. The Emergency Room is definitely a spooky place to spend your Saturday. And I don't even know if I will be charged a co-pay for my followup appointment today. Plus I went out and got some OTC things to help with my condition after the appointment. (Note that expenses today don't count towards the budget report, it's just aggravating.)

Anyway, the good news is I'm okay. And really considering opening up a Flex Spending Account since open enrollment season is coming up.

So here's where it went:

Projected/Actual

Sallie Mae - 407/407
Defaulted Student Loan - 260/260
Sprint - 74/74
Health - 60/180
Event Tickets - 60/60
Charity - 30/50
Groceries - 100/100
Clothes - 150/0
Misc. - 144/289




Booooo! Totaling everything up is scary. A lot of the miscellaneous is household stuff as I went on a kick of sprucing up our condo. But reality has set in and I'm done with shopping sprees for now. And I didn't even get any clothes!!!

I was able to earn $50 for consenting to take on another court assignment. I'm excited that these are coming in more frequently now as I definitely enjoyed spending the last $500 I earned. There may be more news in the area of additional income soonish so stay posted.

Budget 10/13 - 10/26

I've decided to call this budget the "okay fine, I'll admit to buying stuff" version. Instead of trying to spend almost every cent of my paycheck paying off debt and bills, I'm going to let myself plan for some purchases. Hopefully this will actually help the recent credit card problem because I have to use cash to get the things I want and need. Also I'm feeling a little burnt out.

I need new sweaters since, as I mentioned, moths have attacked mine. I need moth balls or moth hangars. I need flat shoes since mine are literally falling apart. I need a new coat. I want better bathroom storage. I could use a Halloween costume.

I'm not going to run out and buy all of those things in the next two weeks but I may buy a few and I"m not going to beat myself up about it. So there.

Here's my very lenient budget for the next two weeks. Most of the money going towards bills of course, but then some for me as well:

Starting Balance = $1285

Sallie Mae - 407
Defaulted Student Loan - 260
Sprint - 74
Health - 60*
Event Tickets - 60
Charity - 30
Groceries - 100
Clothes - 150
Misc. - 144

*I got a bill from my OB's office stating that I owed them $30 from November of last year. What the heck? This stuff always seems to happen with my doctors - I don't know why they don't bill me during the visit.

Where it Went 9/29 - 10/12

The great news about this budget report is that I was able to bring in $500 in additional income from a court assignment I received. The good news is that I paid off A LOT of debt.

The not so good news is that I also spent more money than I had planned, partly due to the windfall. And the bad news is that I still have a big credit card balance mocking me. I'm just gonna put this out there as I've sort of been evasive about the amount in the past month as I've been trying to attack it: I have $2700 in credit card debt. There I said it. It was actually quite a bit more a month ago. It's "only" at 8.9% interest rate but it's pissing me off and I want it gone as soon as possible.

So without further ado, I will show you how I spent my paycheck plus my windfall the past two weeks:

Budgeted/Actual

Credit Card - 700/700

Law School Loan - 200/434

Perkins Loan - 94/94

Health - 65/100

Gift - 60/60

Misc. - 167/180

Beauty - 0/59

Clothes - 0/198

Yeah yeah, I know. It's pretty bad. If I hadn't overpaid the law school loan so much I would have had money for the clothes. AND if I didn't have such a high credit card balance to work off I would have had money for both the loan AND the clothes. I just really wanted to use the windfall towards erasing debt and it did to a certain extent. Look for a big student loan announcement later this week.

Also I showed up at a doctor's appointment to find out that my health insurance decided not to cover my flu vaccination. What the heck? Luckily I think I am going to be able to reduce my prescription co-pays going forward so that will help a bit. It's also open enrollment time for Flex Spending Accounts so I am looking into that as well.

If all goes according to plan, I can have the credit card paid off by the end of the year. Wish me luck!

Where it Went 915 - 9/28

Good morning! Isn't pay day great? :-)

Time to see how I spent my last paycheck before I go on a flurry of bill paying and budgeting. So here is where my money went compared to the budget I set:

Budgeted/Actual

Sallie Mae - 407/407

Defaulted Student Loan - 260/260

Credit Card - 200/200

Sprint - 74/74

Gift - 40/40

Health - 25/25

Clothes - 100/50

Charity - 20/20

Groceries - 0/30

Misc. - 152/155

Still working dilligently to get rid of our new and unwelcome consumer debt. I'm gonna pay off a bulk of it in a few minutes - that's gonna feel good - and next week I have a legal one time gig that is going to bring in some money too.

I didn't do a big clothes shopping excursion yet - just picked up a few things from Walmart which were suprisingly not cheap but I still need to soon as the weather gets warmer. Moths ate FOUR of my sweaters. I've never had moths before and I don't like them one bit.

Stay tuned for a new budget post!

Budget 9/15 - 9/28

After a long hiatus I've decided the honeymoon is over and I should put up a budget post. Note, however, that this budget only reflects my income and the bills I'm responsible for. The DH and I haven't changed the way we manage our money now that we're married though as always we talk about our money and mutual goals. I still transfer money to our joint savings account that we were using for the wedding, except now it's being used to pay off debt.

And about that....yeah, we managed to rack up some consumer debt. It's not terrible and we have a plan to eliminate it, but it puts some other goals on the back burner.

Anyway, here it is:

Starting Balance = $1277

Sallie Mae - 407
Defaulted Student Loan - 260
Credit Card - 200
Sprint - 74
Gift - 40
Health - 25
Clothes - 100
Charity - 20
Misc. - 152

I need some new clothes for the upcoming busy season at work and we have two weddings to attend in October.

My paycheck is a little less than normal because I'm now paying for health insurance for two. The good news is the amount I'm paying now doesn't increase if we add dependents in case we ever decide to make any little humans.

Budget 7/07 - 7/20

Since I need this paycheck to last me until the second day of my honeymoon I figured it was wise to write up a budget so I don't forget anything in the midst of wedding planning.

BTW I should have realized what I was going to get when I googled "two brides" but this image refers to a semi-financial quandry I am in. :-)

My friend is also getting married and her shower and bachellorette party are this weekend. I have already RSVPd yes to both events, but due to a death in a third friend's family I no longer have a way to get to them - five hours away. So...I'm trying to figure out what to do...and how much it will cost. So here's my worst case scenario budget:

Starting Balance = $1337

Sallie Mae - 406

Defaulted Student Loan - 260

Credit Card - 100

Sprint - 74

Health - 45

Shower gift - 60

Transportation and party misc. - 180

Wedding week & misc. - 212

Okay, so that's not too awful. Of course it doesn't take into account the vast amount of money we will spend during the week of the wedding but that is coming out of the separate wedding budget I've worked so hard on for the past year. Time to enjoy it!

Where it Went 6/23 - 7/06

Oh man, I NEED to write a budget post. With the wedding right around the corner I have to make sure everything is on track as today is my last payday of my single life.

Luckily just sorting through the last pay period's expenses it seems I didn't get too far off track - save for maybe giving my little sister a $200 graduation present (cash) but I'd have given her $2000 if I had it so there's no trying to talk sense into me after the fact.

So here's where my money went for the past two weeks, just for accountability purposes since I didn't bother to post a budget in the first place. :-(

Starting Balance = $1416

Wedding Savings - 500
Gift - 200
Credit Card - 150
Perkins Loan -93
Law School Loan - 80
Clothes - 60
Health - 40
Wedding Spending - 32
Misc. - 120

I got some clothes to wear on the honeymoon at Old Navy - yay for $5 t-shirts!

Where it Went 5/26 - 6/08

Wedding. Money. Life. Stress.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. How is everyone else doing?

I'm pretty good, especially knowing that even with the daily stressors of planning a wedding, that I will be married to the man I love soon....and then boarding a plane to Hawaii. Can't wait!

So here's where my money went for the past two weeks compared to the budget I set:



Budgeted/Actual

Credit Card - 150/200
Wedding Savings - 700/700
Wedding Makeup Deposit - 50/50
Perkins Loan - 93/93
Law School Loan - 80/80
Groceries - 75/0
Healthcare - 40/40
Misc. - 149/160
Clothes - 0/40




I got a dress I may wear to my rehearsal and one I will definitely wear on the honeymoon. Found a really great discount shop a few towns over. Resisted urge to spend more than the $40 in my wallet.



This weekend I have what I hope will be my last dress fitting and then my hair and makeup trial. It's really getting close!