Finally sat down and got a budget going!!!

[zazenist]

Well, we finally did it. DH and I sat down last weekend with our bank statements, bills, and receipts and figured up how much we've been spending and what we've been spending it on since January of this year. It was very interesting, and a little scary to see how irresponsible we had been in a couple areas. Otherwise, we already live pretty close to the bone, so there isn't a whole lot of shaving room... One thing I did do, however, was call this week and cancel our land line phone service. We will use our cell phones only. We still techinically have the land line since we will use it to get our DSL service, but just this one change will cut our bill from $60/mo to just under $30! Bye-bye, too, to the AT&T long distance service bill, which wa sonly about $4/mo, but still. And since the new DSL-only package includes and ISP, we will be able to chuck the $14/mo we were paying another company to provide it for us. So just with that one change, we are saving about $50/month! We are spending about $300/mo on groceries (and HBA), which is admittedly a lot for two people. Our goal is to try and get down to $250/mo. This still might sound high, but we really value purchasing some things organic/greener, and we're willing to pay a little extra for it. We are going to try and be even more hard-core with electricity conservation, and we are going to put out a rain barrel for water for our garden this year. We're down to only about $800 in medical debt (which is a HUGE accomplishment given where we started), our student loans (still - ugh), and our mortgage. At least now that we're using software and tracking our expenditures, I think we will find even more places to cut back a little as we get to know our spending habits better. But I also have to give us kudos, since even without actually sitting down and looking at it, we had already put a lot of practices into place that were very good for us. And we have a very good use planned for the savings - everything between now and the middle of October goes into the fund to pay for our trip to China! Now THERE'S motivation!

PS - for anybody looking into siftware to help them track their spending, I'd recommend GnuCash - it's what we're using, and it's free!!!

[Ali Lee]

I'm SO very proud of you...way to go!

[mombottoo]

Kudos!!! Putting together a budget is scary and it is really an eye opening experience when you finally figure out where your money was going. Keep on plugging along and you will get where you want to be in no time!