2nd No Spend

I had another no spend day yesterday, although I did drive a LOT. That is 2/5 for this month so far. It actually isn't as hard as I thought that it would be. I just have a feeling that on the days that I do spend, I am going to be spending more. We shall see. Now, if only I can continue the no spend streak through the weekend. I doubt it though, I really need groceries.

May Challenge

Last month I signed up for Krystal's May Challenge @ http://krystalatwork.blogspot.com/2008/04/may-grocery-challenge.html to spend no more than $250 on groceries and dining out. I have done really well so far only spending $9.29 the first week. However, the challenge is going to get a little more difficult as the month progresses. I am leaving to go out of town tonight until Sunday. That is going to be a lot of eating out. We all know that money will certainly be dealt out this week. Hopefully, I can make some right choices that don't cost me the challenge. Wish me luck!

Krystal's April Challenge

A while back I signed up for Krystal's April Challenge at Give Me Back My Five Bucks. Well, today I officially failed. I challenged myself to a $100 dining out budget. And have surpassed my budget by $4.27. I had forgotten that today was Administrative Professionals Day and we had to take our Administrative Professional out to lunch. While it was well worth it because she does so much to keep our office running, I should have planned better in advance. Now, my challenge is to try to limit myself for the rest of the month by not spending any more money on eating out. This is going to particularly hard since I will be in Destin for the weekend. Maybe the bf will pick up the tab. (just joking I never mind splitting anything with him because he does so much for me)

March update

With March officially ending today... it is time to review my budget and goals. I did fairly well sticking to my budget (minus the few setbacks from the last weekend). I was on target on everything except a few categories. I went over my grocery budget by $4.77; my eat-out budget by $28.83; my gas budget by $24.56; and my misc budget. I came to the conclusion that I need to further define my budget because anytime I didn't have a category I placed the money spent in my misc budget. Needless to say, I went WAY over budget in that category. Thankfully, I was under budget on a few categories so I had the money in the account for my misc budget.

I am on track for my goals, but think I am going to change things up a little bit. On the first of every month, I am going to deposit $900 in my ING account, on the 20th I am going to withdraw $566, and then when the money is in my account I am going to pay my cc bill with the $566. This way, I will make my final payment into my ING account to reach $6000 in December, but my cc will be paid off beforehand. Once my cc is paid off, I am going to snowball the $566 into my student loan payment. I know that may people have mixed feelings about paying extra on their student loans, but with $107,000 worth...every penny counts. I just really want to be under $100,000 by Dec. 31, 2008.

Also, this month I think that I am going to participate in Krystal's (at give me back my five dollars) challenge. I think that I am really going to stick to the $100 eat-out budget. There is no way I should be spending more than that in a month. Got to cut somewhere and this is my downfall.