Everything else this month includes my car insurance, flashcards I bought to help me study ($300 + shipping from Becker, found them on eBay for $169.50 including shipping), and son's back to school expenses.

I just squeaked by on groceries, but those utilities! Waaaaahhhh! (that is me squawling like a baby) That's not even the awful part. The awful part is my next electric bill was in my mailbox yesterday. It is even bigger than the last one.

Well here we are with one more day of August to go. I intend to have a no-spend day tomorrow.

So where are we? Well, my electric bill this month was enough to make me cry. $374. Really looking forward to fewer people in the house. I'm also really, really tired of walking into an empty room or empty garage and all of the lights are on. Groceries aren't too bad this month because everyone pitched in. They certainly weren't cheap, but I think I am on budget there.

When my car insurance was due, I put it on my Visa in order to hang on to the cash a little longer. (I never get any rewards points for my insurance. Humph.) Chase will cut off my billing cycle in a week or so and send me a big fat bill, so I will be parting with the cash soon enough.

Everything is paid for August and I have $1,201.51 in checking. That is less than I would like to have, especially considering my Visa bill will be bigger than usual. Tomorrow is payday, and it is a 12 day pay instead of 11. So that will help some.

I have finally received the rest of summer camp money from my ex-h, so my checking account has recovered from that particular shortage.

I have not one red cent in my wallet. I cleared it out at the bank today. Tomorrow I will withdraw another $60 cash. My Piddly Fund broke $400, and I "swept" the excess to my mortgage. I think $400 is enough in Piddly. I intend to sweep all of my change into the mortgage from now on, the interest from Piddly too. Will that be an incentive for me to spend as little of my allowance as possible? I believe it will.

My EF is not budging as I am sweeping EF interest into CurveBall. I have been thinking about how much I want to keep in CurveBall. I am thinking once I have 2k in there, I will redirect that money towards IRAs if I have not hit 5k for the year. That happy dilemma is still in the future. At the moment, I am just hoping CurveBall doesn't go down in September. I hope I can swing everything in September without dipping into it. I may end up making my budgeted deposit only to pull some money right back out. We will see, though.

My Chase Sapphire statement closed yesterday, and I have an extra 50,000 bonus rewards points. I am not planning on cashing them in right now. Instead, I plan to use mine towards a plane ticket (extra 25% if you use your points this way) when we go on our trip to Hawaii next year.

Have I mentioned that a lot of family members have gotten on board? My Mom says she will go. My cousin to whom I am close (and with whom I went to China) and her husband want to go. Cousin's son and his wife and daughter want to go (their daughter 1 year younger than my son). Cousin's daughter and her husband and their 2 kids are considering.

I am a late life baby, so I am roughly the same age as the generation after me. My cousin's son is 1 year younger than me. Most of my nieces and nephews were born when I was in grade school.

Yesterday I received a $20 credit cards reward check which I have already transferred to my mortgage. This month I have chipped $21.85. I am already thinking I will not chip my expected $150 bonus for opening a checking account. I am thinking I will stash it in my Roth instead. I have in the back of my mind that if I hit retirement with more than my Roth goal of 150k, I will be willing to use it towards my mortgage. You know, if I have one at that point. I am still up in the air about what exactly I will do. I may sell my house, take my equity and move elsewhere. At least, I certainly hope I have some equity again at some point. Maybe I am being presumptuous. So anyway, overshooting my Roth goal will not be bad, but missing it will be bad. So if I overfund my Roth, I can always use the extra towards my mortgage later.

I spent some money last night which I shouldn't have. BF and son and I had been invited to dinner at my ex-nieces house. (She was married to my nephew at one time, they have a daughter together.) Something came up in the late afternoon with her son (she is remarried) and they had to cancel. So there we were, all dressed up and no place to go. On a whim, I suggested we go out to dinner. We went to Applebee's. Afterwards, we decided to go see Cowboys & Aliens (we really liked it). When that was over, we decided to see Rise of The Apes (loved it). So it was an expensive night. I paid for everything. BF and I have a policy that s/he who suggests an outing pays for it. We have been together almost 2 years now, so are past the point of "dating". The first few months he paid for almost everything, but then I said that it was silly that one person should always pay. For awhile, we would tussle from time to time over who was paying. At this point, we just go with the person who suggests also pays.

At Applebee's, I had pineapple glazed shrimp served on white rice with a spinach salad on the side. It was delicious and only 310 calories! Applebee's has quite a few low calorie entrees.

My son started high school today. It was bittersweet. He has a 0 period class, which means he starts at 7am! We have to be in the car leaving by 6:30 at the latest. This morning I dropped him off, went to get gas and have my car washed, and still arrived at work at 7:20! They aren't going to know what to think, lol.

I had to buy son's student ID card ($25) and gym clothes ($20) last week. Also a monthly pass for the city bus ($31). Over the weekend, I stocked up on filler paper, pens and pencils at the dollar store. This morning, I gave him a check for his lunch account ($40). After school today, we went to pick up some required items. He needed a flash drive, some dry erase markers, a protractor, and some index tabs ($18).

I haven't really bought him any school clothes, he is still wearing his summer clothes for now. I did get him a wallet ($10), he didn't have one.

EDIT: I also had to pay $25 to the photographer so that son's picture will be in the yearbook. All in all, a spendy few days!

I have been busy lately, trying to study at least some each day. Some days I get in a lot more than other days.

Tomorrow I am taking a vacation day! It is my first one all year, so I am a bit excited! I will be taking my son and a friend of his to a local water park, where I will spend the day floating in the lazy river.

Instead of buying tickets at the door, I Googled coupon codes and was able to buy them online at $20.99 each instead of $29.99. We will pack a nice picnic lunch and skip the expensive, greasy park food.

Yay!

Here we are in August. My utility bills are huge. My grocery bills are huge. My car insurance is due. My son goes back to school next week.

No matter how you slice it, August is going to be very rough on my checking account.

On the plus side, my ex-h has finally coughed up $100 towards his half of summer camp.

Yesterday we found a second hand bike for $75 for my son to use for transportation. His last bike was stolen from our front yard. I didn't want to buy another new one. The bike we found has new tires and tubes and is in good condition.

I was able to get an inter-district transfer for my son to our city's best high school. This means no school bus service and it is too far for him to walk or ride his bike. The father of one of my son's friends who lives less than 1 mile from the high school invited me to leave my son's bike at their place, drop my son there in the morning, and let the boys bike to school together. After school, I can pick son up there. On rainy days, the boys can catch the city bus and ride that. This sounded like a great idea to everyone, so that is what we are going to do.

I paid all the rest of my bills for June. I will need some more grocery money, but that is it. I had $2,244.36 left in my checking account. I like to keep $1,500 sitting there, and I still have $400 earmarked for my planter, but that still leaves me with some extra. So, I transferred $100 off to my CurveBall savings account. This was over and above what I had budgeted!

I had budgeted $373 for credit card debt. I paid $65 to Discover (my new debt for my CPA review class) which left $308 for B of A Visa. I added the $20 rewards check I received last week and paid them $328. My balance is down to $897.11. Yay!

The cost of my class was $3,065. I paid $65 last week. Since then, I have received $1,532.50 from work to pay for half the class. I transferred $32.50 to CurveBall and sent Discover $1,500. This leaves a balance of $1,500 on Discover.

Right now, the rate on Discover is 0.0% but that will not last forever. I think I may focus on Discover to get it paid down as much as possible before the rate goes up. I'm really not sure what the regular rate is, but I am reasonably certain I don't want to pay it.

My ex-husband says he will have to pay his share of summer camp over the next few months. I said OK, but in truth I find this very annoying. Our son went to this camp last year and it was a great experience for him. We agreed last July we would send him again this July. Last November we talked about it again, still both agreeing that we would send son to camp this July. Then when May rolls around and it is time to register and pay, he has no money set aside for camp and I get to pay the whole thing and wait to be reimbursed. Mind you, my ex-husband makes significantly more money than I do. The entire cost is $465, making his half $232.50. He had 10 months from July to May to set it aside, that is only $23.25 per month. If I can plan ahead and have the money ready to go on my salary, I don't see why he can't do it on his. How I look forward to the day I no longer have to deal with ex-husband at all.

I love to have a new purse at the start of summer and winter. Of course, I love to have a new matching wallet as well. (I have a thing about my purse and wallet matching.) I don't buy expensive bags, (think Kohl's, not Coach) but even so, a cute purse and wallet can set you back $70 or so.

Last week, I took son to Kohl's to buy a nice shirt and pants for his graduation. The new summer purses were in. I must have looked at every one, and saw several that I would have loved to take home. I was still carrying my winter purse, and it was hgh time to switch to a summer purse anyway. I was soooo tempted.

Well, I resisted! As soon as we got home, I pulled out my purse storage bin and chose last summer's new purse and wallet, moved my things in, and put the winter purse and wallet in the storage bin. There, I have my "new" summer purse.

The life insurance money is now safely tucked into my Roth.

On Monday I will be receiving my seasonal OT check (about 80 hours) and my bonus. I expect to clear about 4k.

I am going back and forth on what to do. Please help me decide!

Plan 1
Pay off B of A Visa. Balance approximately 3.2k.
.3k to son.
Remainder to checking towards yard maintenance.


Plan 2
1k to B of A Visa
1k to Roth
.3k to EF
.3k to Egypt savings
.3k to son
.3k to Trad IRA
Remainder to hold until yard maintenance complete, then pay down B of A some more with what is left.

It would feel GREAT to pay off B of A. But without that extra boost to Roth, I may not hit my 3k goal.

Opinions?

Yesterday, my Mom spent the day at my house, along with son, nephew, nephew's son, and BF. So we were chatting about the sad state of my backyard and the current unkempt state of my front yard. I haven't done much at all with my yards since buying the house. There were other priorities, but the time has come to spend a little money and a lot of elbow grease and get them looking nice. (And I really do want to spend a little money!)

There are a few other items around the house I need to address. I sense some of my B of A Visa money slipping away. {sigh}.

When I bought my house, it was in rough condition. It was a foreclosure, and it had been owned by someone with very questionable taste. I wish I had taken a bunch of "before" pictures! Some of the "selling features":

1. There were bathroom tiles hot-glued onto one wall in the living room, in a sort of checkerboard pattern, but not touching each other. They weren't lined up neatly. Some were brownish, some were gray, some were a metallic copper color. They were about halfway up the wall. Underneath, someone had painted vertical stripes of peach and brownish-red. They hadn't used a ruler or tape or anything. I mean, why would you?

The wall had to be re-textured after the tile came off.

2. Someone had rag-rolled the kitchen walls, and done it badly.

3. The hall bathroom had been painted a very bright green. They had painted the walls and ceiling. They hadn't bothered to remove the mirror, cover the tub enclosure, etc. So in addition to re-painting, there was a lot of paint removing to be done. Good times!

4. One bedroom was painted a bright red. A very, very, bright red. It hurt my eyes. The theme of failing to do any prep work was repeated in the bedroom. They had not covered switch plates, protected the carpet, nothing. The carpet was not salvageable, too many large paint splotches.

I think I will find my camera, take a few "before" shots of the yards, some "in-progress" shots, and some "after" shots. I have some very simple improvements in mind, but I think they will help both curb appeal (in the front) and our enjoyment (in the back) a lot. I really want to keep it low-cost and low-maintenance (in the future).

So after careful consideration, I have decided to ditch the gym membership. BF and I have decided to start taking bike rides together. I live near a nice walking trail which I utilize when I have a walking partner. I own Wii fit, and Netflix has tons of workout videos for streaming. I am going to miss it, but I really could use the money elsewhere.

It is not a slam dunk gain though, as I have been paying for BF to be on my gym membership in exchange for him adding my cell line and my Mom's on his plan. Since I am cancelling the gym membership, I feel I need to reimburse him for the cost of our lines.

I received e-mails today about my two Offermatic rebates. You have to follow the link in the e-mail which takes you to Offermatic, log-in, and then enter your credit card information. The rebates are pending.

I don't think I am going to chip my rebates. I think I will just use them to help me keep my total credit card charges down to my budgeted $400 per month, something I have not managed yet!

I hope I get some new offers soon. I especially like those gas ones!

This is something new to me. Inbox dollars paid me $3 to sign up with Offermatic. You register your credit/debit card with Offermatic and based on your activity, you are offered rebates. For example, spend $20 at Target, get a $10 rebate right on your credit/debit card. Spend $20 at Shell, get a $10 rebate. So, I went right ahead and registered.

Here is a referral link, if you are interested. If you do Inbox dollars, be sure to link from them to get your $3.

http://www.offermatic.com/refer/19145

The last joint account that my ex-husband and I have is a universal life insurance policy. The benefit amount is 300k on him, 130k on me, and 5k riders on each child. We are still splitting the cost and it has a small cash value (I think right around $1900). Our daughter is 20 and married, living in another state with her husband who is in the Army. Our son is 15. As we are no longer married, the chance of us dying together is quite small. I feel we no longer need this policy. I told ex-husband this several months back, but he wanted to keep it.

Additionally, I have a 50k term policy with ex-husband being the beneficiary. I would like to change that to 50% each child. They are already the primary beneficiaries of my retirement funds.

Ex-husband called me today and says he wants to cancel the universal life policy. He needs his half of the cash value and doesn't want to keep paying the premiums. He says he will up the term policy he buys through work. I said that is fine with me.

So, he will be cancelling that soon and I will be receiving my half. I have thought it over today, and I think I will put my half into my Roth.

Also, my life insurance costs will decrease by $28 per month. I plan to send $25 to my emergency fund and allow another $3 for "everything else".

My emergency fund should break the 10k mark in April. I think that is enough of an e-fund for someone with credit card debt, so after breaking 10k, I will direct those dollars to B of A Visa.

So last night was bill paying night, and when I finished making transfers and writing checks, I was shocked at my balance. I have just over $1100 in checking, though I still have to pay for my pest service (bill hasn't arrived yet). Also, I will have to visit the grocery store before the month is over. Wow! I'm very pleased. This is much more than I typically have after mid-month bill paying. It's a good thing too, since this pay period has only 9 days in it, my paycheck will be smaller than usual.

Also, when I went to the bank to deposit my paycheck and take out my $80 cash allowance, I looked in my wallet and saw I still had $57 from last time! I withdrew $60 and transferred $20 to my spending savings account. Ideally, I would like the cash allowance to fund all clothing and grooming items, for both me and my son. I started with $0, so it may take some time to build up enough to cover all such expenditures.

I'm excited and encouraged about tracking, it really is helping me to cut back!

I decided to go ahead and tweak my monthly budget. Since I spent $360 out of $500 budgeted grocery dollars, I am going to cut my grocery budget to $450. I am going to save an additional $20 in my emergency fund, pay an additional $5 on my credit card debt, and bump "Everything Else" from $163 to $188. Ideally, I won't be spending much of "Everything Else" and so will have some surplus built up in checking to handle unbudgeted expenses.

"Groceries" is really for groceries and household items such as cleaning products, lightbulbs, etc. I have to feed myself, my 15 year old son 5 days a week, my 34 year old nephew, and 3 dogs. One dog is my nephew's, the other two are dogs my ex-husband let my son adopt. When my ex-husband lost his house to foreclosure last year, he couldn't find a rental which would allow him to keep the dogs. My son loves those dogs, I couldn't let them go to the pound, so I have them now.

Also, I count my son's meals at school as "groceries".

I think I can do better than $450, but I don't want to adjust my budget down further based on only 1 month's grocery expenditures. I'm still new to this tracking business, so I don't have much data for analysis.

Here is how I did:



My comments:

Net Pay - Short this month due to a 10 day pay period.

Groceries - I did much better than I had guesstimated! I'm not going to lower the budgeted amount for now, but if I can consistently come in lower, then I will cut it and use some of those dollars elsewhere.

Utilities - I came in under on the variable bills.

Visa Allowance - I went over a little. I had the car battery issue in January, so I'm pleased that I didn't go over much.

Everything Else - The only expense here were library fines.

All in all, I am pleased with my spending in January. January gets a

I'm supposed to be underway to BF's right now, but here I sit waiting for a tow truck to give me a jump start. My car battery is dead.

My car is a 2005 Honda Accord. The original car battery died at 35k miles. The dealer sent a tow truck, towed it and replaced the battery at their expense (still under Honda's 36k mile warranty). My car has 73k miles now, and the second battery is dead. I am beginning to suspect that Honda does not provide good batteries. This tow and new battery is on me.

I intend to spend the night at BF's tonight and Monday night. I am attending a 1 day class in a city near BF's home tomorrow for work. Hopefully, I will be underway soon so that we can enjoy the evening together.

Are you pessimistic or optimistic about your future?

As I obsess about my budget, I realize that I am optimistic. I can envision finding ways to trim expenses and divert a bit more towards long-term goals. I anticipate hitting 10k in my general savings account, and diverting some of those budget dollars elsewhere. I anticipate eliminating my credit card debt and diverting those dollars elsewhere. I anticipate that my next raise will be put to excellent use, not just mysteriously disappear into expense-creep.

And on 1/15, I will know exactly how recent payroll tax and witholding table changes will impact my take-home pay. I just may have a few extra dollars to put towards my wealth building efforts.

Yes, definately optimistic.

I have a general savings account, a "piddly" account (change from my wallet), and a savings account specifically for our trip to Egypt (hopefully 2012).

I have decided to open yet another, and fund it with dollars I don't spend from my "cash allowance" budget item. These dollars are intended to pay for clothing, grooming, splurges, etc. I will open it at Ally. At the moment, I have $63 in my wallet, with 9 days to go until payday. On payday, I will withdraw $80 (as per my budget )and deposit whatever bills I have left. I will then transfer them to my newest savings account. I think this method will help me to not fritter away the dollars in my wallet.

What shall I name it? Helen? No, that seems silly.

Boyfriend spent the weekend, and was still at my house this morning. As I was getting ready for work, he made our breakfast and packed my lunch. Awwww. When I opened my lunch today, he had written a mushy note on my napkin. What a guy! He is so sweet.

I will tag this "spending", as he contributed to my efforts to spend less on lunch. See? This post is COMPLETELY financial.

This morning I changed my Netflix plan from 3 dvds to 1 (unlimited), thereby reducing spending by $8 per month.

A small step, but in the right direction.

Well tonight is bill paying evening, and I am encouraged by the difference 2 weeks of being careful with my spending has made already. I have just paid all of my bills for the month, made small savings account deposits, paid $500 towards Chase Freedom, and have 785.99 left. Not bad! I expect to hang on to about half of that, spend about half on groceries, gifts, and a few outings while son is out of school for Christmas break.

I still owe 1873.99 to Chase. Bleh. Hopefully, my Christmas bonus will take care of most of it.

So yesterday I purchased my first Christmas gift of the season. I bought a Kinect Fun Package for my son. With tax and shipping, $283.

I will send my daughter a check. She is 20, living in another state, and will decide for herself how to spend the check.

Other than that, I am not certain if I am buying anything else. My boyfriend has been hinting that he can't afford much this year. So I may simply suggest we don't exchange gifts. My Mom and I never exchange gifts. My nephew cannot afford to buy gifts, though I may get him a little something anyway. I will help my son pick out something for his father. (At 20, my daughter can handle this herself if she chooses.)

Gifts just aren't much of a priority in my family.

I have received my Chase Freedom card statement, and it is big again. This is no surprise, I already knew it would be. I had been thinking I would cash flow it (I expect to be able to do that, no transfer from savings required), but now I am thinking I won't. I am thinking I will do a balance transfer one last time, making my B of A Visa bigger yet.

I am determined that this will be my last big statement.

Today is my Mom's 78th Birthday! I am taking her to dinner at her favorite restaurant tonight. My son, my nephew, and my boyfriend will also be going. I will be paying. :P

My Mom lost her second husband this year. She and my Dad were married for 34 years (they married very young) before she was widowed. She was married to her second husband for 28 years and now she is a widow again. I am just glad to still have her!

I have noticed that we hardly ever watch regular TV. Since Lost concluded, there's just not much on that's a priority. We love our Netflix account, we use that quite a bit, and it is very economical. So I called and cancelled, and that means I now have an extra $40 a month.

I'm working on my budget and will post it soon. I imagine that Mint will point out what is realistic and what works, and that will help me fine-tune as I go along.

Brown-bagged it again today, shaping up to be another no spend. Although, I did give my nephew $3 for bus fare this morning.

I discovered mint.com tonight. So far, I love it! We will see how I do.

I stopped at the grocery store on my way home from work. I spent $43.44.

I just experienced sticker shock at the pharmacy. I have a new Rx from my doctor, it is one I will be taking from now on. After insurance, my cost is $127.51. Yikes! I asked if there is a generic, there is not. The pharmacist suggested my doctor could prescribe something similar. I hope so, because it is not life or death so I am not paying $127.51 every month for it. I left the pharmacy without it.

I did pick up my other Rx ($10, now that's more like it) and 2 bottles of conditioner on sale, as well as an over-the-counter allergy medication and 2 pair of mittens. Grand total $35.96.

I did not go out for lunch. Again!

Third no spend day in a row. Yay!

Although, I did part with some funds. I paid a utility bill. I don't think that counts as spending, does it?

I also deposited my coins into the savings account I refer to as my piddly account. There is nothing in it but coins from my wallet, plus interest.

Tomorrow I have to pick up my prescriptions and I need to buy some conditioner, so tomorrow will not be a no spend day.