Mid Paycheck: I Blew My Budget Already! 

Yay for hustling & over $1100 extra income! Fantastic! You’re absolutely right- you have to get to the symptom of the overspending. What was the 600 from, exactly? What are your temptations to spend? Looking back, what could you have done differently? Waited? Done without? Borrowed an item? Found another solution? What were the actual items, do you want to share? Even if not, look at each one squarely in the face. Was it a necessity? How can you avoid it in the future? On groceries- 1. Agree cereal is a waste & super expensive 2- as great as beef jerky is, it’s insanely expensive. We only get it when the kids are going to camp, hiking, etc or at Christmas for stocking stuffers. Could you do a big tub or greek yogurt for protein or hard-boiled eggs? 3- $90 seems high for the items you mentioned! Have you ever watched Christine from Frugal Fit Mom? She has some great “extreme budget” videos that are good inspiration, and she has great tips on getting deals. But if you’re over budget by that much, could you do your meal plan based on ONLY what’s in your house? It sounds like there’s a lot of protein, so you could get some pasta& potatoes to fill out with the meat & veggies & get some milk. Also, you could cook up 2 lbs of beans & add to the taco meat to stretch it, do bean quesadillas one night & freeze one bag for next week. I do totally applaud you for admitting it, facing reality & adjusting! But I think digging deeper would help you assess your spending. I realized by doing this I tend to overspend on my kids & fun activities. I justify it because it’s for the kids. But I have really brainstormed to just stop & puzzle for a while- what else could I do? I’m going to give some examples but want to post this so it doesn’t get lost.

Still listening: If spontaneous spending is an issue, could you have a one week rule? Write it on a list, sit & talk with him weekly & then you guys together decide if anything on the list needs to be bought. Some things I said no to this week: - we were planning to get a YMCA membership for a month for the town we’re in for this month, and I felt really badly because my 14 year old was going to work out with his 20 year old brother, but it was going to be like $160 by the time we paid the joining fee & 1 month. I thought about some other options, praying for ideas, and made some calls. I found out he could join 10gym for $45 and I asked him to pay half (lawn mowing $ and he needs something other than candy to spend money on). Savings $140 - I packed pb sandwiches & lots of snacks for my daughter & I- we went to Dallas for the day$50 - This sounds crazy but we camped at a state park vs hotel $125 saved - menu planned based on what we had, took snacks to pool - unexpected costs: I did pay $30 to add my 20 year old to our pool membership and got coffee/tea with my daughter (12!!!! It was painful but I decided to do that for relationship and we hadn’t spent much else). Those are some wins/unexpected bumps at our house! Oh, another bump was my husband bought an $7 coffee because we were out! So just got some more at Aldi. Reminded me to stay on top of the basics to avoid impulse purchases!