Budgeting

I never did a New Year's Resolution post this year and I just wasn't sure what I wanted to do or how I really feel about them.  However I knew this year I wanted to focus on Budgeting, to me that means actually sticking to one,  as one of my big goals.  Last year I did well the first couple months keeping track and trying to stick to one.  Then... I don't know what happened but  I just eventually quit trying to stick to the plan.  So again this year that is at the top of my list.

I redid our spreadsheets at the beginning of January and found a neat app I put on my phone to help me out.    (more on that in a minute) Everyone has their own way of doing budgets but this is what we do/ will be trying this year.
For the areas that require checks or AFT and Income I use a spreadsheet that has the Company/ Bill date/ Amount Budgeted and then the Actual.  Then it also has spots to record budgeting income and actual income.  Now I'm fully using my spreadsheet as always but also will be doing a version of the envelopes system.  We started out last year using the envelope system but I don't like getting all that cash each month and I would always somehow get the money mixed up, forget to bring cash with me or something that would get me them thrown off.  Thus the month would be messed up and back to  the credit card  I would go.  We usually end up using our Credit card for everything and then write a big check each month paying it off.  We get rewards this way, it's easy for us, and we don't buy things we don't have the money for.  Then I was looking at budgeting apps trying to find something that would help me out and I found the perfect one and another perk it's free! It's an electronic version of envelopes.  This way we can still use our card, get rewards but use technology envelopes instead.  The app is called EEBA.  We created an account and now Matthew can log on on his phone, I can on mine, we can log on, on the Ipad, the information we need is always with us and it's simple to use.   To start all you do is set up your envelopes, fund your envelopes with your monthly budget.  Then each time you use money from that envelope record the transaction and the app keeps tracks of it all for you.

If you aren't familiar with the Envelope system watch this video by EEBA here.

If you want to find out more about EEBA go here.

If budgeting is on your goal list this year, I recommend you check it out.  I may have busted my budget already this month ( We had Noah's birthday party and bought new lights for the house)  but I do like it and will continue to use it!  It's only a few more days to a new month and I can stop looking at those darn negative signs on some of my envelope categories.

I also wanted to set a smaller goal each month to try and achieve.  This month may sound silly to some but I wanted to not buy any clothes for the boys or myself.  For me this is a big deal.  I tend to buy a lot of unnecessary clothing for all of us.  We all have plenty to wear so it shouldn't be a sacrifice but it is.  It's good for me because 1)helps those budget categories and 2) Just because we have worn it a few times doesn't mean we can't keep wearing it.  I need to work on gettting over being bored with our current clothes, especially with the boys because they definitely don't care what they wear!  I'm proud to say it's January 26th and I haven't bought anything for the boys and I haven't spent any money on clothes for myself either!  Believe it or not I actually got our statement from Old Navy and I have a $38 credit on my card.  I don't think that has ever happened in my lifetime!  Woo hoo!