Resolutions and Money

In my previous Happiness Project I dedicated a month to money, worked out a rough budget and collected all my receipts for a couple months.  I found money month to be one of the most eye-opening.  I had a better idea of where I was spending my money and I kind of left it at that.

So, enough time has passed and my money focus has changed a bit and I thought it was time to try it again.  I recently used Mint to create a budget for myself and I think it’s fabulous.  It's a program that takes your banking information, allows you to categorize your purchases and then uses the information to help you create a budget.

For example, I eat total garbage for lunch.  So I categorized all of the receipts for lunches under fast food.  In my head I had a number of what I thought I spent on lunches, turns out I was spending more.  Going out for dinner I categorized as restaurants.  I only went out a few times with Flash, but dinner for two costs a lot more than lunch for one and I was shocked at how much I had spent on meals.  I also bought groceries in addition to that.  I should be the size of a house given how much I spend on food.

The program also allows you to budget for future expenses, such as travel or car maintenance, allotting a certain amount of money each month towards something you need six months down the road.  In theory I could do this all in a spreadsheet, but to track my spending properly I would need every receipt for every purchase.  A lot of times I forget to ask for a receipt for small purchases, or I’ll do a great job of collecting them but by the end of the month I don’t feel like going through them all and adding them up.  The other thing is Mint makes note of all charges on your accounts, your credit card, etc.  I’ve never factored account fees into my budget before.  With Mint it’s immediate, I make a purchase, Mint categorizes it (I can modify the category if needed) and it automatically starts filling up the budget.  If I spend with cash, I can go in and add a transaction manually. 

Instead of spending all month and then adding my receipts up at the end of the month to see if I went over, I can go on my phone app during the month to see how much of my clothing budget I’ve already spent to prevent myself from overspending.  It’s this great visual chart and I think it’s going to help me a lot.

The other thing I found interesting is how something like a budget can be a catalyst for new resolutions.  As I budgeted for my current and future expenses I found I needed to cut back on certain areas if I wanted to save what I needed to.  You have to take a long hard look at your lifestyle.  I get bored of salads and sandwiches and like a hot lunch so I often resort to buying fast food.  In the past I tried making my lunch with the goal of eating better and got bored of it.  Now I know that I have about half as much money to spend on lunches as before, so I need to make a lunch at least 50% of the time or I’ll run out of money.  To me that is far more motivating.

$$$ MAY MONEY MONEY MAY MONEY MONEY MONEY $$$

SHOW ME DA MONEYYYYYY :)

May is all about Money for me. Not so much watching my money, or limiting my spending, because I'm pretty good at not being a huge impulse buyer anyways, but understand WHERE my money goes. Kirby helped me out in letting me on her trade secrets from her money month. I'm going to keep all my receipts from the month, as well as track (via my blackberry note pad) all the little things that you don't even think about---random coffees, grabbing a banana from sunterra market, a morning smoothie...etc.) And add everything up at the end of the month. With the assistance of my Royal bank funds tracker....I can put everything in a pie graph so I can also visually see the amount of my income that goes towards random crap.
In an effort to be more wealth conscious, I am going to attempt to bring ALL my snacks to work so if I do have to buy something it will only be my main lunch meal which, for me, always consists of a sandwich or salad. I find it hard to make lunches because I get VERY sick of homemade sandwiches (they're SO blah) and I don't like eating what I had for dinner the night before.
For the longest time I was buying a Protein Plate from Starbucks almost every day. These are not cheap. So this week I took the effort to make my OWN protein plates. My darling friend Amy found Justin's all natural, organic peanut butter online, so she gave me a jar (it's the peanut butter found in set protein plate a la starbuckles) which was a huge first step. I also hard boiled 5 eggs on Sunday night so I could put 1 in my protein plate each morning. I bought the pitas that they put in there too....added some sharp old cheddar cheese and BOOM a make shift Protein Plate for SOOO much less money. I feel like a coupon clipper already.
Other than that I'm reading some monetarily educational books such as "SPIN Selling" and "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". From these readings I hope to be able to open up my mind to my future. I really want to raise my kids in a very "a dollar is hard earned" kind of way. I JUST learned what an RRSP is....actually I still don't even know what the acronym is. I just know that money IN to them equals not owing the government money at tax time. Hahah that's pathetic. I only got through my Finance and Accounting classes in University through 100% memorization....I understood hardly any of it.
Anyways, being smarter and more aware is m ultimate goal. Kirby told me that once she realized where her funds were going she was much more aware of random purchases. Also, only purchasing these small things with CASH makes a big difference. In the age of blind digital money...it's easy to not care when you don't see it actually leaving your wallet.

I'm excited about Money month. Maybe at the end i'll treat myself to something lovely for a job well done :)

MONEY MONEY MONEYYYY MONAAAAYY (Donald Trump theme song).

MI$$Y OUT.

Money - End of Month Summary

I counted my receipts today. It was interesting... My biggest surprise was my spending on things like Wal-Mart and Shoppers Drug Mart. I spent close to $300 dollars on those types of places.

I did really well on not eating out for supper, and didn’t do so once until this last week when I went out for lunch with the girl that was training my at work for her last day and last night for Melissa’s birthday. Happy Birthday today to Melissa! Those two events of eating out cost me around $100 dollars. It made me think about how it’s not unusual for me to eat out a couple times, at least, in a month. I don’t think it’s reasonable to cut it out of my life completely. There’s always going to be birthday dinners, or other events that call for dinner and drinks, and I enjoy it.

One thing I think I have to change is buying lunch and buying snacks. We have a convenience store on the ground floor of my apartment building and Flash and I make tons of trips down there in the evenings to grab snacks. I added up what several lunches of tons of trips to the convenience store cost me and it was $130 (and that was me trying to cut back on these types of purchases). The people I work with go out for lunch and for drinks after work quite often. I don’t want to rude and always refuse so I know once in a while I’ll have to.  I think I have to make a real commitment to making my lunches. It never feels like much at the time but those $7-10 lunches add up.

I finally figured out what my Internet and cable will be with the channels we've added and taken away and with three people contributing… I think. My cable bill goes mid-month to mid-month and they send us the bill for two months at a time. It’s the most confusing bill I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m glad Melissa deals with it.

My work pays monthly. I don’t know anyone who gets paid monthly; it’s a new concept for me. I will be paid on the last day of every month. I’m used to bi-monthly payments so this will require a shift in budgeting. I’ll have to be extra conscious of my spending again this month because I got paid for the past two weeks but I won’t get another paycheck until the 31st of March. Luckily Flash starts contributing to the rent this month so that helps a bit. I don’t think I’ll feel like I have a really solid footing with my budget until the end of March or April when my paychecks have been consistent for a while.

Overall money sucks. Next month is fun month so I’m going to have to be budget conscious because fun costs money.

Cold Hard Cash

 There’s not a whole lot to be said about money month.  I’ve been trying to live almost completely on cash.  I have been keeping all my receipts and putting them aside.  I haven’t made many drastic changes to my spending habits, other than not going out for supper.  I want to get an accurate measure of where I’m spending and what I need to change.  

I do find living on cash has made me more conscious of my purchases.  There's something so intangible about electronic money, it's easy to feel like it doesn't exist.  It’s interesting to see all of the money you have to spend and then you make a purchase that you wouldn’t have thought have twice about on debit but with cash you’re like damn look how much of my money is gone.  

February - Money Money Money Money… Money!

Money month has begun.  To be honest I feel a little unprepared at the moment.  The first day of the month always seems to sneak up on me.

Okay.  Money.  I hate it.  It’s a big point of stress and unhappiness for me.  I don’t think money buys happiness, but I think it helps.  Anyone who lives on a tight budget knows that having your finances under control is an empowering feeling.  The peace of mind that knowing you can handle major repairs on your car, an expensive vet bill, emergency travel, etc. is priceless.  Eliminating worry and guilt is part of the happiness project and getting to a better place financially is going to help.

Money can buy some happiness.  I read somewhere that the best way to spend your money was on experiences since we become accustomed to stuff so quickly that the joy we get from things fades quickly.  Experiences create memories which last far longer than the excitement over a new kitchen table.  Sure you can make great free memories, but a lot of them cost money.

A goal this month is to create a budget for myself.  I’ve done this before but it was mostly to get a sense of my expenses, I didn’t use it on a regular basis.  I’ll need to factor in my new salary when the time comes and keep a closer watch on how I’m spending my money.  To do this I plan on keeping all my receipts from this point forward.  Everything from $6.00 at the convenience store to $150 on groceries.  I’ll throw them in a box or something and at the end of the month go through and see how I’m spending.  I’m sure I’ll be surprised at the end of the month to see how much I really spend on magazines or lunches.  I also need to familiarize myself with exactly how much things like cable and internet cost.  I have a rough idea, but how much is cable, how much is internet, I couldn’t tell you.

Another thing I’d like to try this month is living on cash.  I’m not sure how great this idea will be but I’m going to give it a try for a while.  I never have cash on me.  I don’t even feel guilt when homeless people ask for change because I don’t got none.  I find I spend cash quickly, it’s faster to pay with cash and I’m more likely to make small purchases with cash that I’d feel silly paying for debit with, like anything under five dollars for example.  My hope is that when I’m using cash as my sole means of paying for things I’ll regard it as precious and be more wary of doling it out.  I won’t carry my entire months budget on my at all times for fear of losing my purse or having some guy with a gun steal my wallet, manolos and bag-ette, but I am going to try to use cash only.

Save save save.  That’s my main objective.  I think having goals for saving will help.  In case of emergency goals and money to go on a trip are two that I’ve been thinking about a lot.  Flash will start paying rent next Month which will also free up some money.

Here goes…