It is time again to check up on my finances and see how well I am sticking to my monthly budget. This week I spent $21.97 on food and used a $3 coupon. I miss getting all the coupons that I used to get in the Sunday paper because I moved to a town where people don’t seem to use coupons…so there is only one packet in the paper instead of the two or three from my old town.

I have not found enough coupons in the single packet to justify buying the paper in a long time so I have not been able to use coupons like I used to in the past.

I paid rent and my portion of the electric bill came in at just under $3 so I was very happy about that. It is getting colder and the heat will need to go on pretty soon so the bill will be a bit higher. I live in student apartments and part of the electric bill is covered in the rent so I only have to worry about the part that is over the allocation. So far it has been under $20 each month so it should not be too bad, especially when January 2013 comes around and I start a continuous rolling budget for the entire year. I decided to do a continuous rolling budget for one year since I am on a limited budget and I just wanted to track my income and expenses for one year to see if I could remain under my total for the year.

I spent $7 to wash the car since it was filthy as we live in a VERY dusty area AND the birds had a fun time pooping on my car one weekend.

So far I am $6 over my household budget because I had to get a major purchase that I was not really ready for. I was planning on spreading that purchase out over the next few months since the money came from a fund that could be used for unexpected purchases..but I decided against that since I will be closing out 2012.