Tracking My Finances In 2011: September Week 2
I have decided to post my weekly spending for the previous week on Fridays so you know how my cash has been flowing for the week. Please note that I get paid on the last day of the month so my cash flow net effect will usually be negative until the last day of the month.
This does not mean that I am adding to my debt, it just means that the money coming in is less than the money going out because bills are due starting on the first but I don’t get paid until the last day.
So again to clarify (since I get so many questions), this shows the cash FLOW for the month. On Day 2 of every month I will have a negative FLOW because I have paid rent etc so money has LEFT my checking account. I have not had any money come in on Day 2 of the current month since I got paid on day 27 or 30 or 31 of the previous month so that income is counted for LAST month.
Income for the month to date: $109.62
Expenses for the month to date: $1329.18
Net effect: -$1219.56
Since the last posting I received $9.62 from Lending Club this week and filled up the gas tank to the tune of $30.32. I bought a book of stamps for $45.00 but other than that I have not done any shopping this week.
The stamps are so that I can continue mailing out resumes to those places that are not accepting online applications for jobs!!!!!
I will probably get some groceries next week but I still have some things that I can eat from the pantry and the freezer for now. My trip will mainly be to get some fresh fruit as I only have some canned oranges and I have been dying for apples and grapefruit.
I will see you guys and gals later as I continue my journey to save money and become debt free!!!!
I Have Been (Unintentionally) Overstating My Spending
Well boy is MY face red!
I was going over my budget spreadsheet and noticed that the total spending for the month was way over what it should have been on the first day of the month.
I had entered the amount for rent and the phone bill but the total spending was not equal to the sum of the individual categories. I remembered that I had made some changes to the budget spreadsheet recently and I knew that Mint was not synced with my spreadsheet but I never paid attention to that. This month I saw that the amounts were grossly out of sync so I decided to take a look at my totals once again.
I found out that I had been incorrectly adding up the outflow column because I was using the sum function. The cells that I was adding up included a few rows at the bottom of the spreadsheet which were subtotals for some minor spending categories.
I was double counting those amounts and overstating my spending, in some cases up to $650!!!!
I went back and removed those extra rows from the sum function and immediately saw my spending figures drop back to a better level. This means that some of my “Monthly Financial Checkup” posts have figures that were too high and my total spending for the year is actually better than I had previously listed.
This is excellent news for me because it means that I was not doing as badly as I thought at first and I was managing my budget really well.
I have adjusted the figures and will be reporting the correct yearly totals at my next monthly Financial Checkup.
Received My Final Paycheck And Officially Unemployed
So I received my final paycheck from my last job and as of September 1st I will consider myself to be officially unemployed. This is because the new school year has started and I do not have a job.
I was technically unemployed the day I got the letter that my school was being shut down but since I had the summer off I did not really think of it as being official until the new school year started again.
We got paid early this month but I am keeping everything in my budget running as if I had gotten paid on the last day of the month so that I do not mess up my Zero Based budget’s flow.
I have applied for many jobs both in education and outside of the field but due to my unique situation I have not found anything yet. I have people praying for me and I am not giving up because I really need to find something soon.
I am glad I do not have any DEBT because that would be really hard to deal with on top of looking for a job! I will be living off the August paycheck in September and then if I do not have a new job I will be going into my savings. I think I might live out of the Car Fund which was supposed to go towards getting my Lexus so that I do not have to touch the Never Go Back To Fresno Fund…as that will be my last resort.
So hopefully I will not have to do that and by God’s grace I WILL BE EMPLOYED by the end of September 2011!!!!
Tracking My Finances In 2011: September Week 1
I have decided to post my weekly spending for the previous week on Fridays so you know how my cash has been flowing for the week. Please note that I get paid on the last day of the month so my cash flow net effect will usually be negative until the last day of the month.
This does not mean that I am adding to my debt, it just means that the money coming in is less than the money going out because bills are due starting on the first but I don’t get paid until the last day.
So again to clarify (since I get so many questions), this shows the cash FLOW for the month. On Day 2 of every month I will have a negative FLOW because I have paid rent etc so money has LEFT my checking account. I have not had any money come in on Day 2 of the current month since I got paid on day 27 or 30 or 31 of the previous month so that income is counted for LAST month.
Income for the month to date: $100.00
Expenses for the month to date: $820.79
Net effect: -$720.79
Since the last posting I paid rent and associated costs and also paid the phone bill early for a total of $820.79. I received $100 in advertising which is a BLESSING since I am officially living off my savings now. I received my final paycheck from my old job at the end of August and until I get a new job I will not have a steady income. I will be living off the various savings accounts (starting possibly with my Lexus Fund) and I will try to limit my spending as much as possible to only the very basics.
I have to watch my budget very carefully as my rent has also gone up since my old lease on the apartment ended and rates were raised everywhere. I had a budgeted amount that was greater than what I actually paid but there was more wiggle room in the past. Now that rent has gone up the actual amount is close to what the budgeted amount was set as and this leaves me with less money to work with.
I will see you guys and gals later as I continue my journey to save money and become debt free!!!!
CVS Haul 29 August 2011
On this trip I paid $0.00 out of pocket for $10.96 worth of items. My goal for 2011 is to not spend any money out of pocket, while using coupons and ECBs to get tons of items at CVS, with an initial gift card of $50.
I had not been to CVS for a while because I was not impressed with the selection of items that gave back ECBs and I was still using up items from the stash that I had collected over the last few months. I want to start replenishing my stocks while things are on sale and I am down to the last tube of toothpaste anyway!!!!
Transaction 1
Item: Dawn dish soap
Price: $0.99
CVS Extra Care Bucks earned: $0.00
Coupons used: $0.75 MFR
Item: Colgate Optic White toothbrush
Price: $3.99
CVS Extra Care Bucks earned: $1.50
Coupons used: $1.50 MFR
Item: Crest toothpaste (got TWO)
Price: $2.99 each
CVS Extra Care Bucks earned: $2.00
Coupons used: $2.00 MFR
Total paid today: $10.76 , on gift card.
Total CVS Extra Care Bucks earned today: $3.50
Total out of pocket to date: $7.31
Total item cost to date: $144.06
Gift Card balance : $29.82
Total CVS Extra Care Bucks earned to date: $58.02
CVS Extra Care Bucks Used to date: $54.52
CVS Extra Care Bucks Balance: $3.50
Abbreviations used
MFR = manufacturer coupon
ECB = extra care bucks
Join me next time as I look for more ways to save money as I visit CVS.
