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: $371.05
Expenses for the month to date: $2549.51
Net effect: -$2178.46
Since the last posting I received $3 from Pinecone from taking a survey and will be adding that to the snowflake account in ING. I spent $8.11 on some items for my hair at CVS and this was separate from the transactions that I normally do when using my ECBs.
I spent $40.90 on food which was mostly yogurt, milk and silk and I also got some bread. I used $2.75 in coupons and since I only bought one newspaper this month I am now at a net of -$0.25 on my coupon haul. This means I need to redeem at least one $0.25 coupon this month to recover the cost of buying the paper.
I made the second half of the car payment and sent a huge payment off to the last credit card that is carrying a balance that is not at zero percent. The only other credit card that is carrying a balance is the card that I used when I got LASIK and then paid off and then used again for my dental surgery.
I made some more tweaks to the zero based budget and will try not to fuss with my accounts too much in the next month. I constantly mess with the way things are set up because I will have an idea to do something and will jump into ING to set up a sub account or set up a transfer. I guess it will never be truly perfect the way I want it so that is why I keep changing things around.
I will see you guys and gals later as I continue my journey to save money and become debt free!!!!
Great idea to save money. Putting on paper all the expenses will save some money, I’m sure.
Congrats on making your car payment! For many of us, that is one of the many things that keeps us in debt. However, you were lucky enough to make large payments to that factor.
Congratulations on getting closer to paying off your credit card debt. You definitely want to get that cleared off as soon as possible. In the meantime, those interest charges are seriously eating into your budget.
Hi Lulugal, your budgeting strategy looks good huh…maybe I can also make my own budgeting plan because I spend money like there’s no tomorrow. Thanks for keeping us updated.