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.

twentyIncome for the month to date: $163.38

Expenses for the month to date: $2050.62

Net effect: -$1887.24

Since the last posting I spent $32.11 on food for the week of which $8.96 was for two containers of pecans. I have added pecans to my daily diet and one package makes four servings so I have one serving a day at work. I also spent $60.11 on household items including $10.24 on new blinds for the window in the bedroom. I am now over the household budget by $16.55 and since the blinds were an unexpected expense I should really place that into the miscellaneous category…but that is too much trouble for now. I guess I will just have to make it through the rest of the month without spending on the house.

I redeemed $4.76 in coupons this week, putting me at a net gain of $1.76 since I spent $3 on the newspaper.

I paid $47.39 for the internet bill but the actual bill will be abut $4 higher as there was a credit on the account from last month when I ditched the cable. I switched the internet bill over to a rewards card so that I can gain some points while paying my bill to maximize my earning power. I used to have the internet bill on a credit card that gave me a credit score but I decided that the benefit of that was small since I use CreditKarma and Quizzle to keep track of my credit reports and credit score.

I sent $108 off to the car loan and will be sending $107 off in the next two weeks. I also paid my tuition for the month by having ING send them a check. I would have loved to pay that bill via credit card so I could get cash back but they recently added a fee for paying via credit card that would negate any cash back that I could earn.

I paid $55.16 in electrical bills and I am glad to see this low number after the ridiculously high bills at the beginning of the year. It has already been very hot lately so I am not looking forward to the bills for the summer. I am going to see how long I can get by with just running the fans and not putting the air conditioning on without being too uncomfortable.

I did a manual calculation through my ING Electric Checking account to see what kind of buffer I had in checking and it looks like I have a $250 buffer in that account. I am trying to build up my savings and would like to build up that buffer even more but since I push payments from my checking instead of having my bills pulled from it, that amount is enough for now.

I will see you guys and gals later as I continue my journey to save money and become debt free!!!!