Food, my only weakness! How did you know?

So I am kind of sticking to weekly updates. Kind of.

As for my budgeting goal of $300, still looking good-I think. It is after the 15th, and I’ve only spent $280 on food, moving, gifts, travel, everything but rent. So in that way, I succeeded. On the other hand, I still have one and a half gifts to get and those will probably come to more than $20.

On the bright side, I made $110 selling stuff I didn’t need on craigslist, and tricked people into taking some of the rest of the stuff I won’t need any more. One of the best ways I can save right now is by having less stuff. Plus, free money!

On another down side, I still keep spending way more on food than I intend to. I am trying to come up with a reasonable food budget for the next four weeks and it’s really hard. I know I spend too much, but what’s a limit I can set that I won’t break? Is it better to set an overall budget, a budget for eating out and eating in, or a budget and a set number of times I can eat out? I think an overall budget makes the most sense, but I also think it might be harder to stick to based on past experience. Advice totally welcome!

Moving on up

So I’m moving twice in a little over a month, and moving stuff to three locations. It’s pretty nerve wracking. Or, it is for a likely-to-be stressed person like me. But this blog isn’t about stress (well, sometimes it is)-it’s about saving.

photo by Eden Hensley

I’m planning on saving on boxes by using discarded boxes from work. If you don’t have boxes at work, you can try grocery stores and liquor stores, and sometimes drugs stores, for the boxes shipments come in. Be friendly and willing to accept a no when you ask for boxes, but also try to find out what day they get shipments in since that’s when they’ll have a lot of extra boxes to get rid of.

I am also getting some of the bubble wrap we normally throw away from work. it actually coincides well with my goal of cleaning out my office more-I used to stockpile bubble wrap for mailing things, and then never actually use it. I’m also planning on grabbing a bunch of the free newspapers available at the subway station.

You can always try craigslist and freecycle. I see packing materials listed all the time on craigslist on my free in my neighborhood feed, and if they were nearby I would totally grab some.

I’m also using craigslist to sell the big stuff I don’t need anymore. Even though I just bought some of this recently, it’s almost like free money, which is exciting.

The rest of the stuff I am giving away for free, because, well, I like getting things for free. In fact, I am giving away a couple things I got for free recently, but that’s okay.

**

As for my goals, it looks like I will make it and be under $300, but I still have to see how much gas ends up costing me, and am short a gift still. I broke it down into categories to help me not overspend. I’ve spent a bit too much on lunches, but I’ll just cut back on my dinners and/or miscellaneous fund to balance it out. Eating out is always my weakness.

October & November Goals

So October was slow month, blog-wise.  I only made 7 posts.  However, that’s because it was an awesome month, life-wise.  As I mentioned, two of my favorite people got married, I went to visit my boyfriend for his birthday, and I went to Hawaii.

All of this sounds like it should be really expensive, but it wasn’t.  Well, the wedding was really expensive by my standards but I think as far as weddings go, it was cheap.  For Hawaii the expensive part was the plane tickets, which  my mom paid for.  While we were there we kept it cheap by staying with family, buying groceries and eating at home & bringing snacks with us, and trying hard not to go crazy on souvenirs.

I also managed to spend $0 on my costume and still, I think, do a pretty good job, so that was a plus, and I did a freelance job and got paid which helped balance out all my crazy spending. I also set up my first C.D., at ING. I have a road trip fund that has been sitting around in cash. It is only $150, but it is better earning interest than not and I know the trip won’t happen in the next 12 months.

Here’s how I did on my goals:
1. Implement my new weekly budget system and stick to it. Poorly. To be honest, I entirely lost track of my budget. I started using mint.com, which I like, but I can’t keep track of my cash or weekly totals the way I am used to. I think I should stick with using my spreadsheet from now on. As I mentioned, I got kind of bored with entering things but if I do it every day it didn’t too bad, and I really do a better job when I write everything down. Because I was so lax, I am not even sure how I did. I just know I spent way too much money and didn’t allocate enough.

2. Use images in my blog. Of my 7 blog posts, 3 have images. However, it’s a better percentage than before. Should I keep working on this one? Do you guys like reading better when I use pretty pictures?

3. Make things new. I was very excited about this and started working on my dresser the first day. I got a bunch done, and then, well, that was it. This month should be a LOT calmer for me, so I am going to keep working on this.

I think, since October was so out of the ordinary, I am going to try again with the same goals for November. I hope that isn’t cheating 😉

How did you do?

Neglecting the blog

Sorry I haven’t been posting much lately. First there was the wedding, then a super busy week, then I’ve been away.

My super busy week was great though-I got up-to-date with everything at my job, so I could leave for vacation guilt-free. I am sure I will be swamped when I get home, but for now I can pretend everything is in order. And if I am not swamped when I get back I can finally do some work on some big reorganization projects I’ve been wanting to do. Yes, I love to organize. Yes, I am a big dork-I think you had that figured out by now.

I also did some freelance work and will be getting paid for it. If I can be careful with money next month I can take that whole amount and put it in my savings, which will put me less than $1000 from my initial goal. I can’t believe how close I am so quickly, it is really motivating me to try and save even more in the next few months.

In addition to getting paid for that, I made my first paid cakes! I have turned a hobby into a money making venture! Er, sort of. I actually only charged the cost of the cakes, because they were for a friend’s birthday and they were my first hired cakes. But I can use that experience in the future to make money, and at least I didn’t lose anything. On the down side (maybe) I’ve decided that since I no longer have to practice I can’t do that many cakes for free. The big cakes really cost a lot to make. I don’t mind doing it for cost, and of course my family are still going to get free cakes, but I can’t just make them all the time for whatever anymore-it really is more expensive than you’d guess.

So that was a good, productive week. And at the end, I got to go see my boyfriend and celebrate his birthday and now I am in Hawaii! Which is the most recent reason I’ve been neglecting the blog-I’m on vacation. It is very beautiful, and way too warm for me. If you’re wondering how I managed to afford going to Hawaii, well, I am a spoiled brat. My mother paid for the trip. In my defense it is a trip to visit family and she used frequent flier miles. But yes, I know how lucky I am.

I saw big turtles today. It was awesome. I took a photo. True story.