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.

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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.

Carnival, Goals, Being Happy

I don’t know about you, but I had a pretty great Thanksgiving.

Now I’m back, vacation over, and it’s time to assess what I’ve done and what I’m going to do.

First off, I was included in The Carnival of Personal Finance for my post on holiday gifts, which was pretty cool. Mighty Bargain Hunter is a really good blog, and a lot of the posts are pretty interesting, so I suggest checking it out. I always love reading these things (even when I’ not in them) because there is almost always at least one post linked that gives me a new idea or helps me get motivated.

So, as for goals, well:
1. Implement my new weekly budget system and stick to it. Not so good =( I think I need to start doing weekly checkup posts again if I want to stick to a weekly budget.

2. Use images in my blog. Very good! I only made 7 posts in November, but 5 had images, and I do think it made the posts better.

3. Make things new. I mostly did this on a larger, more metaphorical level, but I still feel I succeeded-I re-focused and gained new perspective and appreciation on things I already had in life. Sounds cheesy, but it is true. And I love cheese.

As for my December goals, those will be divided into two chunks since I am making Dec.15th-Jan.15th one chunk, of time with one goal, as I mentioned previously. For the next two weeks the goal is to not spend more than $300 on gifts, travel, eating, and moving. I think this is fairly do-able =) My other goal is to make weekly update posts again.

I am really happy and excited, December looks like it will be a good month.