laziness

I have great news. I recently discovered that being lazy can actually equal being frugal! Here's how it goes:

Don't feel like sending out Christmas cards this year?
Don't do it!
$100 (printing, postage) saved.

Don't feel like going out for dinner?
Don't do it!
$40 (dinner plus tip) saved.

Need to go shopping for some new clothes?
Don't bother!
$200 saved.

Etc...

Things I didn't buy

In my last post, I listed things that I spent money on outside of the planned budget. Today I thought I'd list the things I have cut out of the budget (successfully) in order to keep the debt payoff moving at the awesome rate it's been lately:

• haircuts
• clothes
• big ticket household items (like rugs, small electronics, organizational stuff, etc)
• seasonal items like plants for the front porch
• vacations

Although I could really use all of these things (except the mums), I'm doing my best to use everything I already have until they are basically trash, and putting off vacations and household stuff for the time being. I keep reminding myself that this time next year, I'll be so close to paid off that I can use CASH to pay for the things I need. This is all the motivation I need!

unfortunately

here's a list of things that got in the way of me following my budget last week:

• PTO book fair
• PTO tshirt sale (x2)
• union dinner
• donuts for work breakfast party
• kids' dental appointments
• one night where everyone was really tired and we just wanted mcdonalds

I know I should budget for these things, but seriously- other than the dental appointments, how regular are any of these things? Is it better to budget $100 a month or whatever for incidentals (which will then give you the feeling that you HAVE $100 to spend on incidentals) or to budget for nothing and then move $100 from debt payoff to spending money if need be?

Psychologically, I know I spend less with the latter scenario. There's something about "planning" to spend extra money that makes me spend it two or three times over!

how much is enough?

I listened to this very interesting story on NPR today about the proposed tax increase for those who make over 250,000/year (that I would link to if I could find the link). The story was about what it actually means to be a person making $250,000 a year, and how much is "enough" in terms of wealth. This was interesting to me because I've been thinking about this a lot lately- what do I actually need to make in order to be "happy" or "comfortable" or to have enough.

Well, I don't know. As they pointed out in the story, as your income rises, so do your expectations for the things you should have. So while you might get by on a $60,000 salary, if you were to get a giant raise, you might upgrade your car, send your child to a private school, or move to a bigger house, therefore keeping your level of spending/saving money about the same. That explains why no matter how much you make, you never seem to have enough.

So how much IS enough? I don't know. I know I would consider sending my children to private school if money weren't a factor. I know I'd like a newer house that would have a better layout and newer appliances that don't break, or at least the extra money to get them fixed (and maybe I'd like a pool, truth be told... ;). I know I'd like to travel more than I do. I know I'd like to afford haircuts more than yearly. So... yeah. Clearly I have more than enough- things to spend $250,000 a year on. Sigh.

really?!?

I made lunch every day this week, avoided buying coffee in the afternoons, and choose healthy options (or very small unhealthy) whenever I had a meeting with free food. The result?

I stayed within my budget and lost 3 lbs.

Really?! It was that easy? I'd be willing to bet its not. I think the hard part is sticking with it.

Okay, so how do I do that?

The poll has ended and it looks like the slight majority wants me to bring back the YOFL, while the slight minority thinks I should keep things here. I'm inclined to merge the two, keeping the funkier look and subject matter of BV with the url of YOFL.

So, I need to figure out how to do that. Stay tuned.

In other, brown bag news, I'm STARVING.

Spendcation

So, I kind of blew it. I was primed to make a big credit card payment and I put it off a little too long, and ended up spending some of it on other stuff (mostly going out to eat and doing other stuff). I'm pretty disappointed! So I'm putting myself on a spendcation for the next few weeks. I have some cash from my tag sale and I'm planning on only using that for spending money, and I am going to make my lunch every day that I can this week so I don't spend any money on eating out.

Since I took on the second job, I've been lax about making my own lunch because a) I'm tired and b) I don't have time to go grocery shopping more than once a week so I've been running out of fresh food before the end of the week if I make lunch for anyone but the kids. I'm going to buy some food like tuna that won't go bad so that I can make it last all week.

Eating lunch out, Dunkin Donuts and extras here and there make up the bulk of my money "wasted." Where do you blow the money you'd otherwise save or put towards debt?