This past month, I put myself on a budget. I gave myself a set amount of money and had to stick to it. Why? Well, for one, I am not bringing in any income and instead of talking about every purchase with my husband, I wanted discretionary money for myself. Also, budgeting has always been a passion of mine – I love playing with numbers and making them work. Then there was the sad part of all of this – my spending had gotten a little out of control and I needed to pull myself together. I thought a great way to keep myself accountable was to post a budget review!
In my July goals post, I wrote that I wanted to make and stick to a budget – and it sounded like many of you were curious to see how I would do.
I have just a few notes before we begin:
-My budget is for things I want, don’t need. I spend this money on clothing, shoes, makeup, books, etc. but not on necessary toiletries or medicines. I use it on eating out, but only when I’m by myself. If I’m grabbing lunch with my daughters, I don’t use my budget (but rather our family eating out budget).
-I take the total amount out the first of the month in cash and use that whenever possible. If I’m buying something online, or using a credit card to get points (think Gap or Kohl’s), I put the cash in an envelope. We either use that cash for babysitters or I replenish my budget the next month.
-I had one exclusion from this month’s budget – my girls shopping trip a few weeks ago. If you saw my Instagram post, this was a good call on my part. (But I definitely saved more than I spent!)
-I round up. I’d rather err on the side of having less than I think, and I also am collecting the change in a jar. I plan to cash that in when I have a big expense for myself.
-Any money that is leftover at the end of the month gets divided in to these two areas: half is rolled over to the next month, and half is used to buy a discounted gift card on Cardpool.
Ok, let’s get to it!
Starting Budget: $250
Purchases:
Stitch Fix $62 ($188 remaining)
Ipsy bag $10 ($178)
PopSugar Must Have Mini $21 ($157)
Black Flats (on clearance!) $11 ($146)
Dallas Moms Blog Moms Night Out $16 ($130)
Two Books (from Library sale) $2 ($128)
Chocolate (let’s be honest) $8 ($120)
Pedicure $34 ($86)
Papyrus Cards $7 ($79)
Old Navy shorts $11 ($68)
Smoothie King $12 ($56)
Chick-fil-A $10 ($46)
Babysitter (I got last minute so that I could run errands alone!) $25 ($21)
Remaining: $21. This amount will be rolled over in to August, which will start with $271.
So, there you have it. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, but having the shopping trip that wasn’t counted towards the budget was a big part of that. I’m excited to see how I do in August!
How do you budget your spending money?
