I was having serious reservations this past weekend about the practicalness (is that a word?) of my spending plan. Perhaps I was just bored silly and wanting to shop and spend some money. I didn't though but had some serious reservations about whether or not I was being too anal with the plan. I have pretty much every dollar spent on paper with some left over in the 'slush fund'.
Right now I am feeling like I want to buy something for myself but don't have enough of a balance in my account to do so. I already had to re-allocate some budgeted amts to allow for some unexpected expenses that came up. Being disciplined with my spending plan is really hard.
DH and I went cell phone shopping this past weekend. Much to my dismay there are no more free cell phones with a contract extension. I could get new phones if I went to another provider and signed up with them. Problem is, our monthly plan is so old and so cheap it isn't even offered anymore and no other carrier can compete. So I'm stuck with Cingular and will have to buy a phone.
I ate lunch at home prior to going cell phone shopping. DH got hungry and went and got a soda and snack. Fine. He has a little bit of money in his personal spending account, but if he keeps getting these little snacks here and there he will have no money to spend on other things, like stuff for our Cabo trip in June.
I hate to tell him he doesn't have any money left in "his account" when he is the primary breadwinner in our family.
We have the cash, it's just allocated to other accounts. I think this Friday I am going to withdraw cash for him and tell him to make it last until next payday.
Oh, and he spent the $21 dollars we won on lottery scratchers on more lotto tickets. UGH!!!
I did manage to save ~$200/annually by switching home and auto insurance carriers. Not only that, but I can pay my premiums with my MasterCard and accumulate miles.
So glad I did it as it helps monthly cashflow just a bit.
Budget misgivings
February 20th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
February 21st, 2007 at 02:21 pm 1172067671
since you're husband gets pocket money, could you do the same? it doesn't have to be much, even $10 per week to do whatever you want with. if you don't spend it, save it up for a really nice day out once every three months: haircut, massage, something that makes you feel content.
another option: if you're the primary grocery shopper and you come in under budget, you keep that as your pocket money. it gives you an incentive to find better deals, but you don't have to take anything 'extra' out of the existing budget.
February 21st, 2007 at 05:14 pm 1172078058
I'm used to buying things when I wanted them, nothing expensive, mostly clothes, shoes and/or household items. And never did I buy things on credit that I couldn't pay off in a month or two.
Now I have to wait what seems like forever just to buy 1 thing when my list of 'wants' is long lol.
I can see the payoff though of spending within our means, it's just hard to get used to.
I allocate a certain amt of money every week for our personal spending so I wouldn't feel right about keeping any excess grocery money. Besides there usually isn't any as I'm trying to reduce our spending in this category and I usually spend what I've budgeted for the week.