[Ongoing] The Budgeting-PVP-Challenge. Fitness-Nerd = Finance Nerd?

[Kat on the Run]

I might need to up my food amount, because TF and I have rearranged how we are splitting joint activities.  I still need to save money but maybe I should do it in other areas.  Looking at my monthly budgets, I'm going to cut down on areas like clothing, health/fitness, and my mani/pedi fund so I can increase my food/booze by $50/week.  That still means I went over it last week, but I went on a girl's weekend with my friends (but I didn't have to pay for a hotel room and transport one way, so not as expensive as a normal trip), plus taking TF out for date night.  

 

Other things I spent $$ on: $120 on health/fitness, including one of my last (hopefully) payments to the chiropractor

$72 on cabs, a train ticket, and music-- could have been better, but I think using cabs strategically is fine (like when it's dark and I'm walking alone)

[Rosiesan]

So far we've been doing great still with our budget! Looking ahead to traveling next week, then me traveling for work the following week I'm a bit nervous about overspending.

 

To conquer our overspending habits I've been keeping up with throwing money at our debts so that it's not there for us to spend on frivolous things that aren't on the budget.

 

Don't forget everyone to budget for the Holidays! I'm a big gift giver so this is really hard for me. We have a budget set and even one for our new years party we like to throw.

 

 

$84/100 for food spending this week! Including groceries, a bag of coffee, and a few meals out. I did have a few meals out that were covered by friends/coworkers, but I normally would be eating at home more anyhow.

$36/?? on movie tickets, a CD, and...something else I got at Target--seriously don't remember

 

Seems like 'food' and 'other' are probably my easiest categories to track ('other' being discretionary, not including bills). So I'll say $100 allowance for other. Which gives me a one week streak!

 

One note about the streaks...personally it makes more sense to do it as an average over the month (because some weekends are empty and some are expensive). That also lets me 'save' some of my budget for later in the month.

 

Also, I inventoried my pantry over the weekend so now I have a list of food to use up. I foresee a few solid frugal weeks!

 

Another good thing for my budget is the bit of overtime I've been working lately, which pads my paycheck nicely. My Mint budgets are already in the red for the month  but I hope to see December all green.

 

I love mint! I also love how you are "shopping" your pantry to use up foods instead of buying more and more stuff. It really helps to plan out meals you can use those items for before you go grocery shopping.

[Hiroro]

@Zendikara: Welcome! If you haven't read it, you might enjoy The Simple Dollar. The main author Trent Hamm also loves board games, and often discusses how he works that hobby into his budget. 

 

@Kat: yes please take cabs to be safe! 

 

@Rosiesan: Mint is amaaaazing but it's so sad when everything goes into the red 

 

 

Personal milestone: I opened and maxed out my IRA for 2014! And opened a personal investment account! (Both through Betterment, after reading the Mr. Money Mustache and Simple Dollar blog posts).

[Rosiesan]

Personal milestone: I opened and maxed out my IRA for 2014! And opened a personal investment account! (Both through Betterment, after reading the Mr. Money Mustache and Simple Dollar blog posts).

 

How do you like Betterment? We're not up to investing yet (trying to pay down debts first following the Dave Ramsey baby steps) but I keep hearing about that service and want to know more once we do get up there.

[Hiroro]

I've only been using it for 5 days so I can't say for sure yet  but so far I like the service. The website/interface is very clear and user friendly, and I appreciate the low fees. As noted in the reviews, their portfolios include the popular Vanguard index funds. I avoid checking my company 401k because it's so annoying to get there and understand what's going on, but with Betterment I feel like I at least somewhat grasp their methods. It was easy to get started, and the interface for setting up one-time or repeat deposits is such a breeze. 

 

Their fees do depend on how much you have invested with them (fee% decreases at the $10,000 threshold and again at the $100,000 threshold). The idea is to encourage people to do all their investing in them, since that threshold includes your account total (i.e. if an IRA + regular investment account = $10,000, the threshold is reached). I like the idea of being able to see multiple accounts at once, so I can have an IRA and separate personal accounts for goals (eventual kids' college, retirement, etc).

 

Hope that helps, I'll try to remember to update when I've had more time to see how Betterment does for me.

[Zendikara]

Fabulous, happy to join the clan! This is exactly what I need right at this moment, and a great way to start getting ahead before the new year To fill you in on where I stand I would most certainly stand:

 

1. Create meal plans weekly to decrease the impulse buying of fast food, or going out for supper.  (I am spending too much money doing that)

2. Take out 10% of each pay check ($108) and put it aside for a fun money. (I am awful at keeping cash I find having in an account works best for me, so open a new account at a bank for my non necessities)

3. Learn to say NO! (eg: I have a monopoly board collection of different types.. just recently picked up a fishing monopoly. Did I need that? NO! Did I want it, yes.)

 

I have tons of more goals for my finances,  but that is what is putting me the post in the hole right now.. is spending too much money on myself for items that aren't a necessity... and buying too many groceries and having them go bad on me. If I start doing meal plans my food shouldn't be going bad, and I have no reason to be going out for food because I don't have a meal cooked. I also work from home, so this shouldn't be a problem.. as I don't have that groggy I'm home from work and now I have to do this feeling. I have been making friends with my crock pot  a lot lately, and plan to use that more often.

 

 

I am doing pretty great with this =) I haven't been creating meal plans, but I have been planning couple days in advance or in the evening before the next day... which still is preventing impulse buying of fast food or ordering in. I'm having to spend maybe $5-$10 on avg. for groceries to make supper.. I'm doing my best to use what we have and before it expires.  I do on occasion spend more than that for meat at the butcher shop but that's expected.

 

I haven't taken any money out from a pay check yet as I clearly haven't received a paycheck yet to do that =) I am due for some warm clothes for this winter as it's finally hit us.. and I only have summer/fall clothes, and our winters get really cold -40 is common. So I am going to go and spend that on some clothes that are much needed!

 

Saying no I have been really impressed with myself. I said no to a few times where my hubby wanted to eat out and we were a bit behind schedule on cooking supper.. and we were at the mall today in the book store (DANGEROUS!!!) and I found probably a good $50 at least of books I wanted, some were even $5! But I didn't need them =) So I said no and walked out. 

 

How is everyone else doing??

[Rosiesan]

Last night we graduated from Financial Peace University, We also set up our December budget and balanced our check book. It feels so amazing knowing where our money is going to where we want it to go.Today we took out the cash we need to use for our Thanksgiving trip and that's all we are going to spend.

 

Little unrelated but we also are purging our house of unwanted electric items this weekend. We are selling them to a used game shop. I'm also getting rid of quite a few books that I've had that I haven't touched. The ones I do read and will use in the future I want to keep around. Any extra money we get for them will go straight towards paying off our debt!

 

After balancing our "check book" we were excited to see how well we stuck to our budget and where and when we spend money. Hopefully we can keep that up in December with the holidays!

[Rosiesan]

Thanksgiving weekend we took a trip to visit the in-laws. We took out cash we budgeted to spend on food and gas. When we got home we had almost $200 left over!!! What a great feeling that was! Putting it all towards paying down our loan.

 

We have been doing great sticking to our budget! I hope everyone else has too!

 

Tonight I take off for a business trip for 2 days and I'm pretty nervous. I'm already thinking of all the stuff I want to buy when I get to my destination, but I have to stop myself and remind myself that it'd be even more awesome if I can see how little I can spend on this trip. We'll see how I do. Wish me luck!

[Kat on the Run]

I did well last week, probably helped by the fact that I spent most of it with my family, who paid for things I would normally have to (Read: food).  I was definitely under my food budget, though black friday put me over in everything else.  I had planned to do the majority of my shopping on that day (family tradition, but we don't get up at the crack of dawn or anything), and did not buy anything I wasn't expecting to buy at some point.  As a positive, I got my little sister's christmas gifts primarily bought, and both under the price I thought I would pay.  I did also buy myself one item yesterday, a skirt for holiday/NYE parties.  It was half off and I couldn't resist.  As long as I don't buy anything else for myself, I will be way under that budget for this month, so I can use that to buy others' presents.

 

On to this week, I'm driving to Target tonight for some charity items and will stock up on food since it's more convenient to do that when I have a car to bring things back in.  I plan to batch cook for the week tomorrow so that will help me out on food spending.

[Zendikara]

1. Create meal plans weekly to decrease the impulse buying of fast food, or going out for supper.  (I am spending too much money doing that)

2. Take out 10% of each pay check ($108) and put it aside for a fun money. (I am awful at keeping cash I find having in an account works best for me, so open a new account at a bank for my non necessities)

3. Learn to say NO! (eg: I have a monopoly board collection of different types.. just recently picked up a fishing monopoly. Did I need that? NO! Did I want it, yes.)

 

 

I'm doing pretty terrible at meal planning, but am still managing to quickly cook up a meal when the time comes. Would like to do meal plans so that it's less stressful from after work time, and REALLY work on making more cheap crockpot meals. Would essentially like to freeze some crock pot meals so that I can just grab a bag in the morning and pop it in or whenever it needs to go i.. and not have to worry about supper all day   I haven't taken 10% out this last paycheck, as quite frankly.. with where I stand right now, taking money out is going to send me quicker into my overdraft. I need to keep the $ in right now, and just not spend it to get back on my toes first and come January start taking out the 10% I think Am doing GREAT at saying no!

[Zendikara]

I'm doing pretty terrible at meal planning, but am still managing to quickly cook up a meal when the time comes. Would like to do meal plans so that it's less stressful from after work time, and REALLY work on making more cheap crockpot meals. Would essentially like to freeze some crock pot meals so that I can just grab a bag in the morning and pop it in or whenever it needs to go i.. and not have to worry about supper all day   I haven't taken 10% out this last paycheck, as quite frankly.. with where I stand right now, taking money out is going to send me quicker into my overdraft. I need to keep the $ in right now, and just not spend it to get back on my toes first and come January start taking out the 10% I think Am doing GREAT at saying no!

 

 

As an update to where I am, and how I've been doing.. REALLY impressed with myself I am still saying NO to many things, and haven't been eating out as much at all except for last week was a bit of a write off was hungover and you know... greasy food yum! lol. And PMS didn't help much either.. but I'm back on a roll now I started making crock pot meals, I have tons frozen in the freezer ! woo! And I did some meal planning for this week with what I have for food already, and I only spent $51 for groceries And $20 of that was meat for a beef stew.  If I could do that every week, and spent that much I will be styling!!! I haven't taken any money out of my account yet.. like I said above I'll be starting in January with the 10% rule. I DID try to open a bank account but Scotiabank apparently doesn't have much of a hard on for getting my business as they haven't called me about opening it... Not too thrilled about that. I called them and booked my own appt, and then had to cancel as I was sick which I then found out I wasn't even booked in to begin with!!!!!!!! Bank shopping it is

[Rosiesan]

Glad I'm not the only one who seemed to take a Holiday break from this site.

We are still going very strong with our budget! Right now we've been able to stick to $100 a week for meals and with the cheap prices of gas it's been nice to spend half of what we used to on gas. We've kept our budget the same though just throwing anything extra at our loan payments.

[Robpocalypse]

If you have electric heat pad your monthly utilities estimate by 5% if you live in the Midwest.. 10% if you live in the northeast. Cost of electricity is going to hit a lot of people hard this winter who rely on electric baseboards.

[SirHammerlock]

Hey everyone, I am sorry for being awol the last weeks, I really messed up my budget over the holidays, so I am hitting restart and begin at day one again. Hope everyone else is doing fine?

[Rosiesan]

Hey everyone, I am sorry for being awol the last weeks, I really messed up my budget over the holidays, so I am hitting restart and begin at day one again. Hope everyone else is doing fine?

 

Oh no! Hopefully it was on fun stuff! Good luck restarting!

 

We did pretty good over the Holidays, but this month we decided to budget for a few larger items which means that everything else is very tight. Next month we going hardcore with gazelle intensity.

[Oramac]

I'm liking this a lot!!  Clearly I'm coming in WAAAAAAY late, but it's a great thing.  I've just re-evaluated and updated my budget about a month ago, and made a spreadsheet to forecast my budget 3 years out.  The way I set it up really doesn't work to well for this challenge (I get paid bi-weekly, which is the absolute worst way to get paid).  But I'll try to encourage everyone here!  

[Rosiesan]

Welcome Oramac! Mine isn't a weekly budget either. Good luck with you're budget!

[Robpocalypse]

I'm liking this a lot!! Clearly I'm coming in WAAAAAAY late, but it's a great thing. I've just re-evaluated and updated my budget about a month ago, and made a spreadsheet to forecast my budget 3 years out. The way I set it up really doesn't work to well for this challenge (I get paid bi-weekly, which is the absolute worst way to get paid). But I'll try to encourage everyone here!

Why don't you like getting paid bi-weekly? It has the added perk that two months a year you score an extra pay check!

[Rosiesan]

How's everyone doing? Do you guys tend to have fluctuating weeks and months like us? Last month all of our car tabs were due and we paid of one vehicle (YAY!) so my husband wanted a new title to prove it (I know we didn't HAVE to but it is really cool seeing it now) and he needed a new license. We also needed oil changes in all the vehicles. Phew. That was a lot of money and now this month it feels like we're swimming in it. Trying to proactively put it away in case of months like last month where we didn't have much extra we will be fine.

 

Have any of you heard about http://goodcheapeats.com/?I'm going to try this week's meal plan and see if the groceries actually do only cost $70 a week. That's less than half what we're spending now!

 

I also signed us up for Digit https://digit.co/r/-1givBasically they monitor your money and will save some for you that you can withdraw anytime. If they ever make you overdraft they will pay any fees and give you your money back. It's pretty neat and you don't have to think about saving.

[Rosiesan]

Back to square one this week. We enjoyed our weekend and didn't pay any attention to our spending. Found out we spent over $300 that was not budgeted. Beating ourselves up a bit, but it's time to move forward and realize how much attention we need to pay when we're at the mall.

[Morag]

Hello, nerds,

is this still active? I'm new but I think I'll hang out with you for a bit, if you don't mind.

I'm not sure how much I'm budgeting with this week or month. Our numbers keep changing, especially since easter, when I changed my diet and now I'm trying to figure things out again.

Still juggling a bit. Tomorrow is grocery day so I better figure things out.

Best wishes

Morag