budgets

ThIs LiTTle PiGGy

Several months ago I started using cash envelopes for budgeting purposes. With using cash comes the change, and lots of it. Instead of giving a merchant exact change, I want change back! So I can feed the pig!

Princess Pin Pin

Princess Pin Pin

My portly friend was getting even more portly, so I took her down to the local coin counter and got just close to fifty bucks out of her! Cha-ching! If you didn’t know, pin money was money set aside for the purchase of incidentals (i.e. silk stockings or a new hat). I decided that my pin money is going to be used to purchase something trivial, or something just fun in general. A piece of jewelery, a book, or a subscription to a rather expensive magazine.

Yep, this quarter’s allotment will be purchasing a subscription to Somerset Workshop ~ The Art of Mixed Media and Paper. It’s six issues for thirty-three bucks!!

There is a rather nice sense of anticipation in this long awaited purchase.

GoT A bUcK?

Over the next six months I am going to be working my budgeting and paperwork. In this move, I have learned that I can be organized! I just could use a bit of streamlining of my systems. I came cross a blog that I feel carries a bit of the Dave Ramsey philosophy. Her take is just not having two or three accounts but SEVEN {you can check her out here}. After reading her article, I have to reduce it down to six…cuz I ain’t married!

I said no resolutions for 2013, but I know this is one area that could use some “refining”.

Next month I will share about the Emergency Fund.

 

k, love ya, buh bye!

 

 

 

 

CLaRItY

Folder has monthly spending plan, plus a calendar for upcoming payments recurring payments or items to budgeted for over time)

I am coming up on month three on the cash envelopes system.  With a recent change in employment and preparing for the bankruptcy, my envelopes were bare this month. It was awesome to even have the resources available for the filing fee!! Even though it made the rest of the month pretty tight, the money was there when needed.

In my road to financial serenity, I have to work on my money clarity and not being vague about where my goes and where it comes from. I re-vamped my spending plan to allow for some adjustments to the envelopes, to allow for some savings, and budgeting smaller items as they arise. I am incorporating as many of the tips and tricks I find from my financial blogs I read and going to some old-fashioned ink & paper techniques that keep me focused on my money clarity.

Of course, any chance to make something using paper always makes me happy!! New envelopes are being made for categories I had not originally planned for, i.e. books and/or movies. The cash envelopes seem to be a every evolving system and seems to grow as you do.

What are you tips are tricks for budgeting??Do you have a pen and paper method of accounting for you bills?? Everything done online?? A mixture of both??

au revoir!