Everyone makes some New Year's resolutions, we are no different and our resolutions included the typical lose weight and get in shape along with getting our financial house cleaned up.
We moved the elliptical machine into the den where we have been working out three days a week for twenty minutes. This is in addition to our Yoga class that meets twice a week.
Denise, my wife challenged me to feed our family of three for the month of January on $200. Actually, she challenged me to spend only $150 but we agreed on $200 and ended up close to that goal with total expenditures of $240! How we did this was two fold; first we only used cash so I was much more aware of what I was spending and I stuck to my grocery list. Second, we made several meals from foods in the freezer & pantry. We never went hungry and enjoyed being creative with the things we had available to us.
Beyond our food budget we decided to live on a budget and now we tell our money where to go before the month begins! February will be our first full month on a written budget and we'll see how it goes.
We have curtailed using our credit card and are paying cash for so much more which is a paradigm shift for us. Using cash has an immediate psychological impact versus using a credit card where the only emotion comes with the arrival of the statement and the sum of all those charges!
In summary, we now have a plan and we're trying to live into the plan. I'll let you know how it is going along the way.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment