Budgeting

Given the new house and new expenses that come with it along with a few repairs we know we'll have in the future, I decided it was time to create a new household budget.  What better way to start off in our new house but with a new financial plan.  Our old financial plan was centered around saving up a down payment/furniture for the house.  Well, all that money is gone so we need to work on rebuilding our savings, etc.

It's probably a good idea to do this at least once a year anyway.  What did I learn?  How much eating out has really cost us.  The last 30 days have been absolutely crazy.  I traveled for work, we moved into the new house, been working on cleaning out the old house.  It's been a mess so probably not the best 30 days to choose from in terms of how much we spent eating out but what an eye opener.

Just from my account (so not taking into account what my husband paid for), I spent over $800 last month eating out!  That's everything from fast food joints, sit down restaurants, dunkin donuts, starbucks, ice cream (are you seeing why I've gained weight in this mess too?).  EVERYTHING.  I couldn't believe how much it came out to.  Absolutely ridiculous!  I had already known we needed a change.  I started my 30 day no-eating-out challenge prior to doing the math but I didn't realize how bad it had actually gotten.

I am proud to say that I'm day 4 of my 30 day challenge and I have not faltered.  I can do this. I can do this.  The fact is after making the budget, I see that we really have plenty of wiggle room (it's so nice to be able to say this after YEARS of struggling) but that's no excuse to go off the rafters the way we have.  Time to reign it in.  :)

Happy Thursday!