This month is a great demonstration of what happens when we don't keep track of what we're spending. As i mentioned before, we got complacent this month. And we paid for it. Literally.
We spent more than twice what we had budgeted for Dining out. This, in combination with a few other things (We spent extra money on craft supplies, a little extra on groceries, and with gas prices being up) put us substatially over budget and we had to move money from the savings account to checking to make sure everything cleared. This had two effects. The first is that, obviously, we are further from our savings goals than we were before. The second is that I was was very stressed about it. Right now, getting things together financially on-track is a big source of pride for me, and this was a pretty big blow.
We've got a few categories we need to look at carefully. Gas, while not really something we can control right now, keeps going up, so that'll eat into the other categories. We've already spent almost 60% of what was budgeted for the year on Dining out. A lot of that is little things. $3 here and $4 there adds up quickly. We've also spent half of our Household budget for the year. Shelving and such. Hopefully this is about done though. We've been here a year and made the last purchase of shelving that we had planned.
Going on the theory that money that's already gone is less likely to be missed, I did what some people might consider counter-intuitive after being short last month. I upped the auto-transfers from checking to savings. Doubled them in fact. I'm still hoping that we can make our goal of $2500 in savings by the end of July. The credit card payoff is on schedule. Another one paid off this month. Two to go.
We've both committed to tracking cash spending again and limiting dining out as well. Hopefully May will be a good month.
Everyone backslides once in a while so don't beat yourself up too much. If half of the household budget is gone perhaps that means that you are at least half way if not more to the organization roles that you set at the beginning of the year. The grab and goes are the easiest to do and the hardest to remember to keep track of. It's also haard to get inspired to pack lunch or cook when you've both been sick.
In my personal finance class, the suggestion was made that if most people took what they spent on their must have (ie: McDonalds, Starbucks, ???? and vending machine snacks, ???)and put that amount into an IRA they would be amazed at how much money they would have invested and earned when they retired. (I wish I could recall the exact numbers she gave us but that was three years ago.)
Hopefully with the onset of warm weather and seeing more sun it will be easier to be inspired again. Keep up the good work, your getting there.
Love ya,
Mom