As of this writing, it’s the November 3, and after a paying off a few of my monthly bills and looking at my monthly chart, I realized that I’ve been spending way too much lately. In my own defense, I felt like it was difficult to stop. Constantly traveling, eating in airports and out at home because I didnt make time to go to safeway, money spent on flights, wedding gifts and activities with friends for weddings.
Unfortunately, it’s not really that – after looking over my spending for the past 12 months, my expenses have basically doubled from where they were one year ago. Even from the time I left my last job and started my new one when I figured that my expenses would go way down, they haven’t – they’ve increased. I removed about $450 per month in gas expenses, and they just cropped up somewhere else. Some from more dining out, some from going out with friends, a lot from traveling, and some quite unexplainable.
I think part of this is pent up demand and whatnot – for the longest time, I basically didnt do anything but drive and work and run errands, so now I want to relax, enjoy time with family and friends, buy things that I put off buying previously (one example is a pair of glasses which I had been holding together with a staple, have been replaced), etc. Part of this though, needs to be controlled so that I can keep churning towards my debt repayment and savings goals.
I think that part of this was because I was working and driving to and from work so much that I didnt have much time for anything else. I was working 60 or so hours a week, and I was in the truck driving for about 15 or so hours per week. Now, I dont drive at all and I dont work 2 jobs so I dont work as much, but I’ve been spending more. I’ve been doing projects at home like canning, but those projects cost money to get started. I needed some jars, I need some food to put in that I dont have, etc. There are also other things that I have put off over the last 2 years, so I would have had to spend the money at some point, but it still stings.
After looking over this, I figure that november is a great month to clamp down and try to get back on track and into a low spending pattern for 2012. I’ll lay out what I hope to spend in the interest of accountability, as well as what I’ve already paid this month.
Expenses Paid: Rent, a few savings deposits, and have almost paid off my credit card (I’ll send them the rest of the money when I can get back into my banks online interface).
Expenses to go: Car payment, Car Insurance Payment, student loan payment (great lakes), Student loan payment (final payment for direct loan, to be made when they find my check), 2 more savings deposits.
Of course, I’ll probably also need to gas up the truck and go grocery shopping at least 1 time during this time, but other than that, it’s going to be no unnecessary spending. I do, however, have a few things that I have to purchase – I need to mail out a group of save the dates for the wedding, so I’ll have to get stamps for those, and I’m going to go shopping for a suit to wear at the wedding – but I probably wont buy one unless I find a really great deal.
This should mean quite a large amount of savings, and I’m going to take my credit cards out of my wallet now to make sure that I dont use them.
Readers: Have you ever tried a no unnecessary spending month? Do you think you could continually clamp down on the budget?
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