I Made a Budget

In my two whole years of marriage I have decided that there are two books that every couple should obtain (or receive as a gift). First, The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman and Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.  If couples would follow the advice of both of these books, they could probably eliminate the majority of conflicts in their relationship. I think.

(If you want to learn your love language, you can find out here.)

One of Matt's cousins gave us Dave Ramsey's book as a wedding gift and the accompanying workbook. We have worked on it here and there. Some of the information pertains to us, and some doesn't. Our parents taught us some pretty big lessons about not getting ourselves into debt as we grew up so we have avoided many of those hardships. However, Dave also gives a lot of good advice on building wealth, which I can honestly say we could do a better job of. It seems like right now while we are only responsible for ourselves is the best time to make wise investments and have good spending habits. 

Overall, I get a rush out of saving money. I like good deals and I always have. I'll let you in on some of my secrets.

My study spot:

I like to work in a quiet library, but sometimes I need a change of scenery so I go to McAlisters and use their wifi. I am actually doing that right now. Turns out the Edmond McAlisters has exactly ONE outlet in the dining area. I'll keep that in mind during finals week. They also informed me that they're due for a remodel so hopefully they keep the outlet issue in mind. I could walk to campus from here. One outlet is silly. They also make you type in your ticket number and meal cost to log into the wifi which is new to me. I guess I get it, but really McAlisters, how much internet is stolen by non-patrons to make this an issue? Anyway, that's not the point.

Another reason that I like to study at McAlisters is that I can get a good meal at a low cost off the kids menu. 

The prices seem to vary from one store to another. In Stillwater it was $.99 for a kids meal the entire time I was in school. I stopped in Amarillo for a kids meal (and a free tea on free tea day) and the kids meal was $.99 if you dined in, but $1.99 if it was take out. Something leads me to believe that people were abusing a good thing and ordering a bunch of take out and ruined it for all of us. Thanks guys!

So that's one way to keep things reasonable if I'm not going to eat at home (although I eat lunch at home almost every day and it's usually left overs so that's much cheaper).

Wedding gifts:

We are in a season of our lives that many of our friends are taking the plunge and getting married. I love weddings. They're so fun and nice and a great way to get together with your friends you haven't seen in a while. I'll never forget how generous people were when we got married and I really enjoy getting to share those same blessings with others. Side note: My love language is "gifts." We'll talk more on that another time.

I usually put quite a bit of thought into the gifts I get people and usually don't like to shop off of registries, but from time to time I just go for it and maybe add something else a little more personal. I get Bed Bath & Beyond 20% off flyers in my mail, magazines, the newspaper, and email all the time. You know who registers at BB&B? EVERYONE. I recently discovered that you can use as many coupons as you have items on a single transaction at BB&B. So I just collect those little suckers and make one big trip. As of this morning I am officially done wedding shopping for all of the known weddings of 2013. I even got a gift for Matt because I had the coupons and I think it will help him with all of the hard work he has been doing in the yard and building all kinds of stuff this summer. I'd show you a picture but the stuff is out in the car and I'm not that dedicated.

The point is, I saved money buying gifts that I was going to buy anyway (even though I spent a few bucks on a surprise gift for Matt but he's my boo and that doesn't count). Part of me feels like I'm being cheap to get discounts, but will the gift be any less valuable if I spend less? Nope. And I usually set a budget for the person I am going to buy for, so that generally means I can buy them more items within that budget. Or I can save the money =)

Extreme Couponing:

Remember the good 'ol days when I decided I was going to "extreme coupon" like that show on TLC? You can read about it here and here.

It my efforts I have learned that I only have a limited value to gain from couponing for everyday items. Like I've said before, I really don't have any interest in storing a bunch of items. I think it promotes too much consumption which generates waste, and a larger waist line. I don't want either. Have you seen the people usually on the show? About 90% are overweight because they're buying tons of processed and preservative filled junk. Something tells me that their eventual health costs are going to outweigh any of their grocery savings (pun intended).

Anyway, I'll get a coupon for a few food items here and there, mostly condiments. But where I really see savings is hygiene. Once a season or so I'll head to Walgreens or CVS and match the store ad to coupons I found in the paper. My cost in terms of time is really low and the savings really are substantial. I've been making my own household cleaners but haven't jumped on body soap and toothpaste yet. Maybe eventually, but I'm not quite there yet. In the mean time, this is a good way to save some money and get what I actually NEED instead of using a coupon for the sake of using it because that's totally counter productive, but people do it all the time!

So the Budget:

Since I drive so often I have taken to listening to pod casts. My favorites are Jillian Michaels, and you guessed it Dave Ramsey. Some people have issues that I can't relate to at all, but I also learn some good insights for the future like what to do when you do pay off your home mortgage (wouldn't that be cool??)

Recently Dave was talking about a budget. Matt and I made a budget over a year ago and didn't look at it again. Since then we have a different house, a different job, and my commuting costs for school are now much higher. It's time to reevaluate things.

So I did.

Wells Fargo will make a budget for you and tell you how much you're spending on items but that wasn't what I was looking for. I wanted to actually evaluate our spending. So I decided to go over our June bank statement.

I made a column for total income and then started subtracting our expenses. I went line by line. There were many lines. We swipe that card entirely too often.

I first listed all of the reoccurring expenses like mortgage, car payment, insurance, cable, and phone. Then I started putting things into categories like Grocery, Clothing, and Dates (I don't apologize for dates with my husband. What better investment is there than your relationship with your spouse?)

As I was categorizing things I thought about ways that I could easily cut down on those costs. I  realized quickly that there were things I could quickly cut down on. For example, with just a little more planning, I could bring our grocery costs down by $25 a month. that doesn't seem like a lot but over a year that's $300. I could do a lot of things with an extra $300. I also realized that I was using our account for things that I should be paying for. I make enough money from the school that I can afford to buy my own lunches and my own hair cuts and other small things like that. And if I don't have the money left in my account, then I didn't prioritize that item and therefore I don't really need it because I obviously didn't want it bad enough.

What I found really astonishing what that when I started with our income and then subtracted all of our reoccurring costs and even included items like clothing, dry cleaning, dates, and gasoline there was quite a bit of money left over, but I know we aren't saving that much every month. This tells me 2 things. First, there's costs like the new tires I just had to get which aren't included in the budget. But  second there's also quite a bit of superfluous spending going on that with just a few adjustments to our habits we could really make a big difference.

So I did spend $4.17 on lunch today. I'm also going to try to be really creative for the rest of the week so we don't need to buy groceries and I can just use the items we have for dinners. Poor Matt, he always has to deal with my cooking experiments. He doesn't complain but sometimes I wonder if he secretly goes to get a Whopper after I fall asleep.

Posted in: saving money