Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Hello, Fail.

It seems my attempt at a spending diet is not really working. I feel like I'm spending less bc my grocery trips are between $30-40 each week but the in-between stuff... ugh. The dog food and soda and random 'hey, let's eat ___ tonight' and new clothes for Izzy as she SPROUTS and just random.... STUFF is insane. I talk myself out of so many things and then allow myself to buy something else later and it's just adding up too fast. But none of it feels 'extra'. I've got worn out clothing and too-big clothing and not-age-appropriate clothing... so I've bought a few things that I feel like I deserve. But the cc balance says we should go without. So... yeah. poop.

We do ok cutting back on eating out for a couple of weeks and then it seems like it just creeps back in. We're out late and don't want to cook or he doesn't take a lunch with him so he goes out or friends come over and we order something.

Why is it so hard to budget? Surely there are concrete lists we can adhere to. I suppose making those lists would mean we'd have to actually sit down and draw them up. Which would mean having the time AND the desire to do so.

1 comment:

  1. Could you try using Restaurants.com to buy cheap gift cards so that you can allow yourself to eat out once a week or every other week. Some restaurants are listed on there as low as $2 for a $10 or $25 gift card. Or maybe make the girls a simple meal and after they go to bed do a reastaurant copy cat meal for the two of you? It may also help if you meal plan and actually plan in eating out here and there because when you start thinking about it on a different day you can tell yourself nope, not today cause we're going out in 3 days. Or maybe figure out where you tend to eat out the most often and decide how much each month your willing to spend there and get a gift certificate for that amount. When it's gone no more eating out. As for clothes have you tried consignment stores/thrift stores. I found almost all of Michael's summer wardrobe at a big consignment sale and a couple of other places here I've found clothing fo rhim on consignment that still had the original tags. As fast as they grow I just hate to spend tons of money on the clothes. OK, enough of my commenting. :0)

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