The Good Life on a Budget

• Posted by JvW on November 26th, 2007 filed in Uncategorized

This long weekend has been something of a vacation. I had five days off from both jobs, cooked Thanksgiving dinner, slept, ate, and shopped. Unfortunately, the party is over and I need to go back to my real life.

Thanksgiving had a bit of a negative impact on the budget, but I think I’ll be able to balance it out within the grocery budget. We came home with a cooler full of leftover turkey (like PaidTwice), pie, and 25 bagels from the bagel shop down the street from my in-laws. I have to check out the freezer, but I might not even have to go to the grocery store at all this week. It’ll be close. If I can pull that off, we’ll end November about $45-$50 under the grocery budget, which, in these days, equals just one tank of gas. It’s something, though.

The other thing I need to get back to is my budget mindset. It’s easy to be a little more free with money when you’re away from home, and I need to tighten the purse strings once again. We’ve both gone over our fun money for November already, and there’s still a week left. I have to pay about another $750 to our debt to reach our monthly goal, and I hope to do so with my paychecks on Thursday. It all depends on whether my husband’s direct deposit goes through on Friday (Nov 30) or Monday (Dec 3). Our mortgage will be deducted on Dec 1, even if it is just pending, and I need to make sure we have the money in the bank account to cover that.

The best way I know how to get back to our financial reality is to open up Quicken and look at all the numbers. That usually whips me back into shape!