The Good Life on a Budget

• Posted by JvW on October 28th, 2008 filed in Debt, Frugality

Have you ever dug into the back of your closet, pulled out a shirt, and said to yourself, “Oh man, I forgot I had this!” ? It’s amazing how easy it is to forget about something just because it’s not right there in front of you. The same thing can happen with your finances. If you stop thinking about them, the budget and frugality can slip your mind. Sure, you think you’re doing OK, but then you finally sit down and look at the numbers and realize you weren’t being so frugal after all.

In the spirit of honesty (and accountability), this just happened to me. We’ve been spending too much money recently, simply because we weren’t paying attention. Then when I look at the debt figures I wonder why they aren’t lower. Well, duh!

First I got bummed out and beat myself up a little. Back when we started this journey in 2006, I was so gung-ho about the whole thing and recently it’s lost its luster. Then I realized that there are just going to be times when things are slightly less frugal. For better or for worse, the point is to spend less money overall, not just every day. And when I look at our net worth over the past 3 years, we are in the best financial state then we have ever been. Our incomes are very good, our credit card debt is almost gone and, most importantly, we are aware of our finances and have goals. Even though we had more money in the past, we are much better off now.

To get the ball rolling again, we are going to follow these steps:

1. Re-evaluate the Budget. Part of our problem could be that we have outgrown our budget, or that we are under budget and the money is being frittered away. We need to look into the details.
2. Follow the Budget. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet I find us eating out more and buying more things we don’t need.
3. Create a Christmas Plan. It’s that time of year again and I don’t want it to derail our plans. We don’t have money put aside for Christmas, so we’ll need to figure out where it’s all coming from. This will be posted within the next week.
4. Re-motivate. I’m currently working on that by re-reading The Total Money Makeover. My husband is planning on reading it too, which will get us in good state of mind.

Nothing left but to get to it! Here’s to a great November!