Budget Update

We are still continuing with our {budget} inspired by {Dave Ramsey}.  It's been over a month now!  I have to admit, my eyes have definitely been opened to some of our not so good spending habits from the past!  Ryan and I are very optimistic about this working well and look forward to having all of the kinks worked out.

I will share some of the things I have realized for our family as we have embarked upon this journey.  Hopefully, you will find some helpful information or inspiration for your family.

A very recent example of a money struggle I had was just last Thursday.  My son had a day off from school for parent/teacher conferences, so I took off work to be with him.  I used the opportunity to make a doctor's appointment and get some glasses fixed that I had been putting off.

The first challenge was finding something to do for the 45 minutes between his conference and my appointment.  Everything costs money!  We dropped Brady off at daycare and went to the Dollar Tree nearby.  I used a few dollars to buy some Valentine decorations.  It turned into a very good lesson for Jackson, because he knew we had $4 to spend.  He really wanted a bag of chocolates (and so did I!), so we picked out the things we "needed" and calculated how much we had left.  We had enough to buy his candy, because we were reasonable with our other purchases.  The Dollar Tree is a weakness of mine, so this was a huge challenge!

The next money challenge was waiting the hour for my glasses to be fixed.  It was around lunchtime, so I had two choices.  We could drive 25 minutes each way to our house to eat food we already have (paying for the gas and waste of time), or we could eat at a restaurant near the place and have a fun "date" with my son.  I had $10 in my food envelope, so I debated this issue for a little bit.  Eating out won over, and it was worth it to give Jackson a special treat out with his Mama.

I am also going to try a different strategy this month with our money envelopes.  Instead of taking the total amount out of our bank account that we decide on for our budget, I am going to split the total in half and take it out twice a month.  That way, we aren't spending all of our money up front and then running out of cash to pay for the essentials, like milk, at the end of the month.  I'm curious to see if this helps.

Please share any tips your family has discovered to organize and save money.