First, I am sorry to have been MIA these past few days. I've been taking care of my sweet baby girl who is cutting 4 teeth, poor little darling. I have a brief break so I will be quick today.
Something I realized this month is when we have money we spend it. We don't spend it as wisely when it is just hanging out in our checking account. Last month I was able to do so much with our money...all good things. This month, we have eaten out more than the twice a month I had planned. Why? Because we can, plain and simple.
I have come to the sad realization that I am not very disciplined with money. It is hard to say that but it is the truth. I do great when I spend it all at one time on things that are needed or to pay bills off. Having X amount of money in the checking account is to tempting for me and for my husband. He isn't very good knowing there is money in the account either. So, we have decided to spend all the money each payday only leaving $50 for the unexpected. We did that during our NSM and it worked great. Knowing we didn't have money, or a lot of it kept us cooking at home and sticking to our meal plan. We were much more prudent last month than we have been so far this month...our 'spend month'. Boy we took that term literally, didn't we?
Bottom line for us, we can't have excess money laying around with no where to go but in the trash...
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
No Spend Tips...
Posted by Michelle at 9:43 AM
Labels: No Spend Tips
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4 comments:
I've learned that same lesson about myself. Extra $ means impulse spending.
I'm considering figuring out a way to leave the debit card at home when there isn't a "need" to get something.
I'm such a flake. I can be super woman for about 3 weeks....and then I blow it by spending $70 on fabric. ugh....
Anyway - your blog is very inspiring. THank you!!
Can you put it into a savings account that is a hassle to get back out? I find that works well for us but if there is an emergency we're covered :)
But otherwise - yep recognize it and we work on similar principles.
That's my issue too. I transfer $ being saved into a savings account and then I also use a computerized envelope system to track my money. I'm learning to ignore how much is actually in my checking account and only focus on what's left in my running $$ envelope.
We've been transferring money into an eTrade account. It's much more of a hassle to get money out of, but is there for things we're saving for, and we can access it, if we need it. Banks often have this type of account, as well.
Just thought you might be interested in a different option.
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