this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

People often complain about living on a budget, they treat their budget as some unnatural force that makes it impossible for them spend money how they would like to. If you are not able to spend money as freely as you'd like, it has nothing to do with your budget, but rather your income. But that's not what this post is about.

A budget is all about assigning your money to certain tasks. It's about giving each dollar in your bank account a job. And by all means, if you really enjoy new shoes, do what you can to assign that job to as many of your dollars as you can. There is no rule that says a person who lives on a budget can only spend x amount of money on shoes each month. Set aside the appropriate amount for necessary expenses (as in shelter, food, utilities, and transportation) and divvy out the rest of your dollars as you see fit. Ideally, the job of some of your dollars should be savings - savings for a rainy-day, car repairs, Christmas gifts, or a vacation. Whatever strikes your fancy.

Feeling as if you are in control of your money will help you have a better attitude in regards to your finances (for me at least!). Giving each and every dollar that comes your way a "job" will help you gain or re-gain control.

When I saw this headline - Stretching Out Food Stamps -  in my Sunday newspaper (It's an associate press article, maybe you've seen it too), I was pretty sure I'd hate the article. When I read about how "hard" it is to eat healthy on a budget I get mad, because I don't really think it is! Sure you can't really go 100% organic or anything, but you definitely don't have to resort to potato chips and mac and cheese. You can find a happy medium that will give you some good nutrients. Imagine my surprise when the article actually agreed with me!

Two chefs and a food magazine editor set out to plan a weeks worth of healthy menus with $68.88, the national average amount of food stamps money that a family of four would get. Two of them were successful (the other went over by just under $20). All three avoided processed foods and two of them said that, although processed foods are cheaper, they are harder to stretch out over more than one meal. One of the chefs suggested using a variety of seasonings to make inexpensive basics taste drastically different each night. Each person spent about a third of their weekly budget on produce.

The consensus seemed to be that healthy foods on a budget is possible - it just requires some planning and actual cooking!

I recently started using You Need a Budget to track spending. I love it. YNAB runs on four rules, the first being stop living paycheck to paycheck. To help you do this, they encourage you to build up a buffer - an amount equal to one month's worth of expenses so that you are living not off of your most recent paycheck,  but off of the previous month's income.

This is different than, say, having an emergency fund. This is money that doesn't have a "job" (other than to be your buffer), so it's not money that's assigned to a savings account, it's just money that's always hanging out in whatever account you use to pay bills and withdraw spending money.

We've been lucky enough to never have to live paycheck to paycheck, but I tend to pretend that we do. When my husband gets paid, I transfer the money to our ING checking account and then pay all the bills that need to be paid within the next two weeks and divvy out the rest to savings. This works well, unless I don't transfer the paycheck quick enough - in which case I have to temporarily pull money out of one of the ING savings accounts to cover until the transfer happens.  If I followed more of a buffer mentality, I'd never have to worry about late transfers, I'd have enough money in the checking account to cover the month's expenses. It would then replenish itself during the month with the current month's income that I would then use for the next month.

YNAB in no way compensated me for this post, I just really like their product.

photo by photos8.com via flickr

Okay, lots of times I wonder actually. About the things people buy at the grocery store. Today it was the person in front of me who bought a gallon of milk. Normally there's nothing at all wrong with buying a gallon of milk, but in this case buying two half gallons would have saved the guy forty-nine cents. Does he just not care? Did he not notice the glaringly large sign that said that the half gallons (of the same brand that he purchased) were just one dollar?  Does he not realize that two half gallons equal a whole? What gives?

I pay pretty darn close attention to what I put in my grocery cart and I know it saves me money. Do other people pay attention too, or do they just throw whatever the need in? I understand that sometime people prefer one brand over another and will buy it regardless of cost, but sometimes it seems that people have brand name everything in their cart - people just can't be that brand loyal, can they?

Have you made any odd grocery store observations lately?

Two weeks ago, we ran out of my son's favorite cereal. I try to only buy cereal when it's on sale (and stock up when it is) and it hasn't been on sale since. He is not amused that I've been to the store twice since we ran out, but I haven't bought anymore. Each day he throws a fit as I try to explain why I haven't bought more while offering up alternatives. He's heard me use this reasoning before, but he just isn't buying it this time.

I feel like I'm trying to teach him a lesson - we can't always have what we want when we want it, and the need to stretch a dollar. But a dollar is probably about all I'd save, and is it worth the tantrum?

I'll just cross my fingers that when the grocery ad comes in the mail tomorrow there's a super fabulous sale on Life cereal.

photo by alexstaubo

Normally, putting things off isn't a great money saving tactic. It tend to mean that you end up buying whatever you find simply because you have no more time, and that something isn't always the best deal.

This Easter, I used the art of procrastination to my advantage. Due to my church's broadcast of its General Conference, there were no traditional church services on Easter Sunday. This meant no place to wear our new Easter clothes! Not that I had them at that point anyway.

We don't always get new clothes for Easter, but I found a cute dress pattern for me and my oldest did actually need some new church clothes. I decided that since we weren't "celebrating" on the actual day, we could wear the new clothes any Sunday we wanted to. I purposely waited until a few weeks after Easter to even shop for new clothes for my kids. That way they'd be on clearance. Because there was always the possibility that I wouldn't get to the store in time and what I needed would be gone, It was a potentially risky move made even riskier since I waited a week longer that I was planning due to my dress being no where near being finished. But it worked out beautifully and I was able to pick up everything for a great price.

Has putting off a purchase ever paid off for you?