Living Paycheck to Paycheck

Final Tally! 

Income (from beginning of May):

Paychecks: $2409.97
VA State Tax Refund: $165
Revolution Money Exchange Pay-Out: $35
Federal Tax Refund: $1529
Money Paid Back to Me: $100
Federal Rebate: $600

Total: 4838.97

Expenses (for this week):

Gas (three trips): $144.82
Tolls: $35.00
Entertainment: 17.65
Rent/Water/Fees: 1033.66
Groceries: $158.69 (Got a lot of June’s groceries, hair dye, and allergy medicine)
Other:  $9.00 Service Charge on my bank account…I had less than $750 in my checking at one point, I guess.

How does this look for my Bare Bones Budget Categories?

Category 1:  Rent/Utilities/Phone/Internet/Food — $1467.78 / 1,345
Category 2:  Savings — $50 / 250*
Category 3:  Loans — $262.72 / 262.72
Category 4:  Gas/Tolls/Car Insurance/Car Maintenance — $460.26 / 480
Category 5:  Entertainment/Gifts/Clothing/Donations/Miscellaneous — $121.04 / 70

TOTAL: $2361.80 / 2409.97 from the original budget, with $48.17 going into savings (*along with “extra” tax money and things).

This also goes to $2361.80 / 2610.80 (the ACTUAL amount I have per month because of the two extra paychecks per year) for a difference of $249.00.  So this isn’t so bad, especially since my June groceries won’t be so expensive.

My savings will be allotted thusly:

$25 into Gift fund
$25 into Emergency fund
$1500 into Car Lump Sum (due NOV 2008!) account
$83.17 into Revolving Savings — this account is for when I go under or over on a given month and to fund “wants” periodically.

Other ”extra” money will stay in my checking for now.  My car insurance lump sum will be coming up this summer and I can’t even guess how much it will be.

Also:  Anyone closely following the blog might note that I’ve switched things from different categories and removed some expenses (like the Target bill payment).  I switched the Loudoun car tax to Misc., and I removed the bill payment because the point of this was to show what I spent vs. earned in May, not what I’m paying for now because of April or March.

I’m glad that I did this, but in the future I might just put down my Bare Bones Budget categories instead, since this turned into a lot of searching online for my online banking totals and credit card “recent activities”.

My wonderful boyfriend has put together a diet/fitness plan for me!  Now I wish that I’d waited and not bought groceries so that I could have just followed his list.  Since he knows what he’s doing, he tailored the grocery list and meal lists to things I generally like to eat…only I hardly bought any of those things in an attempt to eat smart and cheaply.  There’s only a couple problems with the diet at all and one is that it focuses more on dieting food than healthy food, but I think that after I finish the first 21 days and we reevaluate what I need to do, I’ll be able to choose my meals better.

The other problem is the cost!  If I were to go to the grocery store today and buy everything that I don’t already have, I estimate that I’d spend about $150…that is well over the $2.04 I have left for the month.  So I have to decide whether to start this diet on Thursday or wait until June, a week and a half from now.  I’m very excited to start this and the exercise plan NOW while I’m still motivated, though I hate like hell to have to blow my budget.  What’s a girl to do?

I totally caved.  Yesterday, I bought groceries for the first time in well over a month.  I really wanted to stick to the Pantry Diet, but, honestly, the only way I had left to do that was to have spaghetti or mashed potatos for every meal–including breakfast.  So, as I sat at my computer yesterday morning, eating leftover mashed potatos before getting ready for Mass, I made up a grocery list and went directly after church.

I’m just under the $100 limit I set for myself at the beginning of May for the May Grocery Challenge at Give Me Back My Five Bucks, though I’m running low on milk, but I don’t want to go over the $2.04 I have remaining.  On the other hand, I’ve never stayed this close to $100 with groceries and I’m pretty proud of myself.

I wasn’t expecting to have to buy Drain-O for my bathroom sink, but it didn’t cost too much.  I also had to buy things that I was out of (due to the pantry diet) that I like to have on hand: flour, baking powder, pancake mix.  Other non-monthly expenses were toilet paper and toothpaste.  The most “luxurious” item purchased was boxed wine.  My best friend and I (and sometimes her husband, sometimes my boyfriend) get together every Wednesday, usually at my place, for Boxed Wine Wednesdays.  It’s cheap and delicious, if unclassy.  One box will generally last 2 1/2-3 visits depending on how much we drink and how often I imbibe on other days of the week.  I wouldn’t be able to afford BWWs otherwise.  Two weeks ago, for example, my best friend and I killed two bottles of wine between us (I was given a few bottles for my birthday last month and haven’t bought boxed wine in a while), one of which she brought.  If we each bought a bottle of wine each week at $7 apiece, we’d spend approximately $672/year, for a total of $336 each.  Instead, I’m paying under $200 a year on the boxed wine and drinking tons of beer and wine at her house on most weekends, evening it out.

In the future, I think that I’ll try to keep my grocery budget to something slightly easier like $120/month, especially during allergy season when I live off of generic Claritin.

I’m still doing the whole “no buying groceries” thing.  I’ve had spaghetti for lunch and dinner everyday…well…for lunch, anyway.  Last night I took a nap that led me to sleep from 6:45 to 10:15pm when my boyfriend called and woke me.  This frustrated me because I didn’t want to miss The Office or Scrubs and had actually set my alarm for 7:30 so I’d have time to fix dinner and watch TV.  Then I got to read as my best friend and I gchatted that she couldn’t BELIEVE that I’d missed it, that it was THE BEST EVER!!!  MAJOR PLOT DEVELOPMENTS!  MAY-JOR!  Sigh.

Anyway, I slept through dinner, but I forced myself to bake some biscuits to add to my lunch for today so that I wouldn’t get hungry because I knew that I wouldn’t buy anything no matter how hungry I might be.  I can’t decide yet if this whole thing is healthy for me.  I was afraid that sticking to the pantry foods would cause me to gain weight, but I actually feel thinner (this MIGHT be from missing dinner two nights in a row, but who knows?).  I haven’t weighed myself yet, but it would be awesome if this financial goal was helping a weight goal, too.  I want to weigh between 130-35, and when I weighed myself last week I was at about 140.  I’m quite tall, so on graphs that show how much a person should weigh given his/her height, I should weigh between 125-145.  The last time I was at 125 I was WAY too thin, though, and it took forever to gain weight back, so I definitely do not want to go that low again; I just want to fit into my old work clothes that are sitting in my closet.

In other news, I signed up for the ING Direct Orange Savings Account.  I received $25 just for depositing $250.  For each referral I give, I get $10.  So far I’ve been credited with an extra $20.  If anyone would like a referral for the savings account or the checking account, just e-mail me at livingpaychecktopaycheck at gmail dot com.  Just tell which account you want; the same rules apply to get the $25.

My weekend starts in less than an hour now!  Yay!

Recently, I found myself saying to a co-worker, “I have to go buy groceries tonight; I don’t have anything for lunch.”  I’m trying to always fix myself lunch before coming to work so that I don’t have to buy downstairs at one of the two fast food options in my building.  Although one day I got to work early and bought two sausage, egg, and cheese McGriddles and they were totally worth it.  SO delicious.

Yet, not something I can have habitually.  Anyway, I started thinking about grocery shopping.  I throw down all sorts of money everytime I go, while my pantry stays somewhat stocked with things that I never use.  I have tons of uncooked spaghetti and lots of other things that I can makes meals out of for weeks, if necessary.

Therefore, I’ve decided not to shop for groceries unless absolutely necessary.  I’m going to tweak “absolutely necessary” for a few items; I have one Claritin tablet left and MUST buy more, but I will get the generic kind.  Some of the things that I’ll cook will require milk, eggs, and vegetable oil, all of which I’m running low on (i.e., teaspoon of v. oil, one egg, a few cups of milk).  I have enough of everything else I might require for a while.

I’m curious to see how long it will take to eat all the spaghetti, rice, etc.  Maybe this won’t be the most nutritious month ever (but I do have some frozen veggies!), but I’ll be able to fix that when I resume shopping–and whenever I eat at my parents’ house.  I’m estimating that this will last about a month, with approximately 90 meals.  I hope that this will also get me used to cooking nightly, which will then make it easier for me to plan meals, which will hopefully make it easier for me to plan my meals around sales at the grocery store.

So…as little grocery shopping as possible…starting…now!

My party is tomorrow and I’m trying to combat my natural tendency to freak out.  I’m a fairly lazy person, but an obsessive list-maker, so I have a grocery list, a party grocery list, a “things to do” list (organized by rooms in my apartment), and not a thing crossed off of any of them.

On Tuesday (my actual birthday), I went out to dinner with my parents and took home leftovers.  I ate some for dinner last night and I had one of the rolls for breakfast this morning.  Anytime I’m eating something I didn’t pay for versus something I did, I’m saving money!  My parents are on a diet, so I was able to bring home four bags of potato chips, a jar of salsa, and a jar of cocktail sauce, which will save me more than $15.  One of the bags is already gone, though, because two of my best friends were over last night and I had to feed them something; I chose the smallest of the bags.

My best friend asked what I’d like as a birthday present, if she could get me anything for the party.  I asked for a case of beer.  I told her that it didn’t even have to be “good” beer.

I have about 18 confirmed people and 3 or 4 people that are probably coming, too, so it won’t be a crazy party or anything.  The guests are going to range in age from 23-26, so there WILL be beer pong, more than half of a box of wine, part of a bottle of wine, and a gin bucket.  I’m going with the cheapest gin available, no matter the brand.  I’m getting generic ginger ale and a generic can of lemonade to go with it.

I’m worried about keeping the purchases to under $60. 

This is where I find myself unable to budget effectively.  I received a $100 check from my grandparents so in my mind I’m thinking, “Well, it’s okay if I go over $60 because I have that other money to fall back on.”  I know that the extra money should be put into savings to pay for necessities, but it’s difficult to hold myself back.  I’m not good at setting limits on myself and it amazes me how well other people accomplish it.

Because one of my goals in life is to be a good hostess (i.e., welcoming to guests, making sure they have everything they need to have a good time), I hate asking people to bring anything; if they volunteer, I’ll suggest something, but I feel like a bad hostess if I invite someone to my home and am unable to cater to their needs.  I’m going to try to combat that feeling and ask one friend to supply the gin and my boyfriend to get a case of beer.  I hate doing that because he’s as bad off as me financially for this month.  Many of my friends will call tomorrow afternoon to ask if they can bring anything and I’ll use that time to request more 12 packs.  Hopefully I can keep these costs down!