The Dreaded Budget....

Ever since Dustin and I moved in together we have had a general budget, that way we knew how much was going to the bills every month and what we should be setting aside each month in savings. In February we started keeping all our receipts and tracking every cent we spent in an excel spreadsheet (surprisingly my idea...thanks dad for making me read all those finance books). Well we didn't really pay too much attention to where we were spending the money as long as our savings for the month was pretty close to our goal. Well in June we didn't do so well... and I made the mistake of going back and adding up how much I was spending on this scrapbook habit.... and well I'm putting myself on a budget. Starting TODAY! So here it goes: I have decided to limit my spending to $20 a week. Yeah you might think "Melissa .... $20 a week is a lot to spend on paper, this doesn't sound like a budget at all.". Well no one asked you! Just kidding!! Baby Steps people, baby steps.... you wouldn't suggest that a 3 pack a day smoker quit cold turkey would you? Okay you might because smoking is bad for you. But I'm not going to get scrapbooking cancer. Considering I could easily spend 2-5 times that in a week... EASY... $20 seems like a good place to start. And I have decided that I will start each week off with a $20 bill. If I have any left over at the end of the week it can roll over into the next week but I can't use next week's $20 early. And I am going to challenge myself to use the products I buy versus just putting it in a pile somewhere and forgetting about it. So this is going to be good for me.... or I'll give up in a week.... either way it will make for a good blog....