My attempts at getting my wallet/life in order have stalled out after a few months, and I've actually started to slide back a bit. This was pretty much bound to happen. It's hard to nail down the cause, exactly, but if I had to guess, I'd say it has something to do with the amount of time I spend in bars. I also noticed the other day that I can't seem to go a day without using my debit card, often times I use it two or three times a day. I actually tried to go a day without using it, and I couldn't. There were things that I absolutely had to buy, no way around it. Every. Single. Day.
The problem is that much like credit cards, debit cards paint a very poor picture of the actual amount of money I have. Debit cards do a better job, if only because I at least get a daily balance reminder email, but in the end, the process is fundamentally the same: I swipe a little piece of plastic, I tell myself "It's only seven bucks, I can handle that," and I move on with my life. Wash, rinse, repeat. Always repeat.
So for the remainder of February, I'm going to try something different. Tonight I'm going to take $200 cash out of my account, and that will be it for my spending money for February. Of course I won't carry it all with me at all times, but when I go out, I'll bring some cash, and that's how I will pay for everything. When I run out, I will stop. It's that simple.
There are less than 20 days left of February, so I'm pretty confident I can do this. $10/day. No sweat. I mean, I'll spend probably $20 on pre/post kball beer tomorrow, and probably $50 on drinks at the anti-Vday bar crawl Saturday. But I can make up for all that by not spending as much during the week, right?
Right?
:/
Mar 22 2012
16 minutes ago
Posts
7 comments:
I was spending like crazy as well. I finally gave myself an "allowance"! I live off of 100 dollars a week for EVERYTHING! Including gas, meals out, drinks, Aidyn stuff, etc! If I know there will be a big expense I'll budget out money for that, otherwise I just get by and deal! Its working out well, and oddly enough I am WAY less stressed! Bills are getting paid off, and the things I thought I'd miss I dont really miss AT ALL! :)
Good luck cutie!
I actually do that every month. I budget $200 and take it out in cash at the beginning of the month. I stash it away in my room, and take $20-$40 out at a time. If it gets low toward the end of the month, I cut back on spending or just put the last few items on my credit card. It's the 31 day months that are hard. February is a breeze though.
Sometimes I'll even have leftover, so I'll carry that over to the next month and then just take out my $200 a little later.
That's great. There are a few methods based on this. I think one is called the envelope method.
Also - sign up for Mint if you haven't already :-)
I'm sure you can do this. Good luck. But really? You really had to put :/ there? Really?
:p
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