live within my means

So it’s the end of the year and accounting time. I did rack up some credit card debt over the course of the year. Nothing I couldn’t pay off over time, but still, month to month, I didn’t do a good job of managing my expenditures. I think I just have a problem with entitlement… I’ll be so good for a while and then I get cranky and feel like I’ve been depriving myself and I “deserve” something, and then I wind up spending more money than I can really justify on something.

I’ve gotten the everyday stuff under control, I’m not running out throwing a $20 dvd on the stack every time I go to Target or anything, but the every-so-often and impulse expenditures are harder to rein in … and when I do badly, then I feel horrible about myself (sometimes out of proportion with what I actually spent). So, rather than doing what I’ve been doing—which is having a monthly budget for each category (like, $x for clothes, and $x for music/dvds, or whatever), I’m going to eliminate all those specifics and just say I have a, say, $x “fun stuff” budget, and that has to pay for my clothes and food and whatever. So hopefully that will give me some flexibility to be stupid without feeling like a complete jerk because “that wasn’t in the budget,” but still keep the spending overall in line with income, so I do not add up any more debt.

This is much harder to adjust to than it seems it should be. I’m having a hard time moving from an instant-gratification frame of mind into a thoughtful, long-term planning one. I did my grocery shopping last week, and it was maybe 2 weeks worth of food, and it ate up like $120 of my $150 grocery budget for the whole month. Plus I’ve basically spent my whole lunch-at-work budget too. Bad me. Sigh. I guess there’s going to be a lot of rice and beans in my near future. :)

I’ve cut out a lot of extraneous stuff, like clothes, in order to save more. I’m currently saving about 18%/mo pre-tax for retirement, and 7% after tax as straight-up savings, plus putting aside another after-tax 7% in a special savings account to pay for irregular expenses like car repairs, so they don’t come as nasty surprises anymore … so all things considered, I’m saving a lot of money. Even though I know I really want to have those savings plans in place – I know in the long run they will be the right thing, and this is the “pay yourself first” thing in action – it’s hard to get used to fitting everything else in what’s left. Sometimes I just want to go out and get a nice dinner. :(

Life was definitely easier before I was paying any attention to my money. :) I just hope that as time goes by it’ll get easier to be more mindful.

Yay! My January gas bill was $158 (out of a $160 budget). After that, although based on previous years’ usage, my February usage was always more than January, I decided to try and reduce usage. So I started leaving the thermostat at 66°F when I’m at home, and reducing it to about 62 or 63°F at night or when I’m gone. I had budgeted $230 for my February gas bill and I got it on Friday—$148!! Yay! So that’s like free money, right there. :) And I used less gas than in January, by about 10 therms, so I’m being … well, I can’t say more efficient, given how drafty this place is, but perhaps I’m being less waste-tacular.

Though, what with all this chilly winter weather lately: THANK GOODNESS FOR MY COSY HOODIE AND SLIPPERS. :-)

I just realized that tomorrow’s payday, and that means I’ve made it about 3 weeks without taking any cash out of the ATM… I went through what I had taken out around Christmas. I’ve been trying to spend less cash (most of it goes to buying lunch at work, so that means I’ve been bringing my lunch more often) and so it’s nice to have succeeded at that, at least this week, without it having been a huge deal.

OTOH, I definitely do have to hit the ATM tomorrow, since I have exactly $1 in cash now. (:

Lately I’ve been trying to keep my thermostat turned down a little. My apartment’s really badly drafty (though I did some work this summer and I think it helped a little bit), and I’m always cold, but I’ve been trying to keep it set at 68°F (rather than my preference, 72°F). It’s not so bad. It’s freezing when I get in to bed at night, but I knit some new slippers for myself and just wear a sweater over my shirt if I get cold.

I think it’s a good thing I started trying to keep the temperature down, too: I had budgeted $160 for my gas bill this month (based on last year’s January bill) and my bill arrived yesterday, for $158.57! So if I’d been living it up in the seventies, it could have been a little uglier than I was expecting. :) It’s been a little ugly so far this month in terms of temperature, too (some days 65…some days 8. No wonder everybody I work with has a cold.), but last year’s February usage was roughly 80 therms higher than January’s, so I plan for a correspondingly higher February gas bill this year. I haven’t gone over my budget yet to see what gets squeezed for that extra, but that’s next. At least I’m prepared ahead of time for what’s certain to be an ugly bill next month.