learn to live on a budget

...And I’m a college student with no job, a lot a stress, and a refined palate…and a compulsion to buy pretty fabrics that I’ll never sew because I could use them one day when I finally get that sewing machine that I can’t afford until I stop buying all the fabric and those pretty glass beads I saw in the store that I’ll get around to this Christmas. There’s a bit of a poverty pattern here, and those falafel pitas aren’t buying themselves (those delicious little devils!). I try for coupons, discounts and sales, but they’re all devices to compensate for my lack of self-control. That buying impulse is kicking my wallet’s butt. Any help?

A few months ago I SAID I was going to start keeping track of my spending. That never quite took :-/

But, with some huge financial problems looming on the horizon, I’ve decided I have to start taking serious action toward putting together an effective budget.

Step one is to save receipts and start keeping track of all the spending I do everyday, and record those amounts onto an excel spreadsheet. So far, I have succeeded in remembering to do this for six whole days! That is a big deal for me. I’m gonna try to keep the momentum going.

It has finally occurred to me that the only way to really track how much money I spend on average is to save my friggin receipts! True, there are many places where I regularly pruchase items, like the campus coffee house for one, that simply do not issue receipts. In that case I must be sure to take note of how much I pay. I need to know how much I spend on an average month, not just on the weekdays but on the weekends as well. So, starting tomorrow I will save all my receipts and tally them at the end of the month to figure out where I can afford to cut spending.

For the last two an a half weeks I’ve been keeping track of every single item I spend money on each day. At the end of the month I’m going to sit down and figure out exactly how much I spend on food, transportation, books, toiletries, etc. and figure out where I can reduce spending.