spend less than I earn

One way that works for me: set up an account with no ATM, and rather troublesome to draw from. Usually banks have this kind of account. Then each month, on salary day, I’ll transfer the amount I want to save into that account, and live on the rest of the money. It actually feels good :)

.... backdated to June. This means my immediate problems are gone, just as long as I don’t act the goat too much. Having successfully negotiated Christmas (well, without going overdrawn, anyway). I can count this as now much more under control and withdraw this goal.

The last I checked up on this goal, I was attempting (futilely) to budget, and to balance my income and expenses each month. However, this was a total pain in the ass, so I fell way behind on doing it.

Well, today I forced myself to sit down and actually do some financial paperwork, simply starting from a blank spreadsheet. I did a Balance Sheet first, which is a snapshot of your accounts at this point in time. You add up all your assets (savings, retirement accounts), and compare that to your liabilities (credit cards, mortgage), which will give you your Net Worth. Luckily I am on the positive-side there.

Next, I did a cash flow statement, and that will show you which way you are trending. What is frightening is that, even though my accounts and spending feel like they are in order, this exercise proved beyond a doubt that I am spending more than I earn. However, I am really glad I did this now, cause I feel like I have the time to fix it.

While this was fairly tough, it really helped that I had the majority of my financial transactions recorded in Quicken, cause it allowed me to easily pull down different categories of spending. For instance, I can say “for this year so far, give me a report that tallies all my spending for Medical:Vision or Dining or Cell Phone.”

Looks like I overspent again – by a terrifying £37.79. Impressive considering that I paid off All Tomorrow’s Parties this month … and, come to think of it … I still haven’t had my last payment for that! Best remind A. Bought a couple of luxuries that I could have skipped—most notably a book about gardening and some clothes from M&S. Becoming aware of wasting money because I need to make change for bus fare. Need to change this (but not sure how).

Initial view suggests I did not do well, spending 52.53 more than I earned. Bum, I thought I’d been living more frugally. Given that my credit card bill last month was 67-ish, how did this happen???

Ah. I have an automated savings sweep, and boy, did it sweep!

So, my savings are now looking much healthier (a good thing, for reasons which will later emerge) and I had an effective underspend of hmmm -52.53 + 464.66 = 412.13.

I guess that’s what you get for not going onh holiday :(

I can’t believe how much difference it’s made to focus on my spending, follow the steps of Your Money Or Your Life (doing that less now, though . . . ) However, I just had some medical things, so now I might blow this goal. That’s unforeseen, though, and I have a bit of a cushion now, so hopefully it won’t mean veering off my plan too much. I said in January if I could do this for six months I’d check it off. And I have! So I am.

I’d been hoping to do something epensive that I didn’t do in the end, so no really big surprises in June—£147 underspend, give or take. This was the month with the mortgage switch over in it, too and I managed that well enough. I’m still spending too much on flowers, music, food, living up to the epectations of others.

Another credit card bill of doom, lots of birthdays (including the bill from Tim’s birthday), a comics convention and an accidental withdrawal of too much money. Oh, and I finally bought some clothes, which cost me all of 80. The money is (still) mostly going on food and other necessities, including the 590 protection plans I legally need in order to own a house. Although I suppose I could cut gigs, music and media purchses, which would probably save me about 60. So there you go. No clothes or entertainment and I can start saving money.

I did indeed spend less than I earned in April. I think it doesn’t feel like it because lots the money leaves to untouchable retirement accounts. I try to think of this as “spending” so that I treat it like any other bill – a must-do. But I do feel strapped, even though the numbers look good. And my Wall Chart is showing an upward trend in the expenditures area . . . when doing my questions for YMOYL, I noticed that I spent a lot on restaurants. It’s different to be with someone – when I wasn’t with my BF I spent a lot less on restaurants. Now I don’t want to seem like a sponge or a wet blanket or something so I always agree to go out and even suggest it and pick up the bill maybe more than half the time in my eagerness not to feel like I’m leeching. Same with groceries. I had gotten my grocery bill down but he feeds me a lot and so I buy him groceries. However, I really enjoy the food he makes and being with him to eat it, so this is worth it to me. But I think I can work on the restaurant thing. Plus I had some unordinary expenses like buying a Thule ski rack and some scrapbooking supplies as well as underwear ;) to replace what I threw out on my Mexico trip!

I was a bit in the hole for April, but not horribly.

What’s good is that I put 100% of my income tax refund into my Roth IRA. So, I technically spent more than I earned, but that’s acceptable because the over-spend went into long-term savings.