On a Mission

My husband and I sat down this morning and talked turkey. Yes, I mean money. We usually don't talk about money because it's always been something that's strained our relationship. But, we bit the bullet and I'm so glad we did. We put together a budget using an Excel template (this template even calculates what we need per week) and realized that, if we follow the budget, we could save over $500 per month!

I've decided that I'm going to take on a huge task; I'm going to track every penny we spend. I re-installed Quicken on my laptop, went online and printed some ledger paper (we have some already but no one can find it), and signed up for online printable coupons. What I'm going to do is this - I'm using the ledger paper daily (so I don't have to use the computer every day), I'll add all weekly expenses to Quicken at the end of the week, and I'm going to print the coupons every week before going to the store. 

This is going to help hold us accountable for all the crap we spend money on. I don't know if you noticed, but money is getting harder and harder to come by, and I really think it's going to get worse before it gets better. We've allotted funds for personal items and entertainment so it's not like we're going to deprive ourselves of having fun. I'm really hoping that this will help us stay in the black and get to enjoy life a little more.

Okay, it's time for me to get cracking on tracking our expenses. It's going to be so great if we can save at least half of that $500 a month!