With May being here, it means time to start paying back student loans. The extra $300 per month that I’m paying means a much tighter budget. I make enough money to pay all my bills, but since I’m trying to save for a new car, with the money I make now I won’t be able to save that much unless I stick to a budget. My budget will be $75 a month and will include gas, food, health and beauty items.

This shouldn’t be too hard for me to accomplish. I’m not the one that buys the groceries in house. I pay for the electric, water, internet, TV and garbage bill and Chrissy pays for the groceries. It usually comes pretty close to being even at the end since the bills aren’t usually that much and the two of us don’t eat a ton of food. Work is only a 2 minute drive from my house and the only real place I ever drive often is to Dave’s house. I only fill up my car about once every week and a half and it’s around $22. I use coupons whenever I buy anything and I almost always go home on my lunch breaks at work. The only real change in my lifestyle will be the money I spend on going out to dinner every now and then. Although Dave is usually the one who pays (he’s old fashioned) I don’t like him feeling like he has to. I’ve already told him that money is going to be tighter for me, but I haven’t told him yet about my $75/month budget goal. He understands that I’m trying to get a decent amount of savings. He’s been in my car and knows that it’s possessed and will eventually kick the bucket.

Starting tomorrow I’ll be keeping a very detailed list of how how much money I spend. I got paid today, so on lunch I deposited my check minus $75. That’s my money for the month. I’m even tempted to lock up my debit card so I can’t use it. I hope to be able to stick to my budget so I can save as much money as possible.

Tags: budget, budgeting, money, saving

Today was a pretty good coupon day. Dave had needed to go grocery shopping for like 2 weeks. We usually go on weekends, but the one weekend we were away in Orlando and last weekend was Easter. I had a stockpile of coupons that I needed to use. He ended up only spending $61 for so much food. The cashier even commented to him saying that he “found a good woman cause I saved him so much money.”

We used the money we saved to go to the produce stand and by lots of fruits, veggies and cheeses. The stuff you can get at a produce stand is so much better than anything you can get at a store. It’s all so fresh and ripe. The guy even cut us some kale right off the plant because he didn’t have any more cut. We ended up with 3 full bags of stuff for $17.

I then went to Walgreen’s to stock up on some cleaning and health and beauty items. With my coupons I ended up saving $20.55!

I realize that I’m not as good at couponing as some people, but I’m new to this and was pretty proud of all my savings.

Tags: budgeting, coupons, saving, stockpile