Rah for me!
Occasionally my brain decides that it's time for A Project and will hijack my life to work on said project. Generally the project is something ridiculously large in scope but irrelevant to real life. Things such as NaNoWriMo or inviting 25 people over for Easter dinner when you have lousy cooking skills and a smallish kitchen. The results have
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I tracked my spending nearly obsessively for 2008 and part of 2007. I half heartedly worked on part of 2009, and now it's August and oops I haven't for a long time. I am very impressed!
I'm curious about these expense leaks you mention... What are they? how do you find them? I applaud you for calling companies and actually getting them to do something! Amazing!
I totally agree with last comment of music psych - the important thing is to get the money in and start thinking about it. By the time we're in our 30s and 40s is the time to start worrying that we're not doing the right thing, but hopefully we'll learn it before then :)
ah dining out. It is amazingly expensive! and extremely hard to cull. The hardest part for me is the need for planning ahead when planning not to eat out. Definitely have not mastered the grocery buying for an extended period trick.
My friend who is a business major who works in "finance" says the first thing to try if you're working on sticking to a budget is taking your expenditures out in cash once a week (or twice a week) on a schedule. If you're handling the money for each purchase, and watching the stack you took out get smaller, it really creates a visceral connection to what you spend, and really, *how much* is $20 (rather than some amount that goes on credit or debit card). These are for the variable expenses like food, entertainment, gas (if applicable), books, clothes, medicine, etc not the monthly fixed expenses generally). She advocates going without if you accidentally spend all your money on the first day on something you thought you really "had to have" and saving for things that are fun but not necessary purchases. I have never tried it (see above comment about planning ahead being difficult), but it seems like a good idea.
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