Mo' money, no problem.

A few months ago, my friend mentioned she and her husband were starting a budget. They get cash out for the week (or 2 weeks), and only allow themselves to use that in place of using their debit cards. This is a great idea, I thought, but I would never do it. Using my debit card grants me unlimited spending without the guilt of consciously knowing what I'm spending and on what.  All I have to do is look online, see my balance, and know if I can continue my pursuit of happiness.

Whenever I say I would never do something, I always end up doing it. It's like I like doing the opposite of what I say.

Scott has been bugging me for months to do a budget. I am not a budget kind of girl. Obviously, I put it off, but then I was listening to the tv and heard something about mint.com regarding budgets. I decided to check it out. All I had to do was give them my bank information and, based on the transactions, they put my spending into a pie graph. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. I can never let Scott see this. The biggest pie in my graph was shopping. To be fair, a lot of this was on clothes for the girls. Emma's legs are already almost longer than mine, and she can't go walking around with her pants hitting the tops of her ankles.

I decided maybe I would give the budget a try (and never go back to mint.com ever again). So I typed up a budget in excel and was amazed at how much money we should have after all the bills are paid. Hmm.

I enjoy a challenge. I can do the cash thing. Or try it, at least. It might be fun.

We just started yesterday. We have an envelope of cash for groceries and Target (that's gonna hurt. I'm not gonna lie), an envelope for family entertainment (dining out, movies, etc), and we each get $50 for our own expenses, which isn't really fair because Scott never spends money.

I actually have all my money still. I get $50 for the week for my own personal spending, which kind of stinks since I go to Zumba twice a week so that leaves me with $40, and sometimes I go Saturday mornings, but now I have to decide between a work out or $5. That $5 will also get a Starbucks, which actually I HAVE been known to try to convince Katie to drive past Zumba and go to Starbucks instead.

So this is my point. This money I have is like gold to me. I don't want to part with it. I refuse to spend it senselessly. I need to use it wisely, and I may even have extra to carry over into next week. I really wanted to get a pedicure this week, plus, I need some jeans hemmed.  I'm already wishing we would have postponed the budget. And Scott is SUPER annoying about it. He's offering me ways to earn money by...you know. I'm not that desperate. Yet. As I've said before though, I'm above nothing. 

A girl's gotta eat.