Monthly Archives: November 2007

How Much Do You Spend On Food/Groceries Each Month?

budget
I haven’t read this book, so this is totally hearsay, but I read on another list I’m on that in this book –  – the author states that the average American spends 5% of his or her income on food. I have been mulling that over in my mind for the past few weeks… wondering how that makes any kind of sense. Let’s take the amount of money we bring in each month. $5411.00. I decided to start with 20%… Read the rest

Time Value Calculator

Tech Stuff
I found the link to the Time Value Calculator from an older post over at Mommy Millionaire Next Door’s – a calculator that helps you figure out how much you actually make per hour. I was thinking about this just last week because I’m becoming very disgruntled with my job, and am looking for ways to rationalize finding something else… the problem is, I have a very strong sense of loyalty and tend to stick with situations long after I… Read the rest

Just a Few Dollars Here and There

budget
That’s how I rationalize a lot of purchases, “I work hard for the money I earn and it’s just a few dollars here and there!” When you really start taking a closer look at your finances, it becomes astonishing (and a bit frightening) to realize just how quickly it all adds up. Yesterday I posted a screen shot of our expenses for October and we ended up overspending in the “Groceries, Sundries, Pet Expenses” category by $382.00. Here’s some more… Read the rest

The Plan: Step 3 – Just The Facts, Ma’am

plan of action
My next step is to analyze exactly where the money is going. Let’s take a look at the month of October and see if we can figure out why on paper we should have extra money leftover, but we keep going farther into debt! As you can see, we overspent by $724.42 during the month of October. Thankfully we’ve had a cushion in our account, because it would really be horrible to be overdrawn by $724.42. As you can see… Read the rest