Cents to Freedom

Its been about a month since I started this blog, and right now I do not think its getting easier.  I have let the budgeting slide again for this month, to many little things have come up which lead to having to pay extra.  First its was medical payments, then birthday party/gifts, car payments, credit cards, rental instrument, the list goes on.  Its like you paid and before the end of payday you are broke, and don't even know where the money went. According to my excel spreadsheet (not a budget), just expenses I should have extra money left over every paycheck, but it never seems to happen.  Its not like we are taking grand vacations, the eating out has declined a lot of the course of the month, but its not helping. Seems every time I try and save, another issues rises.   Get higher paying job, more bills.   I guess its time to look for a second job, till I can find a hustle that works.

Today started off with a trip to Starbucks, as I did not have any breakfast items for the house, followed by lunch at work, and then a trip to the supermarket after for supplies. Starbucks: $12.34 Lunch: $11.09 Supermarket: $48.12 ---- Today's Total:  $71.55 Weekly Total to date:   $126.69 Once again I believe at least 95% of these purchases are for food.  This week I am doing nothing in changing the habits, just recording a normal week to get the baseline, and then go from there and try and improve my spending habits.

Since I am trying to stick to recording all my purchase each day, I have both yesterday and todays information listed here.  I was tired and forgot to post last night.  Jul 31 ------- Sprouts:  $14.95 EvGo:  $9.60 DQ: $10.38 Vending Machine:  $2.50 Total Cost:   $27.43  Of that money I could have probably saved the 9.60 if I switched out my electric car for another, and skipped dessert at DQ. Aug 1 ---------- 7-11 - $3.94 -  Drink/Snack Lunch - $9.04 - Sandwich Dessert - $14.73 - Menchies (3 froyo's) Total:  $27.71 Only 2 days and notice any patterns?   I kind of expected that majority of my "unscheduled" money goes towards food items. I could have saved the $9.04 for lunch if I had made something at home, but I was not in the mood to prepare something.  So the total for two days so far:  $55.14 Additionally I have scheduled payments due on the first.  These include rent, cable, heal...

Well Day 1 was not an ordinary day, so even though I tried to record all expenditures, it kind of got out of hand.  Today's bills:  Car Lease, One Credit Card. Today's other expenses:  New kids shoes, new kids bathing suit, vending machine snacks. I hope tomorrow will be more "normal" so I can record what I spend, while trying not to think about what I am spending.  I need to see what my baseline is so I can adjust accordingly. 

As I stated in the previous post writing things down makes them real.  In doing this I have started what is a very rough Budget.  I have been using Google Sheets for right now, getting down the basic information needed. I have a section broken out for different pay amounts with starting salary, first pay bump, and the hopefully next pay raise.   This is based on a yearly salary then broken out to paychecks.  I made deductions for the taxes (based off currently salary, and my 401k payments (10%) currently. With my known income, I next needed to see all my expenditures.   These are things like rent, cable, cell phone, car, water, electricity, food, insurance, entertainment.   I should be in the black each month, but I am not.  So clearly I am not tracking anything very well.  My budget sheet is just a bunch of numbers not really worth it yet.   I used to use Mint, maybe I should check it out.  ...

Welcome to Cents to Freedom, a personal finance blog where I will be talking about what I am doing to try and clear up racked up unsecured debt.  I have read that by talking/writing about your debt it forces you to take a harder look at where you stand.  I hope that by doing this it will help me chip away at the mountain and by chance help others who may be struggling.