Accountability & Budgets

Sticking to a budget is hard for me. I can always justify buying whatever else it is that I suddenly need. I usually end up feeling guilty later or wishing I had stuck to my budget. For E and I it has become even more important to stick to our budgets for several reasons: 1) I don't have a job since I'm focusing on finishing up school 2) we want to buy a house and 3) we want to have a kick-ass wedding (in budget of course).

Saving money for us has become kind of tricky since I don't have an income. We have been relying on E's paycheck for our daily needs which has been super helpful for me. I'm trying to keep my savings in tact to help pay for rent and school. We usually try to stick to a budget for food, but we always end up blowing it. This month though, we've decided to keep track exactly how much we spend on food so we can see where we need to cut. In order to do this though, we needed to come up with weekly meal plans (again) and stick to a once/twice a week shopping trip.

So far we've been doing great for April. We've been able to clear out a lot of the items we've had in the freezer and plan our meals accordingly which has helped keep us within budget.

Now for the accountability. Keeping a log helps us keep on track. Even if we're the only ones who ever read the log, it still keeps us accountable.