Cracking Down!

Hey everyone!

While I was out in Utah, I started thinking that my husband and I needed to find ways to save money.  What better way than to have a budget?  So starting today, I'm cracking down on this budget thing.  I figured that since May is half way over, there's no reason to start one right now so I'm getting a head start and working on next month's budget.  This includes saving receipts, keeping an inventory, finding a good bank, and cutting corners in some places.  Is my husband liking it?  Well, sort of.  He likes the fact that I'm going to start cooking more but other than that, not really.  He thinks it's only necessary to keep receipts if you bought gas.  Never mind cigarettes, snacks, drinks, or random toys that he finds.  I'm hoping that I get him into the habit of keeping those little pieces of paper that the nice cashier gives you.

I'm slowly teaching him the ways of money saving while grocery shopping.  He thinks the hard way and looks at the price and how much there is instead of just looking at the cents per ounce thing on the price tag.  For example, we were getting some baking soda today so I can get rid of the nasty stench emanating from our furniture in the bedroom, mainly the dresser.  There was Arm and Hammer for $2.69 for 32 oz and a generic brand for $.99 for 16 oz.  The way how he saw it was you get more with the 32 oz even though it costs more, but the extra cost is because of the extra amount.  The way how I saw it was you get $.084 per ounce for the 32 and $.062 for the 16.  It is cheaper to get the 16 oz generic than the 32 oz name brand.  Also, there was a comparison thing on the price tag for the generic with the Arm and Hammer.  He started to look at that and realized what I was saying. 

I've found that in most cases, the store brand is a lot cheaper (and better) than the name brand stuff.  There are a few cases, however, where I would choose the name brand over the store brand.  One of those cases happened today with spaghetti sauce.  I'm not a fan of Ragu or the store brand.  To me they taste like there's some or too much (whichever the case may be) vinegar or really watery.  I personally prefer Prego or Classico.  Classico tends to be cheaper so you can kind of guess which one I get the majority of the time.

Anyways, back to the main topic of a budget, today, I sat down with my dear husband to just go on ahead and get predicted costs.  It's kind of scary that he doesn't know the cost for things like phone, cable, electricity, car insurance, or even how much he makes!  He says that it comes out automatically from his account.  Personally, the way how I see it, it doesn't matter if it comes out automatically or not, you should still at least know where all of your money is going!  I personally don't like it, but he likes to use his card.  To me, it just makes spending money easier because you never actually see it unlike with cash, but he doesn't like to carry cash on him so he prefers the card.  Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think card is the worst thing ever (I even have one) because it keeps a record of how much went where.  It only works, though, if you actually use these records.  Otherwise, there's no point to it.

But yeah.  I do have to say, it is helpful to have templates to help you keep inventory and develop a budget.  I tried to post them on here, but it wasn't working right.  I don't really know why and I even tried doing it different ways but it just wasn't working.  If I do get it to work, I'll post them on here, but if not, I'm sorry.

Have a great day!