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Excitement! I just transferred the last of my "maternity leave" money into our savings account! When I fell pregnant*, I started thinking about how much money I would need to replace my salary for up to twelve weeks of unpaid time off, and we came up with a nice round amount that is (almost) three months of my salary. It's almost three months of salary because we never did the formal math until just now and I have already gotten excited about meeting our goal so we will not be officially changing it. Having said that, I have an automatic transfer set up to transfer money (umm.. 17.5%, my lovely calculator says) out of each of my paychecks, so it should actually be officially correct by the time Ducky gets here. I might also point out that twelve weeks is not actually three months, and we don't spend my entire paycheck in one pay period, so our original number was just fine, now that I think about it. I'm really happy about accomplishing that goal now, as opposed to doing it at the last minute, because my plan all along has been to pretty much ignore it until the time comes to use it, and pretend that we can only buy stuff if we have the money in our checking account. That's one big reason I haven't wanted to start buying things for the baby--it just makes it difficult to gauge how much we can spend and still follow my artificial rules on how much money we have.
You know what I love? I love reading about budgets and money and frugality. I have learned a lot of stuff since I started lurking in personal finance blog land, though I don't read them regularly, for the most part. I adore random people blog posts about how they're saving money on this or that, or where they draw the line on being frugal. There was one thread on a forum that I have read infrequently about how often people shower as a result of their frugal lifestyle, and I have to say that showering? That is where I draw a pretty permanent line. I do not consider bathing to be an optional item in my budget. How much could the extra water actually cost? It can be a difficult subject to write about--I hardly ever talk about money issues even though I like to because it's hard to be vague enough for privacy's sake and specific enough to warrant conversation. But I love it when people do!
I also looked over my budget spreadsheet tonight, where I have logged all of our money going out for eight months now. It's now actually useful information, and I can do things like come up with an estimate of just how much we spend on utilities per year (too much) or what categories we consistently spend more than budgeted. Food, if you're curious. We have been over budget every single month that we've tracked in both the Groceries and the Dining Out categories. I haven't really been using the budgeted feature that much, especially in the beginning when I was just trying to get numbers in so we could work on them. This month, we are already over our dining out budget, but I have decided that it's time to stop accumulating numbers and start acting on them. Our grocery budget is more than reasonable for two people, yet we've never hit it. (We were pretty close the first few months, which is how the number got set.) So, we have two and a half weeks left in the month and two thirds of the budgeted amount left. I think we're actually in pretty good shape as long as we stay with it. Coincidentally, I'd also like to eat a bunch of the stuff we have lingering in the pantry, so I'm now planning on making a lot of very strange little meals out of what we have on hand, and accomplishing two goals at once. That can be pretty fun if you have the right mindset. It would probably help if I started making meal plans, too. ;)
Anyway, I'll stop blathering on about budgets. I am feeling better today, I think. In utter desperation, I sent M out for Benadryl last night. I am absurdly sensitive to the stuff, so I will only take it as a last resort. I had perhaps the worst runny nose and sneezing I can remember yesterday, though, and I was beginning to wonder about the logistics of sleeping without drowning. I slept like a dead log, and it was actually pretty fabulous, since I haven't been sleeping terribly well anyway. On the downside, I was feeling actively drugged and half-asleep until about noon today, and dazed and dehydrated beyond belief the rest of the day. Still, I felt better than yesterday so here's hoping that I'm on the mend. Poor M developed a quick-onslaught illness yesterday afternoon that has left him feeling pretty miserable already today. I guess it was too much to hope for that he would pass up my germs this time around.
*I have always wanted to say that. Sounds so posh and British.
You know what I love? I love reading about budgets and money and frugality. I have learned a lot of stuff since I started lurking in personal finance blog land, though I don't read them regularly, for the most part. I adore random people blog posts about how they're saving money on this or that, or where they draw the line on being frugal. There was one thread on a forum that I have read infrequently about how often people shower as a result of their frugal lifestyle, and I have to say that showering? That is where I draw a pretty permanent line. I do not consider bathing to be an optional item in my budget. How much could the extra water actually cost? It can be a difficult subject to write about--I hardly ever talk about money issues even though I like to because it's hard to be vague enough for privacy's sake and specific enough to warrant conversation. But I love it when people do!
I also looked over my budget spreadsheet tonight, where I have logged all of our money going out for eight months now. It's now actually useful information, and I can do things like come up with an estimate of just how much we spend on utilities per year (too much) or what categories we consistently spend more than budgeted. Food, if you're curious. We have been over budget every single month that we've tracked in both the Groceries and the Dining Out categories. I haven't really been using the budgeted feature that much, especially in the beginning when I was just trying to get numbers in so we could work on them. This month, we are already over our dining out budget, but I have decided that it's time to stop accumulating numbers and start acting on them. Our grocery budget is more than reasonable for two people, yet we've never hit it. (We were pretty close the first few months, which is how the number got set.) So, we have two and a half weeks left in the month and two thirds of the budgeted amount left. I think we're actually in pretty good shape as long as we stay with it. Coincidentally, I'd also like to eat a bunch of the stuff we have lingering in the pantry, so I'm now planning on making a lot of very strange little meals out of what we have on hand, and accomplishing two goals at once. That can be pretty fun if you have the right mindset. It would probably help if I started making meal plans, too. ;)
Anyway, I'll stop blathering on about budgets. I am feeling better today, I think. In utter desperation, I sent M out for Benadryl last night. I am absurdly sensitive to the stuff, so I will only take it as a last resort. I had perhaps the worst runny nose and sneezing I can remember yesterday, though, and I was beginning to wonder about the logistics of sleeping without drowning. I slept like a dead log, and it was actually pretty fabulous, since I haven't been sleeping terribly well anyway. On the downside, I was feeling actively drugged and half-asleep until about noon today, and dazed and dehydrated beyond belief the rest of the day. Still, I felt better than yesterday so here's hoping that I'm on the mend. Poor M developed a quick-onslaught illness yesterday afternoon that has left him feeling pretty miserable already today. I guess it was too much to hope for that he would pass up my germs this time around.
*I have always wanted to say that. Sounds so posh and British.
