The one thing I’ve noticed that either keeps me on track or when I derail from a plan altogether, is whether I’m checking in with that plan.
What do I mean by this?
When I’m on track with losing weight and eating healthy, I’m checking in weekly on my measurements and making sure I’m logging in my food.
When I’m on top of keeping up with the house, I’m checking in weekly on all the tasks that were scheduled to be done, and if they were or not.
How can this be any different with money right?
Why things didn’t work for me in the past:
- I set our budget limits too low. In an ideal world, I would spend only $100 a week for us on groceries. But I’ve come to realize that it’s not the case. I shop mainly at Fred Meyer and I can keep my limits under control there. But where I’m over, is at Costco. I don’t think you can leave that store without spending $100, and only leave with 2 things! How can that be?! Then, whenever I do go over, I’m so disappointed in myself. So from now on, I’m raising our budget to $200 a week and see how that works.
- I used to use a computer software to budget all the accounts. It was really easy to change the amounts that were budgeted, so we were never moving forward because I would just change the budgeted amount. It’ll be better next month…..
- Another problem with the computer software is that while it was super convenient because it automatically transferred all the transactions, I was a little hands-off. I was not in tune with the spending. Manually tracking on paper really makes a difference in feeling the movement of the money. It’s weird but it’s true!
- Finally, I wasn’t keeping track of the transactions properly. Hence, the weekly check in.
What is the point of the weekly check in?
Before I added the weekly check in sheet, I only kept track of the category transactions in my wallet. But I don’t have that with my binder all the time. Check out this post to see how I’m organizing my cash envelope wallet.
So, I added this weekly check in sheet to my budget planner. I know it might feel like one more thing for you to calculate and fill out. But this will keep you more aware of where your money is going.
I use the weekly budget check in for my variable expenses. These are the expenses that can change from month to month. This is where you are usually overspending right? It’s definitely where I struggle.
My categories are:
- Groceries
- Fun
- Household
- Health/Beauty
- Spending
- Girls
- Clothing
- Max (our dog)
- Car (expenses)
Like I said before, groceries is the hardest thing for me to keep under budget. It doesn’t feel like we eat that much! But weekly shopping trips and a couple of Costco ones are breaking the budget! The household budget is next on the list this month. We’ve been at home so not much money spent on fun but house projects while we’re in quarantine!
Now, whenever I’m in my binder I can keep track of what’s leftover in each spending category!
My spending is still not perfect, I won’t pretend that it is. But at least I can see it and stop an even bigger train wreck from happening right?! 😂
