No Spend November Link Up!

A Dose of Paige |  The Life Unexpected  |  The Lovely Sisters  | My Pending Life 

Today marks the first day of No Spend November, so I certainly hope that you have your done your grocery shopping, grabbed that adorable shirt that you had been contemplating buying and just generally prepared your self for this grand adventure we are about to take.

One quick little caveat, I'm adding a cheat day for myself.  There is a food truck that comes to my office every Tuesday, and in the name of supporting local business, I will continue eating there on Tuesdays for lunch, but that's it.  Outside of that there will no more eating out (there will however be lots of stops at the grocery store...)

I'm excited for this!  It's always fun to challenge your self, and for me I find that it's easier to give something up cold turkey than to try to moderate myself against it.  Once I say "no more eating out except for the food truck on Tuesdays" then that's that, no more eating out except for that food truck on Tuesdays.

(If you're local to Denver, you should try to hunt down Mike's 2 Kitchen, it's pretty stinking delicious, definitely worth the cheat day.)

So let's get going!  Link up to tell us what you're giving up November! We're so happy you're here!

Introducing: No Spend November!

Instead of celebrating our men's beloved "No Shave November" because let's face it, a woman not shaving can get pretty scary, November is officially "No Spend November."

Don't worry, we're not taking away all your freedom to spend.

The idea is to just work on one area of your spending.

So, select your area (mine is eating out) and stop your spending for 30 days.

And it's okay, because a few other people are going to be doing it with you. Your hosts Paige from A Dose of Paige, Heather from The Life Unexpected, Olivia from The Lovely Sisters, and Kenya from My Pending Life (and of course me!) are doing this all right along with you!

So how does it go down? It's pretty simple.

On November 1st, come to one of our blogs and link up a post about what you're not spending money on in November. It could be anything from not eating out to not buying anymore books. Tell us why you're not spending money on it and tell us what you're going to do when you're tempted to go spend the money. Like, when I'm tempted to go shopping, I'll go play with my dog instead.

Then, stop your spending, unless it's a necessity. Like, if you start a new job and need a new uniform, but you're not spending money on clothes, obviously, buy your uniform. I promise we won't come after you with pitchforks.

On November 15th, come and link up a post on how you're doing. Maybe you're doing fantastic and want to brag about all the money you saved or maybe you're really struggling, maybe even went out and bought a few things/spent money on something and need some encouragement. Either way, we want to hear about it!

Finally, on November 30th, come back one more time and tell us what your experience was. Maybe it was awful and you hated it, even with all the money you saved. Or maybe you're super excited and realized you don't need the thing you stopped spending money on anyway, you love all the money you saved. Maybe you've realized that you can't possibly ever go without the thing you stopped spending money on or maybe it opened up your eyes.

Even if you stop partway through, please link up and share your experience on November 30th!

Whew, that was alot I know but I wanted to make sure you had all the details.
 
So tell me, are you coming back on November 1st and participating?! Sound off in the comments about what you're not going to spend money on!

Budget With Me Wednesday-Week 5

Wow it has been quite the day!  Thus why I am coming to you a bit later than usual.

Things have been pretty busy around my house lately!  Aside from baking 120! cupcakes this week I've also been working out, working, going to church and trying to remain sane!  It's crazy, but this is when I really shine.

Turns out I'm incredibly good at keeping a million balls in the air.  My life tends to fall apart when I am only juggling one thing, I get bored and lose my focus!

Anyway, that has nothing to do with this silly budget of mine.

Things have been trucking along recently.  I actually cut down my cash money (sigh) in order to pay for my new workout studio fee, it's worth it but it's hard.  On the bright side, having less cash more or less REQUIRES me to bring my lunch now, so that's not such a bad thing.

I have to be really intentional about things.  I have to remember that I WILL be going out to dinner on Tuesday nights after church, so I can't spend all my money on Monday.  It's all about keeping things straight and thinking things through.

Overall things are at lot better money wise.  I feel much more secure in my finances even though there is still a lot of catching up to do!  Who knew this could make such a change in just 5 weeks!  Love it!

How have you been?

Love,

Keely

Budget With Me Wednesday-Week 4

Happy Wednesday Lovelies!

This week has been an interesting one, not in a bad way per-say but not in a good way either.  I haven't been splurging, but I haven't been saving.  I've been sticking with my 10 dollars a day, but not doing as well with my other rules.

For instance...

-I ordered two subscription boxes this month
-I bought some adorable accessories during some sales
-I took out cash for groceries but still put some stuff on my debit card
-I stopped emailing TheBirdy

Sigh.  Baby steps right?  I'm doing A LOT better than I used to be, but still not perfect, but who needs perfection!  (When it comes to money it would be a VERY good thing).

The end of the story is that I still have money left in my account and I'm two days away from payday.  Usually at this point I'm stuck in a "a crap I have no money for the next two days so I won't buy anything, until I decide to buy everything on pay day" mode, but I'm not doing that.  I went and made my car payment and didn't freak out and keep my fingers crossed that the money was there, because I KNEW the money was there.

It's great.  It's a lot better.  That's why the cash aspect of this is SO important to my plan, I can cheat a little bit with cash, but it's a lot harder to spend cash you don't have than to make purchases on your debit card with money that you don't have (or replace debit card with credit card...now that's bad!).

In other news, am I missing a secret to budgeting for gas, or is it just not possible?

Love,

Keely

Budget With Me Wednesday-Week 3

Hello loves!

So can I just start by saying that budgeting is no fun!  I know it's the whole sacrifice now, reward later but it's just hard.  I've been earning some extra money recently (I've been taking care of people's pets, AKA getting paid to live at someone else house) and it would be nice to treat my self to something special.  Alas, there are the rules.  Those tricky rules.

This week I went to Kohl's and bought myself some new leggings and workout pants (I also started this new workout shenanigans, it's a form of martial arts called Capoeira, need to figure out if that could fit in the budget), so there went my one purchase over 30 dollars, good thing it was "necessary".

Anyway, I've only strayed from my $10 a day of "fun" money once in the three weeks I've been doing this, so I feel like that's a good thing.

The temptation to spend more will only lead to my continual lack of money, I'm fighting that urge so much!  If I want to be able to save for vacation, a "rainy day" etc, I need to push myself now to not spend, and that's a lesson that is hard and incredibly annoying to learn.

Good luck with your budget woes!  What has helped you get past the spending "urge"?

Love,

Keely

Budget With Me Wednesday-Week 2

Hi Friends!

Happy Wednesday!  As promised I'm here with a brief update on my budgeting (snore, I know).

This week has worked out better than I expected!  The $10 a day rule is not that hard to stick with!  The hard part for me is the groceries, it's really easy to spend a lot at the grocery store when I get really inspired to bake something for you lovely people!

However, for the time being I'm focusing on the $10 a day.  I was surprised that at the end of the week I actually had $30 left! (including that days $10).  I thought that this was going to be super limiting for me, but so far it has been nothing of the sort!  It's been really great to get me on track with the spending!

Also, I've been keeping up with TheBirdy.com, it's been great to see how much I'm spending, just part of the slow process to change my habits.

Have you made any changes?  I would love to hear about them!

Budget With Me Wednesday-Week 1

Ok, so I know that you were coming here looking for something beautiful, something delicious or whatnot, so I'm sorry, really I am, but budgets are important, taking care of your money helps you to live a beautiful and delicious life!

Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating a bit about that, but still, it's pretty true.  I've been living a bit on the crazy side of spending recently, nothing too extreme but certainly not saving as much as I should.  I decided it was time to change that, so I came up with some rules for myself.

I hope that this helps you, I am NO expert on the matter, but I'm trying.  If you have any advice I would love to hear it!

The Rules:
-10 dollars a day spending money in CASH (I will go to bank, take out 70 dollars for the week in 10s and put each 10 in a sealed envelope.  The envelope will be dated and the money cannot be used before that day a.k.a.  If I have leftover money from Monday I can spend it on Tuesday but I can't spend Tuesday's money on Monday.)
-25 dollars a week CASH for groceries (also goes in an envelope).
-One clothing purchase over 30 dollars PER MONTH. (This is just in case I need new jeans, "need" a date outfit, really love that dress from ModCloth, etc.).
-Only ONE subscription box a month.  (I hadn't done these before this month but they're super fun and I love them, sadly, the budget really only allows for one, so one it is, at least it's something!).
-Save!  I don't have a set thing for this yet but based on my math there should be extra, and that I need to SAVE and not spend.
-Track money via TheBirdy.com (this is amazing, scroll for more details!)

So there you have it, my rules for getting my spending on track.  I hope that this inspires you a bit, it's been less than a week for me, but so far so good!

What is TheBirdy.com?
I found The Birdy randomly one day and as it turns out this site is amazing.  All you do is give them your email address (it's FREE), and then every day the email you and ask you what you spent that day.  In response you'll say something like "$19.45 #groceries #blog"  You come up with your own hashtags and they keep it all organized for you!

These are my hashtags.

They also organize everything in to an interactive pie chart.  I spend a lot on my blog, mostly because most of my groceries are for baking projects for le blog.  It's worth it.

This website is so easy!  It really helps me pay attention to what I'm spending and is an important part of the spending budget for sure.

*this post was not sponsored by TheBirdy.com these are my opinions on a product that I have found helpful*

Love, 

Keely