Monday, January 18, 2016

Saving for Something Cute!


One of my New Years Resolutions is to be better at budgeting my money. My hubby and I attended Financial Peace University, which is a money management program by Dave Ramsey, at my church. We learned a lot of things.

At first, I kinda halfheartedly applied some of his teaching to my everyday life. One of the things Dave Ramsey teaches is that you sit down every month and create a budget. Well, I didn't sit down every month and exactly write down a budget. I just mentally kept a budget in my head. Needless to say, that really didn't work well.

So, I purchased a cute budgeting book from May Designs and as of January 1st, I started writing down my budget.

It has really helped keep my sending in check, and January isn't even over yet! But now, if I see something that I want, I have to save for it!

I have a number of expenses coming up and a birthday party that I need to plan for next month. I don't have any wiggle room in my budget right now.

Pic Credit: Colleen Spotts

My friend, Colleen, sells products by Damsel in Defense, self defense products specifically made for women. One of their new products is a cute purse. When I saw the pictures she posted my immediate reaction was "I want it"! The purses are made of real leather and come in four pretty colors. They also cost $75.

At first I was like "I can put it on the credit card". But credit card payments are not in my budget. So, I'm sucking it up and putting off that purchase until I've saved enough to pay cash for it. That means I probably wont have enough for it until March or April.

And you know what? That's ok. It is more important for me to make sure I stick to my budget and pay for the more important things first than fall prey to an impulse buy. It is a little bit of a struggle, heck, it's a really nice purse and I really do want it. But, now that I'm looking at my budget, which is written down right in front of me, I really see that getting it right now is not practical. And it's something that I WANT... not really NEED.

Dave Ramsey was right, it's important to sit down every month and write down a budget. It really helps!



5 comments:

  1. Yes, I love this. I'm working on the same thing. I have four children and trying to teach them to spend their money wisely. Always asking if it is a want or need. Things don't make us happy. Maybe only when you buy it. But then it gets old and you get bored. That's why I think its important to spend time on other things instead of shopping. Good for you. You inspire me. :)

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  2. Yes! This is so smart! I often want to just put things on the credit card, then it gets out of control. I write everything else down, so a budget shouldn't be any different. Thank you!

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  3. I'm definitely trying to be better about not using my credit cards and instead using my debit card or cash!

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  4. Our habit is to write down all incoming and outgoing expenditures--being able to see where we're at in our budget on a daily basis is so helpful!

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  5. Hubby and I are starting to control all the expenses. We also have our savings. I am the one whose making the list of expenses that are need to settle.

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