Don't worry. This isn't going to be a political rant about the government "reigning in the budget"
I'm going to talk a little today about reigning in my budget.
Brandon and I went through our expenses last night to see what the bare minimum we need to be making to live off of was. The results were alarming! The worst part of it was, the only thing that we could really work on "reigning in" was our grocery and gas bills. Everything else were things that need to be paid for.
Um, helloooo adulthood!
That was even a look at our expenses WITHOUT fun money! It's not like we both don't have jobs and can't afford our expenses, but what if we want to make any big changes in our lives? Switching jobs, moving, having kids...those are all things I've never really thought about until now.
So, since groceries and gas are really our only {fairly} liquid expenses, I'm going to do some work on budgeting and pulling that number down. For now, gas is a given for me, since I work 35 miles away from home, but groceries can really be worked with!
Soooo, I need some suggestions!! How do you guys do it? I mean, we eat well and that's not something I'm about to compromise, but I know we can eat well on a budget! I've decided on a couple of steps to take to start saving money on groceries
- start saving all our grocery receipts and keep track of what we are spending
- list all the necessities, as I'm sure there are frivolous items in our grocery carts
- determine all the things I buy that could be made at home - this is a big one, I know I can do much better at this with a little effort
- Start planning a week of meals, make a list, buy ONLY what's on that list
With some luck, and hopefully some good suggestions, this will be the first in a series of posts on reigning in our budget. But this is my first serious budgeting adventure (is that weird? I'm pretty sure I've been an adult for a while now...) so, I'm going to need some help. Please shoot feedback, suggestions, comments, ideas...ANYTHING over to me.
Any accountants out there with magic solutions and tips? I can't wait to hear some thoughts!!
...haha, you thought I lost my signature didn't you? GOTCHA! :)
