Still working through it

So, I reached my goal of spending less on incidentals in November by $100, which is just slightly more than I spent at Ikea so I'm not sure it really counts. My wants went down, but my needs went up and somewhere in there, I spent my cushion. I don't really know how I managed that except that perhaps I still had leftover madness from October.

Since we last discussed it, I've changed a few things so I will appear to have more money to work with each month.

I've also been working on my attitude.

You see, I tend to spend it if I have it instead of budgeting for actual expenses. I may have mapped out my spending and bills, but I don't really control things beyond that. This is my next step. To set a budget for things like food, pet food, and entertainment and to stop using my debit card. I learned that I over spend when I use it. Case in point:

I told myself a couple of weeks ago that I could have a Costco hot dog for lunch since I would be at the store and I had $2 cash. While in line, I remembered that the total would come out to more than $2 after tax, I would have to use my debit card because I didn't have any change. Well, in that case, I thought, I can also have a frozen yogurt! Suddenly, my $2 lunch was $5. That doesn't seem like much, but those little expenditures add up fast.

Thankfully, I was quickly reminded that the taxes in Nevada are lower than the ones in California and I would have the cash to cover my lunch.

But it opened my eyes to my tendency to overspend because the money is in my account.

Friday, I am going to try to switch to the envelope system of cash management.