Back on the budget!

Have you ever been on a diet and messed up 1 meal and instead of letting that mess up your whole day/week/month/etc... you just decided to pick yourself right back up and get immediately back on track?

Yes... well good for you.  I have not.

What happens with me is I will wake up with the best of intentions, eat a healthy breakfast on my way out the door to work, and then get to work and someone will have brought donuts. <JERKS!> So obviously I will have a donut (or 3). Then lunch rolls around and I figure I've already ruined my whole day so I'll just start the diet again tomorrow. Of course tomorrow comes and I decide I've really already messed up my week so lets start again on Monday.  See the pattern?


I have let myself get in this same pattern with money and it has to stop.  Logically I would say "well, I went $35 over on my eating out, clothing, entertainment, etc budget... let me find another category to cut $35 from so I can stay on budget as a whole." Or I may even just say "okay, you went over this month in this category" stop the "bleeding" so to speak, and move on with the knowledge that that is a place I need to watch more closely.  Instead, I revert back to my diet default and say, "dang, I'm over budget by $35, the whole month is a bust. I guess I'll start again next month." Instead of only being over $35 at that point, by the end of the month I may be over $350 because I gave up managing my money.

This cycle has got to stop, and I am enlisting all of your help to be my accountability partners. I'm going to be checking in regularly with updates and would love anybody else who needs this accountability to do the same. We can do this by working together as a team!

I'm going to be adding my new budget set-up in my next post. Stay tuned...