I haven't done well with the not eating out as much this year but I had been doing ok....for awhile. THen I fell flat a fortnight ago when I totally mis-calculated the budget. I had to take money back out of the savings to back it up, which is disappointing as that's our holiday money in a couple weeks. As a kind of punishment to myself I cleared most of my personal savings into our joint savings. It wasn't a lot but I felt bad that I'd messed up and it was my bills that contributed to it.
I had been doing pretty well before that though. I've managed to get my student loan under $10,000US. I still have awhile to go but it's down from about $22,000US. I've been paying it since about 1997 or 1998, maybe earlier?? It got tough at one point and they were threatening to send it to a collection agency. I stuck with it, put my loans together, took a few repayment holidays and now I'm over 1/2 through. It's a big overwhelming still knowing I've got so far to go but I'm chipping it away.
My credit cards? Still working on those. I did put a couple things on them this month, but have been much better than I have in the past. I am trying to pay more than the minimum on them to off set any spending but the last couple of months have been too tight & the exchange rate have made that hard. I've been working against some mental/emotional downs in Real Life so the temptation to just blow it all and go spending has been tough. I have put one piece of camera gear on it but broke the cost up so 1/2 went on the card and 1/2 is coming out of my personal savings (which clears that acct down to about $20). It's something I want to have for our trip and we won't be paid again before we go so I figured the compromise was better than sticking it all on the card.
And I admit that the mental/emotional issues of that rat brain you mentioned pushed me into the "buy it now" instead of being smart and waiting until I could pay cash for it all.
Another up side is that we had a bit in the savings towards the trip (and have cashed in some bonus bonds for the trip) so we've been able to use some of that for the things we've bought recently that we needed for the trip (quick dry towels & memory card for the cameras).
And a mixed bag, we've had some health problems so have paid for more dr visits, but fortunately those aren't too horrendous because of where we go (only about $17 a time instead of $40 or $50 like at some places). This has been more of a cost, but has cut back the non-prescription medication that was more pricey and has been replaced with mostly-less expensive prescription medication (except one type but that's still not bad as we went from $20 a pack to $5 for all but that one).
For the next month I want to see if I can keep our savings at decent level after our trip. That will be a challenge. I know much of the money in there is earmarked either for the trip or is from my wife's work to pay for her classes, but I want to see if we can keep it from being decimated by the trip.
So, while I feel it was a mixed bag I do think I've done better the last month than in past few months. I'm trying to stay in the savings mindset and while temptation is there, I am trying to avoid it. Kind of hard when you work in the central business district surrounded by cafes, a book/dvd store, a cd store, a gourmet chocolate shop, 2 camera shops and an electronics/computer store. And that's not counting all the restaurants! :)
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I had been doing pretty well before that though. I've managed to get my student loan under $10,000US. I still have awhile to go but it's down from about $22,000US. I've been paying it since about 1997 or 1998, maybe earlier?? It got tough at one point and they were threatening to send it to a collection agency. I stuck with it, put my loans together, took a few repayment holidays and now I'm over 1/2 through. It's a big overwhelming still knowing I've got so far to go but I'm chipping it away.
My credit cards? Still working on those. I did put a couple things on them this month, but have been much better than I have in the past. I am trying to pay more than the minimum on them to off set any spending but the last couple of months have been too tight & the exchange rate have made that hard. I've been working against some mental/emotional downs in Real Life so the temptation to just blow it all and go spending has been tough. I have put one piece of camera gear on it but broke the cost up so 1/2 went on the card and 1/2 is coming out of my personal savings (which clears that acct down to about $20). It's something I want to have for our trip and we won't be paid again before we go so I figured the compromise was better than sticking it all on the card.
And I admit that the mental/emotional issues of that rat brain you mentioned pushed me into the "buy it now" instead of being smart and waiting until I could pay cash for it all.
Another up side is that we had a bit in the savings towards the trip (and have cashed in some bonus bonds for the trip) so we've been able to use some of that for the things we've bought recently that we needed for the trip (quick dry towels & memory card for the cameras).
And a mixed bag, we've had some health problems so have paid for more dr visits, but fortunately those aren't too horrendous because of where we go (only about $17 a time instead of $40 or $50 like at some places). This has been more of a cost, but has cut back the non-prescription medication that was more pricey and has been replaced with mostly-less expensive prescription medication (except one type but that's still not bad as we went from $20 a pack to $5 for all but that one).
For the next month I want to see if I can keep our savings at decent level after our trip. That will be a challenge. I know much of the money in there is earmarked either for the trip or is from my wife's work to pay for her classes, but I want to see if we can keep it from being decimated by the trip.
So, while I feel it was a mixed bag I do think I've done better the last month than in past few months. I'm trying to stay in the savings mindset and while temptation is there, I am trying to avoid it. Kind of hard when you work in the central business district surrounded by cafes, a book/dvd store, a cd store, a gourmet chocolate shop, 2 camera shops and an electronics/computer store. And that's not counting all the restaurants! :)