Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Sidebars Updated...

I updated my sidebars as of payday today, and the good news is that I have a fully funded Emergency Fund! I've got Baby Step 1 complete. I definitely chose to do this out of order, but I went with $100 per month while aggressively paying off my debt. I have been happy with this system, and plan to keep $1,000 in there until my car loan is paid off, when I'll up it to 3-6 months expenses. It's funny, that money doesn't really feel real to me, because it's not on the table to spend...but if I ever need it I will definitely be glad it's there!

October is an expensive month for me, so I was only able to pay an extra $155 on my car. :/ I set aside $100 for Christmas this month, as well as $100 for Halloween (costumes for the bf and myself...I'm making him go along with my ridiculous idea, so I'm covering his). Hopefully I will have extra left over for Halloween and I'll be able to slide a little more over to my car at the end of the month. But, I adjusted the sidebar and I'll do so again when my regular payment goes through on the 15th.

I'm also really, really, really going to try to stick to my "fun" budget. I've been going over on this for the past few months, and I need to get it in line. I am going to use my debit card but carefully track it this month. I think the cash system was getting me in trouble, because having all that cash at the beginning of the month made me a little spendy. We'll see how that goes. If I can stick to it, then the extra on any other budget lines can go toward my car at the end of the month, instead of me playing musical money and moving things all around to cover eating out.

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