Well this month was good but I spent lots and didn't track any of my spending, took dd on a weekend trip had a great time and stayed under budget!! I managed to put away the normal savings. 25/dd, 75/ large ef, 100/baby ef, 75/Christmas. But nothing extra. June will be a WAY better month it has to be! I'm going to track everything, and really try to cut back on unneeded spending. Also going to try to not eat out as much. Fingers crossed it's a way better month!!

Well me and dd went away for the weekend and I am happy to say that I was under budget for the trip! I have 10$ left in my wallet and 70$ left in my misc trip account! We had a great time, seen baby bears and baby monkeys, cougars, lions, we went swimming, out to eat, did a TON of shopping! It was a great time I'm hoping to plan for another little two day trip in August!

I started to plan out my June budget and I am hoping to add an extra 100 to savings and 200 to my new car savings account. My budget will look like this if it goes as planned:

Bills: 351.91
Rent: 500
Weekend Money: 240 (works out to be 60 a weekend)
Clothes: 50
Out: 40
Sitter: 25
Groceries: 340
Car Maint: 50
Extra Savings: 200
Christmas: 75
Hair: 40
Misc Savings: 100
Gifts: 50
New car: 200
House items: 40

Any extra money I make that is not budgeted out will probably go 50/50 to savings/car, Now off to go and update my goals on the side bar!!

I was sitting here writing out a new list of goals and decided the ones I was making were not realistic at all. So I scratched them out and started again small. Here is what I have so far: Boost baby emergency fund from 500 to 1000. Keeping adding in the automatic 75$ a month into my large ef so by December as long as I don't touch the money or add any extra I'd have 5600. Start saving for a car since I don't have to rush anymore to buy one, I have about 1000$ left of my income tax and I am going to put 500 into my car fund and 500 toward shelving, a picnic table and the rest towards a new camera. My goal is to save about 2000 for a car. So not so offical goals:

1) Baby Ef: 500/1000 To be completed by Sept. 2011
2) Large Ef: 5000/5600 To be completed by Dec. 2011
3)Christmas: 300/800
4) Car: 500/2000

Hopefully I can meet them all my job is kind of up in the air as of September, not sure what I'm going to be doing. Lots of decisions to make so hopefully I can just save up and maybe finish early. That would be great

Well my weekend has been pretty good, trying hard to not spend money I don't have to. If I can make it through today I will be good till the weekend and then we are off for the weekend, hoping for nice weather for the zoo Saturday. I am not tracking my spending anymore I'm finding it a pain to write it down right now once I get my apartment organized and I have a desk set up for all this stuff/business stuff it won't be as bad so for right now I am spending my category money in cash only and not spending more then what I had alotted that category its working good so far. I have been spending my weekend/eating out/misc money (which is $60 a week/weekend) on eating out, 23 on Friday and then another 20 last night but on the bright side its Sundaty and I still have about 30$ left in the category and I get another 60 next week and the week after. This is working way better to just take 60 a week whatever is left over will go into my misc savings which currently has 106 (206 as of next week) but will be spend this weekend on our mini trip.

Car update: I don't have to rush to find one! My parents went out yesterday and bought a second hand van so I can take my time looking this is such a relief!!

My income this month is a huge mess, with pretty near a full week of me being sick and then the children I watch being sick my pay at the first of the month and next week will be a little short. I'm hoping for a full week of all the kids to make up for all the missed days and then a VERY healthy June to get back ahead!

Income tax money, I still have no set plan for this but it is slowly getting spend on random things for the apartment/yard. Shelving for my dds room, living room and play room, getting a picnic table build, and will probably buy the kids a pool. I still didn't buy my new camera I think I will research a bit and buy a really nice one at some point. I also need to sit down and write out a new set of goals since I met my two bigger goals alreaady of 500/5000 and am still doing my ongoing goals of christmas etc.

Well if you made it through this all your a trooper thats a whole lot of random updates/thoughts! Hope your all having a great weekend

I need advice. Long story short: I need a car. I bought a car off my parents in October for cheap I have been driving it since, they are now looking for a new car because the inspection on the car they were driving is up and its not worth putting work into. They really like the car they sold me, I dont. So they will buy it back and I can get something I like. Here is where I need the advice, I really want something newer, nicer etc. Would love an suv type car but with the price of gas I don't know if it would be smart. I still have about 1000$ from my income tax, 700$ from the car from my parents, and I could sell my old old crappy car for about 300$ so thats 2000 right there. Do I take that 2000 and buy another older car, do i take 1/2 my ef and buy a decent newer car or do I go and buy a new car from the dealer at 0% finacing for 60 months and have a car payment of about 391 but full cover insurance. But no maintance and a 60 month warrenty. Would love some good advice because I need to make my decision soon right now my parents are using my car (aka their old car) all the time and thats leaving me carless a lot which isn't a big deal cause I don't use in through the week at all really but still it would be nice to have the opition.

I am very thankful for an ef this week, my dd ended up sick on Monday and I ended up sick Wednesday so this caused me to miss near an entire week of work. If I didn't have money in my savings incase something like this happened I don't know what I'd do! Use my cc that only has a $500 limit? We are a one income household, we rely on everything I bring in. Very thankful for my ef but also starting to think $5500 isn't enough. Time to set some new goals.

Today was a very long day, DD woke up last night and ended up getting sick. She was sick on and off from about 12-3:30 so I didn't get much sleep to begin with and then had to wash just about every blanket in the house today and had to take the day off from the kids so I have to sit down and redo my budget since I'll be short money. She is feeling a bit better this evening I just hope it lasts and she doesn't get sick again!

We made a trip to the mall yesterday and got my mom a mothers day present and my friend a graduation present I also bought a few things for the dog and cat, new dora sandels for dd and cute picture frames for my bedroom! I'm hoping to keep this a no spend week from today till Thursday then payday is Friday so we will likely go for groceries Friday night!

I still haven't decided what to do with my income tax refund so right now its just sitting in my baby ef account. I should have all my weekend trip funded by next week! I am very excited I book the hotel room last week so its all set! Zoo, shopping, hotel, swimming cannot wait for a long weekend of fun/relaxing with dd and my friend!! 18 more day!!!