Sick days : What to do when your down...

I'm a little sick. I had to call off work on a Friday night, I may have to tonight (*update: just did. So glad!). The weekends mean big money in waitressing land. Now I can't enter income on my budget worksheet. Waah! Until yesterday, I've not called off at this job. I hate calling off. It gives me anxiety. I had to give myself permission to call off. I had to get advice and encouragement from my friends and hubby. Who, by the way, is a fine nurse. I take pride in my work ethic. I fairly enjoy the work and my coworkers. I just got put on both weekend nights and I can't even be reliable, but I feel like absolute crap! I'm sure they can handle it without me...

However, the sickness has not affected my brain - it was already this way;) So, it is my laptop, me and the couch. This is a great opportunity to write about the budget worksheet in action. Once you see saving money as spending money on yourself, you might find a little more excitement in it all. Stacking dollars, pennies if you got 'em, is a great pastime, woo wee!

After ceasing to worry about the money I was not making this weekend, I was able to find strength from my budget worksheet. Seriously. Since keeping track and putting my all into saving, I created a nice cushion, or emergency fund, to protect me in times I couldn't count on making money or a crisis came up. Getting sick is exactly what this should allow for.

Additionally, I can look through past expenditures to see where I can cut spending to maintain a fairly decent savings total at the end of the month.

I recently splurged on a 25 lb. bag of rice for $11.99, that's $.47 a/n lb (I did just spy a 20 lb bag for 8.99 which brings the price down to $.45 a/n lb). Long grain white because it stores indefinitely. This contradicts the high priority I place on health through diet, but I digress. I could slice spending on groceries by making a lot of rice and beans meals and spice them up with veg and herb. Rice makes a good, filling brekky too. Cutting into my grocery bills won't be too hard because I have been making some bulk staple purchases. I am just starting to keep track and build my price list (more later), while experimenting with recipes from the depression, albeit with more health promoting ingredients.

I can also say no to nights out. Lately, I enjoy seeing my friends in the day, when I can see and hear them. Besides being waaay cheaper, it is much more efficient. I know, I know, what a soulless way to look at it, but loud, smoky bars just aren't cutting it. Stopping by to dish over a few cups of teas is definitely more rewarding. Although, I have less hilarious drunk and stoopid stories to tell. Ha!

Now, if only I could cut down on my cell phone bill...it doesn't hurt to dream. Maybe if we all banded together we could make the phone companies stop ripping us off! I'm going to look more into their feckless pricing scenarios. The New York Times recently did a story on how text messaging costs next to nothing for phone companies but, oh, how they charge. I have been able to lower my cell phone burden by texting more therefore enabling me to move to a cheaper plan. Alas, I am still not satisfied! Considering adding my mother to my family plan, is that a mistake?

*I'll post a link to the article soon-soon. I know I posted it to my facebook.

The nurse just brought me my blueberry waffles. Gotta nosh!

Begin at the Beginning: Your Budget Worksheet!

It's fine, really. I've come to terms with being a little obsessive about saving money. It's kind of my hobby. The more I talk about it, the more people I meet who want in.

In the past, I've kept track of my spending in calendars that we're gifted to me. For two years straight I entered anything costing a $1 or more. This was back when I was going out religiously. So I wasn't shocked at the tally's rung up under "entertainment". Truthfully, I was the cheapest of the bunch regardless. I just got to a point where I wanted to see where all that hard-earned money was escaping to!

As a waitress working towards bachelor's degree, I also wanted to track what days and months were particularly flush and take holidays and cram on the not so flush. With my new found frugality, I pursued a system that didn't require so much work. I was crunching all the numbers myself. So last week, I learned excel. Online. For free. I downloaded free office software, OpenOffice, and set about creating my personalized budget worksheet. It adds everything up AUTOMATICALLY! Yeah, didn't major in computer science, as an artist I focused more on graphics programs anyways.

My latest challenge, has been getting my husband to use the budget worksheet. I will blog about using charm to slay your mates financial defenses. I do not know yet why he resists so much! He probably doesn't want to know!

I am posting my blank budget worksheet that you can personalize! Break it down as little or large as you need. I recommend rounding to the nearest dollar and then half-dollar with more experience. Don't worry if you miss a few. Just start getting acclimated to the idea. You might even start writing expenditures on scrap paper to keep track. So much can happen in a day. I can't emphasize enough how powerful this tool is for understanding your individual spending habits and how to establish discipline. Just knowing that every purchase you make has to be entered causes a pause before buying. Discovering where you really spend money can be eye-opening. Once you have a little history to work off of, you can start slicing into each category. With a little more history, you can set realistic spending caps in each category and stop yourself from going over.

For a good time, imagine ways to add more categories to your income section...

Download Budget Worksheet HERE! Enter the Captcha, Click "Download Now", wait 40 seconds and click "regular download. Copy the file into your own excel software if it opens read-only. Let me know if and how this helps or if you have any problems!
Enjoy!