August Goals

It  has  been August for a whole four days already and I haven’t given that much  thought  to  our monthly budget or my mini goals for this month yet – yikes!

Finances:
1. Budget Meeting: Will happen on Saturday morning.  No excuses.

2.  Monthly  grocery  budget:   I keep shooting for $600 (last month I even tried for $500!) and missing, so try, try again.  This month we will try to feed  two adults and one infant (who now eats rice cereal thankyouverymuch) for $600.  I will aim for $300 (or less!) at Costco, which will give us $50 per week for fresh things.  Watch this space for upcoming reports.

3.  Pack  Lunch  Daily:  this is definitely easier if I plan well (and if I don’t  answer  my  phone from 11:30 until 1 when friends call – I have been tempted to go out even when I did pack lunch.)

4.  College  Savings:  Baby  S  has  a 529 account now – I’m waiting on the paperwork to do our monthly contribution, and then this goal will be done!

Home
1.  Reduce  the  papers: I have not made much progress.  My goal will be to spend 15 minutes (I will set a timer) after dinner each night.

2.  My  Closet:  I’m  still wearing very little of my clothes.  One’s needs change  post-baby!   I’m  not  ready to give up on my clothes yet, and will have  to  focus  getting  my  work  wordobe in order as it’s back to formal business wear after Labor day.  Double UGH.

3. The Baby’s Closet: my goal or this month is to clean out and recycle the 2-3  old  laptops  in  the  top  of  this closet so I can pack away all the newborn-6 month clothes, as well as my maternity clothes.

In other finance goals:
Personal  Spending:  I  think  we  have  figured  out a system for personal spending.   We  have  opened two new FREE checking accounts – one each.  We will  each  have  $30 from our paychecks (every two weeks) direct deposited into said accounts.  Thus we get $60 per month to spend on whatever with no questions  asked.   For  now,  I’m not putting our clothing budget in there yet, although I think that would be a really good thing eventually.  I just think  $60  is  probably  not  enough, but maybe I have not become ruthless enough  yet.   Then  again, I haven’t spent more than $60 on clothes in the past  3  months!   Maybe  we could also make this gift money eventually, so that  if I want to save my money to buy my husband an iPhone, he can’t make me not do it (hehe.)