adventures in budgeting.

So we had a fun few days the weekend before last, with our anniversary and a family camping trip. Problem is, they happened right on Matt's payday, which meant the "Food" and "Blow" envelopes were full. Makes you think you have lots of money to spend on fun things, do you know what I mean? :)

So Matt & I went out for dinner at a great restaurant in our city we'd never checked out before. We used a restaurant.com certificate, but it was a little pricier than some places, so we went over a normal date amount. But hey, it was our 21st anniversary and it was worth it, right?

And when you camp, you can't eat as inexpensively as when you have a full kitchen to help with frugalness (is that a word?). So we spent quite a bit on just a few days' worth of groceries.

Which brings us to last weekend. I had $31 left in the "Food" envelope, none in "Blow", and just enough in "Gas" for us to make to this Thursday. Pay Day.

So I sat down and wrote out a little menu for the next six dinners.  I went to a few strategic stores to procure the required supplies for those meals.  The first one was Eggplant Parmesan, inspired by that somewhat pricey meal on our anniversary.  Wow!  It tasted SO great and the whole family was clamoring for more (and that was with me skipping out on the Parmesan-Reggiano!).  I think I've just found a new family favorite, and it was cheap, cheap, cheap to make when eggplants are on sale.  (We're just getting into that season again.)  It's been fun to see how cheerful I can be about the diminishing supplies in the fridge and pantry.  And, really, it's amazing what you can make with a limited budget for food.  (Our 2-week budget for the seven of us is $175, in case you were wondering.)

So it had been a while since Matt & I had sat down at the computer together to look at our budget.  I'm usually the one who studies the thing and tries to make the numbers work, but I really needed his input.  I was looking at the budget for this Thursday's paycheck and had a balance of -$78 or something like that. 

Anyway, I was sort of flabbergasted (in a good way) by how quickly the budget all made sense, once Matt took a look at it.  Move this over here, change this amount, etc. and there we were.  All better. :)  Makes me think of this fun "Rose is Rose" comic I clipped from the paper a couple weeks ago.  

If you click on this, it will get bigger so you can read it better.  I just love it! :)

And here's a shot of our new "Debt Snowball" thermometer, which shows our credit card payoffs and the student loan balance that we're now working on.  We do think we'll have to take a little side-track and put some cash into the "Car" fund, as our minivan has 203,000 miles on it and will need replacing sometime in the not-so-distant future. 

I decided to make it sort of "scrapbook-ey" this time, since the lines made with markers got smudgy on our old thermometer.  I have only penciled in the amounts since I haven't decided yet how I want it to look.

And, just for kicks, here are a couple other photos from life around here lately.

My current painting is coming along nicely.  I made huge progress on the branches on Saturday and worked some more yesterday on them.  It won't be long now!  :)  I'm going to have this scanned at a printer in the Valley and have prints made, which will be on display at the Beach House.  Hoping for some busy-season sales!  :)

The kids & I were playing around with Google Maps yesterday, and David thought it would be cool to copy the satellite view of our home here.  So that's us right there... the house with the "A" by it.  Home sweet home. :)  You can even see someone in the backyard... David or Matt, I think.  Cool, huh?  :)

Oh, and I had the most productive Monday yesterday. It was so weird, because I did waste some time on the internet, but somehow I still got a lot done... laundry, vacuuming the whole house, school, correcting kids' papers, working on my painting, making bread, etc.  It didn't feel productive until late in the day when I marveled at how much I had accomplished while feeling like I was wasting my day.  Weird, but I'm going to be thankful just the same.  :)