The Budget

Ugh! Money! We have 10 months until the wedding and a million things to pay for. My parents are extremely generous and are taking care of the majority of the wedding, which I am so unbelievably grateful for. But, there are some things J and I have committed to taking care of, like our wedding bands, our honeymoon, gifts for the wedding party and other little things here and there. Turns out all those little things add up quite quickly. We have been putting money away since we got engaged (thank you Coffee Buzz tip jar) but we really need to start putting more aside if we're going to be able to do and get all things we want.

I figure now that a new year is starting, this is a perfect time to try and change some habits to help save some money. This will help us out now with the wedding and hopefully these habits will stick and help us save for a house, fun trips and other big expenses in the future!

I started out by making a monthly budget for myself. I added up all the bills I must pay (stupid bills) and then approximated all the other things I spend my money on each month, like groceries and gas. Well, unless I want to give up eating (which may not be a bad idea) I am not left with much money for fun or savings. Let's face it I have to have spending money. As much as I want and need to save I need to be able to spend money for my sanity. I've come up with a couple of ideas to help me save more and spend less. Some of them are coming from a website I found and some of them I came up with all on my own....

-Eat more meals at home! Heck, I'm spending all that money on groceries might as well eat them.

-Host more Saturday night game nights instead of spending the night on the town (get it...spending the night....going out is expensive!) Plus, this will help me to keep our house clean! Double points!

-Switch gyms! Right now I belong to LA Fitness and I love it because it's less than half a mile from Coffee Buzz but I'm paying $29.99 for the membership and another $56.00 for two personal training session a month! J works at Lifetime Fitness part time keeping stats for their basketball league and gets a free membership because of it. Now that we're engaged I get a free membership as well! That's almost $100 a month I will be saving!

-Work more hours at Mary Kay's. I am working part time at Mary Kay's Bridal to pay for my wedding dress! Once it's paid off I will be able to bring home that money and believe me, it will be going straight in to savings! The more hours I work, the quicker my dress will be paid for and the faster our savings account will grow.

-Each paycheck I am going to withdraw a set amount of cash and this will be my spending money until my next paycheck. My card will be used for bills, gas and groceries ONLY! This will be a huge challenge but will really help control my spending, if I can pull it off.

-Write a list before shopping and stick to it. This would help me soooo much, especially at Target. I can go in to Target for advil and mittens and come out with $150 worth of stuff. I really need to take advantage of my love for list-making.

-Drink more water! First, I need to do this anyway and second, I buy so many damn Powerade Zeroes it's not even funny. If I just drink the free water I have I would save a ton....I wish there was a way to see how much I've spent on Powerade Zeroes over the last year, actually I take that back. I don't want to know.

-My poor hair is going through a lot right now, that's for a different post. So, I'm not coloring it until before the wedding. This will save me money too!

-Buy in bulk. We have a Sam's Club membership for Coffee Buzz, but I should really use it for personal stuff too....like toilet paper, garbage bags, dish soap, and other household items we go through pretty quickly.

Now, this is where you come in. What money saving tips do you have?