Creating a Budget & Sticking to It

I have a confession to make—I have stopped making, let alone following, a budget.

When my son was little, I had a little notebook where I made the budget and I diligently marked off each bill as I paid it. I sat down to pay bills twice a month, each time I received a paycheck.

Then, my daughter came along, and suddenly I didn’t seem to have time to do everything. I would sometimes write down a budget, but I couldn’t honestly tell you if we followed it completely because money just disappeared. We would take cash out of the bank, and 5 days later, it was gone, but I wasn’t quite sure where it went.

After the birth of our third child two months ago, I didn’t even pretend to make a budget. I just paid bills when I had a chance. As you can imagine, things started to slip through the cracks. I paid our credit card bill online on the day it was due, but I was one hour late and got hit by a late fee. (Yes, I fought it.) I forgot to pay the cable bill and got a bill reflecting two months’ total.

It is not that we don’t have the money to pay the bills, it is just that I am woefully unorganized.

So, this 4th of July weekend, my mom watched our kids while hubby and I went out and worked on making a budget together. We came up with a budget, and yes, I realize it has a lot of fat to be trimmed. I will get to trimming the fat in a few months. Right now, I am just trying to stick to a budget again and tell my money where to go (and pay my bills on time!)

Laundry $40
Rent 1000
Groceries 380
ComEd 50
AT & T 28
Comcast 95
Son’s school 187
Hubby’s spending money 36
My spending money 35
Misc. 50
Gas/Transportation 130
Restaurant 100
Entertainment 50
Student Loan 192
Life insurance 77
Tithes Private
Total $2450

I’ll report back and let you know how I did at the end of the month.