Budgeting Woes
In my previous post about budgets I left out something very important. Pay yourself first!
Okay that is a line they use for those self-employed. But what I mean by it is don’t neglect yourself. In my ‘living paycheck to paycheck’ budget I always forget to put in food. I just assume I’ll live off of whatever is left. But I always overspend that because I’m neglecting how much I do spend on it. And then I end up going back to my spreadsheet and moving things around again because I didn’t have enough left over. It is tough when it comes to budgeting for meals. Even more tough when the person you live with has a restrictive diet, that tends to restrict itself to the more expensive foods. Diabetes is expensive in more than just the medicine for it….
So I thought I’d just add that little nugget. If you can cut back on how much you spend on groceries than good for you. Use coupons, buy storebrand, whatever… There are lots of ways to do it. But don’t neglect that important ‘bill’ when using my budget system….