I had some fun this weekend on the Wii Fit. I do believe that I doubted its ability to work me out enough to break a sweat, but that it did. I’ve started working on my goal towards a healthy weight and I completed day 7 of the journal I started, to see what I was actually eating. I’ll share with you what I learned on Wednesday, so stay tuned for that 🙂
I have made it 38 days on my first goal of spending less money this year. Of the things I’ve had to buy, I’ve gotten some pretty good deals on them. I’ll be sure to share with you some of my fabulous finds! One of the things I believe that keeps me focused on my bills, savings and future purchases is my budget. What is a budget and why do I need one? What an awesome question and the answer came to me in my early twenties.
In eighth grade, Mrs. Robinson taught us how to balance a checkbook. I remember that once the adding and subtracting was done the number you should end with SHOULD BE positive. In ninth grade I learned how to identify an Isosceles Trapezoid and calculate the values of a specific angle. In tenth grade I learned how to do some funky algebra. In eleventh grade, I tried but was never truly successful in finding the answer to
Polynomials and I must have been out of my mind to attempt to try a harder version of the course in twelfth grade. When I went to study Engineering I learned math that still gives me nightmares. Now where do you see when I learned to budget?
I learned this all the hard way…after seeing a negative number in my checkbook registry before the purchases and bills cleared on my account I did a lot of praying and crossing my fingers….”Please wait to clear til I get paid next or my paycheck is actually deposited.” I knew that when I got that super thin envelope from the bank that my deposit did not clear and post to my account in time.
It has been a while since that has happened, and if you are reading this thinking I was taught in school how money works, then that is GREAT!! Make sure you teach it to your children and do not assume that they to will be taught.
I started using my budget to see the next month. It was a notebook, wide ruled lines and empty. I started with the month, so we’ll use February. Next to that was written the amount I made for the month. I’m going to use my algebra skills here and call what I make for the month X. On the lines that followed I would write out all my bills that came every month like clockwork, savings, gas and food. I’d rearrange them next month according to the order that they came in. I would add up all the lines and hope that they equaled X. Most of the time I was close or else I would have to figure out how things would be paid if there was no additional income. This budget, when I first started gave me an idea of how next month’s bills were going to go and how much money would actually make it into savings as that number was usually written in last after everything else was added up and subtracted from X. More times than not there wasn’t any money for savings and trying to figure out how to make my bills equal my income were a constant headache… until I learned what I’ll share with you next Monday.
So remember, your budget is all your bills and expenses added up, which should then equal to what your total income is for the month.