Was That In Your Budget?

Yesterday, I went to my favorite finance blog "Fabulous Financial". She posted about the fabulous shoes she purchased from 6pm.com. I was not familiar with the site and could not believe they had Nine West shoes for $19.99 a pair for my size 8.5. Normally, my size is the first to fly off the shelves.

The shoe purchase was not in my budget. I actually took the funds from my efund (emergency fund) to purchase them, which was a big NO NO. I justified the purchase in my mind by saying, "I will replace the funds before the end of month." See, this is a problem. Whenever I save I have a habit of going into my efund/saving and using it.

I know the shoes could have waited and they should have. I need to practice self-discipline with my money.

Here is a picture of one of pairs the shoes. The other pair is no longer available. Please note I could have purchased six pairs. So, I guess you can say I practiced some self-discipline. lol



FYI: I didn't realize it was a weekend only sale. The shoes now have a price tag of $40.95.

How do you practice self-discipline?

It's Not In the Budget

The most popular comment from me these days is "It's Not In the Budget." I am so proud of my budget. Two weeks ago, my assignment from the Financial Peace class was to create our March 2009 Budget. Well, I wait until the last minute and had to get up at 3:30am in order to have my budget completed before the 8:00am class meeting.

I knew I needed time, but wasn't sure of how much. Plus I didn't want to be the only person without their assignment. Here is how I created the a budget I'm so proud of using the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace Information.

*Monthly Cash Flow Plan - Charitable Gifts, Savings, Housing, Utilities, Food, Transportation, Clothes, Personal & Debt. These are the categories I needed to address this month. You could have more or less.

The key is every dollar of your income has a name and I named every dollar.

*Allocated Spending Plan - You take your earnings and allocate your money to each expense. I have found this to be a very useful tool in my budget process. In the past, I was aware of the bills that were designated to each paycheck, but it was nice having the other expenses - savings, entertainment, charitable given and etc - all outline in my budget. This is why it was so easy to say, "It's Not In the Budget."

Download the cashflow plan and give it a try.

http://www.daveramsey.com/media/pdf/fpu_monthly_cash_flow_plan_forms.pdf

The below URL will allow you to create you budget online.

http://www.daveramsey.com/etc/cms/gazelle_budget_8773.htmlc?ictid=Useful_Tools

Here is the allocated spending plan.

I am not comfortable sharing my financial information on my blog, but I do admire the bloggers that have open their financial books to us. Please visit their blogs and get inspire as I have.

• http://fabulousfinancials.com/
• http://www.moneymonk.net/
• http://fabulouslybrokeinthecity.blogspot.com/
• http://debthater.typepad.com/debt_hater/
• http://abouttreefiddy.blogspot.com/

"People don't plan to fail, they fail to plan." - Anonymous

Plan Your Budget!