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I feel that I'm not being honest with myself this time around about how well I'm doing with my budgeting. After last weekend my booze envelope is empty, my toiletries envelope is empty (and I didn't use that money for toiletries); luckily I have money in my grocery envelope so I can eat, the animals have full bags of food and my dine out envelope is still full (and by full, I mean it has $20 in it, so I won't be going to fancy places). I think that having a partner that is so generous makes this process tougher; I want to become financially stable and be able to take care of myself in case something ever happens, but my significant other keeps on insisting on paying for things.
On the weekend we went to the casino (that's where my toiletry money went) and he won quite a bit of money so has been paying for dinner and drinks all week. I feel a sense of guilt about this because he shouldn't have to 'pay' because he's good with money and I'm not.
Those are my thoughts for the week.

I've included a link to an article I read today. It's US based, but I believe could still be applicable to Canadians. The question being posed is can you save money by taking public transit vs. driving? Let me know your thoughts.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SmartSpending/blog/page.aspx?post=1771236

1st weekend on a budget = hard, very hard.

As the title states, this weekend was hard. During the week it was easy to avoid temptation, make cheap food & limit the amount of booze I was drinking. The only saving grace for my budget this weekend was that our plans included plenty of cheap beer.

I was successful in some aspects of my budgeting this weekend.

As lots of people (can I call you fans now???) have stated, setting a goal for yourself will help with the saving. After a lot of research I finally found the DSLR I want to buy and strive to save for. I have created a new envelope called 'Camera Fund', not extra money, not carry over money, but an envelope that I will fill with $1,000 for my new camera. We have $15 in this envelope right now as we returned all of our empties. I think it's really easy to just throw your empties in the recycling bin and contribute to your local canners income, but after spending an hour gathering all of the cans and taking them to the return it depot we realized that this is a quick way to get some extra cash.

I am now 5 days into my enveloping and budgeting and am doing fairly well. The envelope for the animals food is empty so they may be eating dry pasta with me every night, but other than that I properly budgeted my groceries, dining out envelope and booze.

I posted a link to another blog that I found that is dedicated to cheap & healthy meals. I highly recommend that you check it out. We have made two meals from this blog, both were tasty and inexpensive.

Happy Monday.

Now what am I going to do?

So a few weeks after bouncing my rent cheque I decide that enough is enough and I"m going to take action. Taking action included actually answering the phone when the credit agency called and dealing with the unpaid phone bill I'd been avoiding for a year. Feeling empowered by the thought of finally getting my stuff together, I picked up the phone only to find out that the amount I owed last year was accumulating 25% a day. Needless to say I was once again beside myself and once again had to rely on someone else to help me out of this jam for now.

So as of today I have a clean slate. Pay day is in a week and I have a plan.
This blog is set up to document my journey and hopefully help other women be empowered to get control of their finances. I'd appreciate comments, articles...anything you can contribute.

My plan so far includes:

A budget - I've completed my budget and allotted a certain amount of money to everything and anything I spend money on.
I'm the QUEEN of debit. I LOVE my debit card, but I don't pay attention to the amount of money I have (or don't have) in my account. So as of my next pay day the debit card stays at home. I've put together envelopes for everything and I am going to stick to my budget.

Will let you know how that goes!