The Cash Experiment, my version.

One of my Big Three is Budgeting.  Maybe I should have termed it saving since that is the main goal, but I guess they do go hand in hand.  I’ve decided to come up with a plan to make this happen.  I can easily say I want to save money, but unless I really make a step by step plan, all I am doing is saying it.

This is my plan, at least for now.  As with anything, there will be adjustments I will need to make along the way.

Part 1:  The Accounts

These are four things that I feel are important for me to do at this point.

1. No more pulling money out of savings account (1) to beef up the checking account. 
2. Put a certain amount* in to savings account (2). 
3. Build a ‘cushion’* in my checking account. 
4. Build savings account (1) up to a set amount*.  Once I get to that amount I will start putting the ‘extra money’ into savings account (2).

* I have numerical amounts written down in my notes, but I decided to keep them personal.

Savings account (1) is for extra money if/when I need to make big purchases. If I had this money in my checking account, I would want to spend it.  With this account the money falls under the “if I don’t see it, it isn’t there” thing.

Savings account (2) is money that I won’t currently allow myself to touch at all, unless I have a damn good reason.  This is money that I know is there, but pretend it doesn’t exist.

Part 2:  The Cash Experiment

Has anyone else read about the cash only envelope system and thought, yeah that sounds great, in theory, but would I really do that?  That is how I am feeling.  I think it is the dividing it all out that just throws me off.  It just seems like a lot of guessing and a lot of work.  I know me I’d get lazy and not do it.  How horrible is it for me to say that?  I’m just trying to be realistic and honest with myself.

Now don’t get me wrong, I understand the cash only envelope system works for many people out there.  I’m just not a one size fits all kind of girl.  I love the idea of using only cash.  I know that as long as I can keep my debit card in my wallet when I run out of cash it will help me spend less money.  I just don’t love the putting it into a dozen envelopes.

Dividing the money:

- Bills will be paid with checks. 

- Gas for my car will be paid for the debit card.

- Set amount of cash for ‘spending’ money.

- Any money that is after the first three will go into the savings/checking accounts as listed out in Part 1.

Calling the cash spending money is a little misleading, but I’m not sure how else to word it right now.  The cash is for anything outside of my bills/gas that I buy.  It really doesn’t matter what I call it, as long as it is a limited amount and when I spend it I’m done. 

The cash will be in just one singular envelope, called my wallet.  HaHa!

Part 3:  Buying/Spending Less

1. I am putting myself on a clothes buying hold for the moment.  The only items not including will be socks and unmentionables, if needed.
2. Anything I buy for the house must be something that I LOVE and have a home for.  No random buying some thing just because it’s cute.
3. Cut back Walmart trips to twice a month (every two weeks), unless it can’t be avoided.
4. Shop with coupons for healthy/beauty/cleaning items and for food items when it really is a deal.
5. Not carry money to work, so I don’t give up to getting fast food at often.

I’m sure I’ll think of other ways to spend less money or have to make adjustments along the way.  This is just the start of my Cash Experiment and my attempt to save more money.

Disclaimer:  As I said I’m not a one size fits all kind of person and I fully believe that everyone has to do what works for them.  The above is my way of trying to find what will work for me.

I work both a full and part time job.  I am very fortunate not to have any past debts that I have to pay off.  The only payment I have is for my car and I am lucky to have very few monthly bills.  I am also only accountable for myself.  I do not kids or a husband that I have to factor into the money equation.  This changes my situation considerably when compared to others. 

Menu Plan for March 28

Yesterday I spent time in the kitchen making a cookie I grew up on.  It's called a Buffalo Chip and it is like a kicked up chocolate chip cookie that has coconut, oatmeal and cornflakes in it.  Very yummy!

Instead of breaking my menu plan down by days this week, I’m just going to pick from the choices each day.  Since the roast/beef was cooked this weekend it is a matter of going to the freezer for it.  I’ll be cooking the chicken in the next day or so.

Breakfasts

Bagel Thin with cream cheese (170), a yogurt (80) and fruit

Bagel Thin with cream cheese (170), a cheese stick (90) and grapes (55)

Toast with honey or jelly, yogurt (80) and fruit

Peanut butter and banana sandwich (235ish), with fruit

Breakfast burrito (180ish) with yogurt (80), with fruit

Lunch

Roast with Carrots and Potatoes

BBQ Beef Sandwich with coleslaw

Beef and been tostada

Shredded chicken taco salad

Chicken salad with chips and fruit

Dinner

Carnita Nachos

Shredded chicken and black bean tostada

Chicken lasagna with veggies using egg roll wrappers and cream cheese sauce

Tilapia with veggie and salad

Beef and Bean burrito

Be sure to go to OrgJunkie.com and check out other menu plans for this week!



Buffalo Chip Cookies

They are a crisp cookie with a unique taste to them and are great to dunk in milk.  The original recipe had you make large cookies, but I make them average size now.

Buffalo Chip Cookies

1/2 cup margarine, softened

1/2 cup Crisco/shortening

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup oatmeal

1/2 cup coconut

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1 cup crushed cornflakes

Preheat oven to 375*.

Cream the margarine, shortening, and sugars together.  Mix in the eggs and vanilla.  Sift and add the flour, baking soda and baking powder.  Blend in the oatmeal, coconut, chocolate chips and crushed cornflakes.

Drop spoonfuls on to un-greased cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes.

Weigh In Friday – Week #1

Starting weight:  156.8

Current weight:  156.2

Pounds lost:  0.6

1^st Goal weight:  127

Pounds to go:  29.20

Even though 0.6 is not a grand loss, I’m actually okay with it. 

I’m still working on the eating better part.  I never got around to making a menu plan for this week, but since I had some stuff left from last weeks I’ve sort of used it as a guide.  I did only eat fast food once for lunch this week and did have one dinner out.  That is way better than the 4 to 5 times of fast food a week that I have had in the past few weeks. 

I have already started working on my menu plan for the next two weeks.  I plan to go to the grocery store tonight and stock up for it.  Then the rest of the evening will be spent on food prep and catching up on my daily/weekly tasks, which I haven’t been good about keeping up with. 

I still have a lot of things to work on and improve upon, but I’m at least making the first steps to get to where I need to be in the future.  I’m okay doing my baby steps.

I'm Gonna & The Flower Bed

Ignore the weeds in the picture! :)

A phrase I use a lot is “I’m gonna” and being the procrastinator that I am, the “I’m gonna’s” rarely end up happening.  I forget about them or just keep putting them off.

One of those I’m gonna’s has been to turn the space between my house and drive way into a flower bed.  That is a year old gonna project.  Before that it was to remake the two strips between the drive way and the fence into flower beds.  I did that years ago, but by the following year it was over grown with grass and weeds.  Two years ago I dug up what was left of the bulbs I had originally planted out there, and put those in flower pots.  Last year I even got 6 rose bushes to go along those two strips.  One of them is still alive and they are all still in the pots that they came in. 

In the past I have been really good about rushing out and buying a bunch of flowers then sticking them in flower pots with the thought that they would be transplanted later.  That never happens. 

This year I am trying something different.  I will make the flower bed first.  Novel idea, huh?  Wonder why more people don’t do that?  Oh yeah, they probably do.

Instead of the I’m gonna, this year it is I will!  Actually it is more of an I am, since I have already started the project.

Sunday afternoon I decided to get out there and start weeding the flower pots from last year.  Seeing what, if anything survived, how many pots had fire ants in them, and how many of the pots were broken and needed to get trashed.  I spent about three hours outside, and while I got some of that accomplished, I still had more to go.

Wednesday evening after work I spent another two hours outside dealing with the mess I left last year.  I love that feeling you get when you start to see your work pay off.  Before Sunday my front yard looked trashy.  Believe me I still have a ways to go, but it is starting to look a lot better. 

I’ve decided instead of spending the weekend inside painting like I had originally planned I will now be working outside.  For one, I don’t want to lose the momentum I have going from seeing the yard go from crappy looking to starting to look better.  Second, I know me, this is the time of year I get antsy and want to go flower shopping especially when you start seeing them pop up everywhere.  If I don’t want this to be another I’m gonna year for the flower bed, I need to do it now.  And last but not least, this is Texas, and we are already getting temps in the mid 80s.  It would definitely be wiser to do it now before it gets hotter.

Unless something else comes up, I plan to work outside tonight again.  I have some more picking up in the yard to do, trying to get it ready to be mowed.  If I get that done before it gets dark then I will probably start working on cleaning off the front porch.  It has a bunch of crap on it as well. 

Friday night I plan to go to Walmart, so no working outside then.  I’ll use the evening to do some food prep, catch up on my daily/weekly tasks and maybe to work on my bathroom arts and craft projects.

The weekend plan is to start removing the grass and weeds from the flower bed area as well as finish cleaning up/off the drive way.  While I am working on that I will have plenty of time to think about how I want to set the area up. 

Oh the possibilities!

Oh how I wish...

I wish I had the ability to just think up something and make it come to life.  Instead I end up looking up ideas then playing with them to figure out something I can do or that works for what I want. 

An example is me looking up a scroll pattern so I can finish one of the bathroom art projects.  It isn’t like a swirly scroll should be all that hard to draw, but the idea of free handing it scares me!  What if it looks bad when I do it? 

The bathroom art projects as a whole are also another example of seeing something online and using that idea. 

I wish I could make myself do things more randomly and not in patterns or symmetrically.  Visually I *love* the look of random things, like odds and ends placed helter skelter on a shelf, but when I go to putting things on the shelf they are always in groups of two or threes or end up symmetrical or something like that.

I think I’d love a distressed finish on my coffee table, but I don’t think I would be able to do it because I afraid I’ll get wrapped up in symmetry and trying to make it all ‘match’.

I wish every now and then, that my brain worked differently, and that I could be completely creative like others are.  I just don’t know how to get it to switch gears.

Weigh In Friday – Starting Weight

Starting weight:  156.8

1^st Goal weight:  127

Pounds to go:  29.80

I hope to lose about 1.5 lbs a week, which would be about 6 lbs a month.  This is a realistic weight loss for me based on past experience.

If I lose 1.5 lbs a week it will take me about 20 weeks (5 months) to reach my first goal weight of 127.  I’ve always said when I get to that point I will reevaluate and decided then how much more, if any I need to lose. 

My first goal weight of 127 simply comes from the BMI charts.  This is the weight that would put me at the top of the normal range, rather than the overweight or obese range.  I am not relying strictly on the BMI chart, because honestly I’m not sure I will ever be 100-110lbs, a weight it says someone at my height should be.

My weight loss goal has never been to be a skinny mini.  I just want to be healthy and at a healthy weight for me, my body type and height.  In the end it will be less about a number on the scale and more about how I feel about myself and my body.