penny pinching.

Recently one of our good college friends, Autumn, wrote a post on her blog, stay gold autumn, about budgeting. It included her and husbands short and long term goals for their new home and other areas of their lives as well as how they are going to complete these goals while staying on a budget. I really like this idea of prioritizing your goals based off of what your budget will allow. I especially appreciated her post because recently I have also been setting some new goals as well as giving our budget a little more attention than normal. I just haven't combined the two like Autumn has. Why the sudden bonus attention to our budget? Well, you see when we leave for school at the end of July we wont have an income. Matter of fact Todd had to sign a contract saying he wouldn't work during his first two semesters of his masters... that's how busy they are going to keep him! But we'll still need to like... live and stuff. Since we are living now I thought that we could start practicing doing so cheaply so that when living cheaply becomes vital (aka zero income time) we'll actually have an idea of what kind of budget system works for us. And ideally we'll stick to that budget and stay debt free throughout Todd's MBA career. That's the goal part. (:

And because I love getting ideas from you and I want to share the pros and cons of different method's that we test out I thought I'd write about the process on here. I also think I'll feel more accountable this way. Plus being able to compare your budgeting system and such to others is always helpful. Anyhow...

This process is going to be tricky to say the least, but luckily there are a lot of resources out there to help us save every single penny that we can. Really though, there are a lot of resources and I have been scoring the internet for every budgeting/money saving tip to ever exist in order to find the ones that agree with my personality.

So where do we begin? Well, trial and error I suppose! Hopefully there aren't too many errors haha. The nice part is that we already are budgeters... it's the following-the-budget-to-a-tee part that gets us. Another bonus is that many of our expenses are fixed. This means that we'll be all set with those as long as we remember to pay the ones that aren't set up for a direct online payment. And (knock on wood) I'm pretty good about remembering. Mostly because I have a reoccurring event on my calendar that reminds me each month. It's great. Outside of those fixed payments... ya know, rent is always $715 and car insurance is always $96 and sheesh there are just so many things to pay for these days! Good heavens I sound like a grown up... ya anyway outside of those fixed payments we personally have five main categories where our money is spent... utilities, gas, groceries, entertainment, and gifts. These are the five that we are going to give the most attention to since we have the most control over how much is spent in those areas.

Utilities... they're kind of a fixed payment because you just have to pay the bill. Yes you can turn down the heat and keep the lights off and wash your laundry with cold water but other than those little things there isn't much you can do, you just have to pay it, whatever it is. High in the winter, low in the summer. You just pay it.

Gas is a tricky one for us. We drive a lot of miles... mostly because we shop in town (anywhere from 15-30 minute drive) and our church congregation's boundaries are pretty big. I think the farthest member lives 40 minutes away from us. It also doesn't help that one of my bestest buds moved from just up the street to a beautiful home 25 minutes away. That'll definitely add some miles because I can't just not go hang out! Come on!

Groceries. This is a huge one. I'll save it for last. So next, entertainment. All of the entertainment that we indulge in is redbox, going out to eat, and attending sporting events. Luckily for us, my mother ever so graciously gave Todd and I a redbox gift card for Christmas so we can take that completely out of our budget for a couple years. As for eating out and going to sporting events BYU and Giants games... it doesn't happen a whole ton but it's still an expense that we have complete control over so it will get some attention.

Gifts... I love to give gifts. I'm not the best at doing so cheaply but I am getting better. And there are only going to be more and more people that we love and want to give to so we need to get better at setting aside money for these occasions.

Okay so back to groceries. I love going grocery shopping guys. Some people dig doing laundry, some are dish washing pros... I am a grocery shopper. Maybe because I minored in nutrition so being around all of the food and comparing and picking the cheapest, healthiest options is a way for me to use my education. Maybe because I just like spending money and doing so on stuff we actually need is awesome. I don't know... but I enjoy it quite a lot. I also love to bake and cook. I love trying new recipes and sometimes if I am feeling a little bold I just make stuff up to some extent. Unfortunately this means that I buy lots of ingredients that I don't necessarily need to splurge on. Like poppy seeds. Definitely bought those last week for a fruit salad of all things. Probably the silliest purchase I have ever made in my entire life. I'll have to make some copy cat Winco poppy seed muffins to make up for it. Yum... oh my heck that sounds so divine right now...

K I'm back... I had to go look up recipes for poppy seed anything on Mel's blog. She's got poppy seed bread, bundt cake, and cookies. I think we all know what I'll be eating for dessert tonight! (all three of course!)

a 9-month old Peter helping me shop at Costco

Anyway, grocery shopping really is going to be the biggest challenge for obvious reasons.

Alright, let the journey begin! Five months until game time and endless budgeting ideas to try out. To save myself from failing too many times I am going to start with "the best" out there... the envelope system. Wish me luck and stay tuned for an update on how things are going... the pros, the cons, and the etc. of this famous budgeting technique.

p.s. I want to hear about your ideas too! so lay 'em on me!