Layout:
Home > Overtime, Budget Tweaks and Focus

Overtime, Budget Tweaks and Focus

May 29th, 2009 at 12:04 am

I've been working overtime at work a few hours a week for over a month and I feel tired but prosperous. Extra money has me smiling a lot.

I've been tweaking the budget. I like budget tweaking. The grocery budget is quite a bit higher with the kid at home, but I stockpiled cereals on sale (12 boxes at the moment) and frozen pizzas and sausage links on sale so that helped. Utility bills will also be higher, but because we were under the $200 a month budget for the last 6 months, we have a cushion in our account for the higher utility costs.

In the meantime, however, I'm feeling prosperous. I want to DO things, like go out to eat (we don't go out to eat often) or do other extra things I don't usually do. I haven't done anything rash, but this is what extra money does to me.

Then I start comparing my life to the "I'm Debt Free" stories on Dave Ramsey. Whenever I hear an "I'm Debt Free" shout and story on his show, I always wonder if I can do the same with my savings that these people have done with their debt. "Gazelle intensity" Dave Ramsey calls it, meaning extreme focus. I'm thinking, if people who have $21,000 in credit card debt can pay off the debt in one year or in 18 months or whatever their story is and they're making the same kind of salary I'm making (say $58,000 annual), why can't I SAVE that same amount that they paid toward their debt?

I think the problem in the past has been lack of goals and a wavering commitment (like the wavering I'm considering right now) to the few goals I had and not facing reality. (As in the reality that "something unexpected ALWAYS comes up and a financial cushion is needed for these things." I wasn't facing the truth of that until the past year or two.)

I started out great in 2009. I'll continue to blog about my $20 + challenge to my wealth account, how my focus is on that account and getting it up and past a certain level. I think I'm 'intent' on this goal and that I've done well thus far, but I feel myself wavering. And my spouse and son are not EVER on the same financial wavelength, so it would be easy for me to let things slide before I get back on the horse again. But I don't want to let things slide.

I'm tweaking the budget with my prosperous outlook and my new intentional intensity. I want to be able to save all my overtime money and every other stray dollar that comes my way. I'm mostly trying to convince myself to stay focused (FOCUS!). I think it's working. I'll keep you posted.

3 Responses to “Overtime, Budget Tweaks and Focus”

  1. creditcardfree Says:
    1243553219

    Good luck! Keeping the focus can be difficult only if you believe that it is.

  2. Ima saver Says:
    1243606466

    The $20 challenge has really kept me focused to save as much as possible.

  3. HouseHopeful Says:
    1243642474

    Lol - I loved it when you said "I like budget tweaking"! I do the same thing and I enjoy it Smile

Leave a Reply

(Note: If you were logged in, we could automatically fill in these fields for you.)
*
Will not be published.
   

* Please spell out the number 4.  [ Why? ]

vB Code: You can use these tags: [b] [i] [u] [url] [email]