I did it!

Wooohhoo I finally stuck to my budget!

I spent $15 eating out (2 lunches, one was very expensive), $4 at mid week and $19 yesterday as a replacement for today (I'm off today and my store is at work, 20 minutes away). $38 wooohhoo

And even though I cheated the last three weeks, there has been a substantial change in my bank account so far. I got paid yesterday and on paper I took out all of my utilities. When I checked online my utilities were paid several days before so I was ahead $200 just there. My ATM withdrawals were also $100 less. For those doing the math, a little bit of planning will pay for the Camaro I want next year (please ooooh please let a carseat fit in it!)

I like to read through frugal blogs to see if any of the stuff they are doing fits into my lifestyle. I read something interesting last night (wish I had marked the site) that she had a hard time with her budget too until she went through her cupboards and checked to see what was there from the last shopping trip. I though that's silly, I eat all my food every week. It's really silly me, I don't come anywhere close. I still have eggrolls from week one of my budget challenge along with a lot of the fish. I still have almost all of the stinky market food that was week 3 (I think?). From last week I did manage to eat half of it but still. So that was really eye opening.

Plus I've been thinking a lot about the baby and how that's going to work out $$ wise. Her biggest expense will be daycare at $400-440 a month. But dad said he would watch her two days and mom would watch her another. Well I can't find a daycare group that wants to fill a full spot with a part time kid. But I did find a preschool program for 1 year old that is $100 a month. It is 5 hours on Tuesday and Thursday and is 3 miles from the house. I was thinking I'd try to set her schedule so she naps on Tuesday and Thursday so I can finish up my hours for the week. It will be a savings of $3600 a year, that's quite substantial!