March Budget - Kablooey!

Hehe it's not horribly bad. But on paper I am out of money for the month of March and I still have a week to go! And I am missing $25 of the consignment money I wasn't going to spend. The cash was just too tempting I tell ya! I spend cash so frivolously, I hid my debit card so it would be harder to get cash. At least when I use a credit card, I can see exactly where I spent all my moola!

So here are my totals. I've gone over it in my head, what was my downfall? Why cute little baby things of course!

Groceries - spent $204.23 budgeted $160 (this number isn't 100% accurate because I had a walmart trip that I couldn't find the receipt for and I put the entire amount in groceries even tho it wasn't all groceries)
Eating Out - spent $22.15 budgeted $40. And if the truth be told, my missing $25 went into this category. But we'll worry about that later!
Cats - spent $22.64 budgeted $50 I will need to spend $10 more on food this week.
Baby Loot - spent $100.62 budgeted $20 HA HA HA HA No really, I do need to do better!
Gas - spent $42.01 budgeted $60 I had a Shell gas gift card from my credit card points that I put $35 on. So I might need to rethink my gas budget.
Walgreens - spent $0, budgeted $5 (I really need to grab some of the freebies but I spent my GC on pictures - boo hoo lol)
CVS - spent $0, budgeted $15 I've not been in a CVS mood, I need to get back into it.
MISC - spent $119.62 budgeted $151

So for my second month of my budget, I am feeling pretty darn skippy. The first month, I was WAY over (wasn't it $400 something? I try to block it out). This month I am $25 mystery cash plus $11.27 on my spreadsheet. I feel good about that. I also have $115 in cash left from the sale and a 2 refund checks for another $115. So technically I am not over but I want to keep my "found" money for my beach trip.

NOW the question is, how do I go about actually being UNDER budget to make up for these two months? Now that is a good question. I do know...

• I have enough CC points to buy $100 in gas giftcards for free. I will be cashing those in tonight. I also have $15 left on my current card. I will "sell" one to my beach budget.
  
• I have a house full of food, I just need to plan it out by the month, not the week.
  
• I need to pack my lunch with more interesting things so I'll eat it
• I need to cook only what we'll eat, I am tossing too many leftovers
• I got a $20 GC for getting a Petsmart CC. I re-evaluated my points card. Right now I have to charge 6K to get a $50 gift card. With the Petsmart card, if I catch all my supplies on sale (which is less than WM) and spend $600 a year, I'll get 1800 points. I think that is a $18 GC for Petsmart compared to $5 for a gas card. Plus they put Wookie on my card :)
• I am not going to buy baby stuff like I did this month. Retail therapy is bad bad bad! lol
• Clothing wise, I am only going to buy the baby a bathing suit for the beach trip in May.
• I am going to take advantage of Ebay's 1 cent listing sale for items that start at 99 cents and clear out some Disney cards (that you can frame). I have 60 of them leftover from my old Ebay store.
  
• I am going to go into work earlier to see if I can't catch more PPP opportunities in the afternoon when we get home.
• I am going to see if I can't get a yard sale going on April 19th. It depends on the weird weird weather we've been having. This will go into my beach fund too.
  
• I am going to cash out my inbox dollars account ($41ish) for my beach trip
  

Ok I think that is it. I will post on Sunday the total damages. I like to end my monthly budgets on Sunday and the 31st is a Monday - close enough.

Night!