The Budget Crunch

Ever since I’ve been single I’ve had this overwhelming need to account for every penny I spend. I’ve always had this fear I would be the focus of some major IRS audit and without the proper paperwork would end up in IRS prison doing hard time, like accounting on an abacus.

To make sure I don’t end up in IRS jail, I track every receipt on a spreadsheet during the year. No I’m not being anal; this task is also helpful at year end doing taxes. I attempt to do this task monthly, which stretches out to getting it done maybe quarterly. I even have everyone in the house trained to keep every receipt, which in itself is an accomplishment. We have a receipt receptacle in the house where all receipts are placed.

Due to my inevitable procrastination I find myself sorting receipts by month, which typically takes an hour or so, after this task is done I start entering them onto the Excel spreadsheet again by month, and when the year is complete I have a summary of all spending. This summary provides me with the breakdown of the critical categories used to run a household. This summary is something I’m not proud of either. In fact, it’s a little embarrassing.

Here is the typical categories regular people use for their home budgeting:

Rent / Mortgage – Food – Electricity – etc…

Here are mine:

Rent- Restaurants-Clothing- Medical- Crafts- Daughter

Notice how my categories are much more reflective in today’s world. Yes, yes electricity is important and living in New England heating fuel is important also, but let’s be real! When it comes right down to it, if there’s a choice between paying my electric bill on time or going to Joann’s Fabrics for the five day mega blowout sale on scissors! Who do you think is going to win this one?

Yes, the restaurant category is very high on my list. I do not like to cook. I do not like to spend money on food that I then must go home and then actually cook it. Listen to everyone complain on what I’ve done and then actually have to clean it up? I think it’s a big waste of time, money and doesn’t it sound a bit ridiculous? My perfect dinner plan is to run up to Subway, get a foot long spicy Italian, and split it between us. How can you beat that for FIVE BUCKS?

Clothing… let’s just say I own about 83 shirts.

Medical… great for taxes.

Daughter – This is my main focus of my budget. My daughter is not spoiled, far from it. But I am going to give, do, or spend, whatever she needs to be successful at life. (I’ll explain my reasoning for this in a later story)

So there is my budget. Does it work? Well.. yeah… Does it work well? Well..no… Do we have fun? Most definitely!