I tend to see myself as a spender so I always seem to think I am spending too much on wants. But, according to the 50/30/20 (needs/wants/savings) rule, I am not even close...

My ratio is more like 37/19/54 and is going to be 55/27/19 once we have the house (401(k) doesn't get counted in this formula because its after tax and we will start maxing that in January).

The reason this is kind of important is because I feel guilty that we spend so much on our entertainment right now and especially guilty that was/am planning to raise the amount after we get a house.

I need to stop feeling guilty and just enjoy the fact that we have completely cleaned up our act. Not being allowed to spend anything on myself in college is part of the reason we went nuts after we got our careers started.

The weird part is that I have checked this formula before but I guess I was convinced that I was somehow out of balance again.

Do I plan on eventually raising the savings amount? Most definitely, but for now maxing out the 401(k) and saving 20% of my after tax money is perfectly fine.

This is totally not finance related.

I don't tolerate clutter well. Once things get messy enough, I tend to rearrange everything in order to make my spaces look open and airy. My living room has definitely violated my clutter tolerance. I think I have an idea for how to organize it so that half of the items currently in my living room can be packed up for the move while still leaving us things we can use.

Normally I feel sorry for my DH when I rearrange but I think the clutter is getting to him even so he's happy I will be rearranging.

Saturday we only left the house to grab food and Sunday we didn't leave the house at all. Very peaceful. First time in months that we have spent so much time at home.

Unfortunately the house is trashed because we are getting things packed. Ugg. On one hand, I have a lot of items that won't be going to a new house with us but on the other hand, I only own things that we use so packing in advance is a little difficult.

I have been informed by my friend that she expects me to host Thanksgiving. I am really hoping we have a house by then because we don't have the space to do it justice in our current apartment. Maybe we will make Thanksgiving dinner at her place if we don't have a house by then... Hmmm.

Next weekend is the Harvest Festival already. So looking forward to the pumpkin picking and carving. Fall is my favorite time of the year. Must resist urge to load up on harvest and halloween decorations...

Starting in January, my household will be saving at least 25% of our income for retirement and the original plan was to save 31%. I am wondering if the original plan of 31% might be a little too agressive given that we will be adapting to owning a house and maybe needing to fix up things. Not to mention our emergency fund will be depleted after buying a house...Hmmm...

Maybe I won't worry about funding DH's Roth IRA until next year. That way we can save for our short and mid-term goals as well as for retirement.

If I only do 25% to retirement, we can do 12.5% for our EF to replenish it. I figure we will need between 14k-19k in the EF to cover 6 months comfortably. At the rate I have it, that would take 16-22 months to do.

Another 3% could even go towards vacations because we love to travel. My big concern though is getting the EF replenished.

We are shooting to be financially independent in our 50's so that we can have whatever type of job we want (workaholics with lots of interests) so that is probably something to keep in mind.

So what do you think is a reasonable percent of a budget to save solely for retirement?

Next month, we figure we will be ready to talk to the banker to see what sort of mortgage options will be available and to a realtor so that we can start looking at houses in person instead of just online.

We figure it will take a couple of months to find a home, have the inspection and get all the paperwork done so we are trying not to leave the looking until the last minute.

Currently, everything in our life in on hold until after the house purchase. We can't up the retirement amounts till after, we aren't allowing ourselves to buy any household appliances or other large purchases and we have a pretty strict budget so that we can save $2,000 per month.

I do have it so that DH will be maxing out his 401(k) contribution starting in January and the sooner we get into a house, the more likely I will be able to max both of our Roth's for 2008.

Frankly I am both impatient and bored. I am afraid we will start looking and suddenly become picky and then we will have to rent for at least another year because rent leases are far too expensive in the month to month or 6 month version in our current place. And if we move to another rental, I won't be willing to move for at least 2 years. Uggg.

Amazing how much you can save when you go from eating like a 300 lb man to eating like an 80 lb girl. I think its the heat that has so effectively sabotaged my appetite and its frustrating.

But the silver lining is that I have no interest in eating out and I don't have to worry about getting hungry when I am out doing things (usually have to eat every couple of hours).

Despite all that, I want my appetite back because this is frustrating...

Finished helping my friend out financially. All that remains is to help her stay on budget (easier said than done).

Still accumulating money for the downpayment on a small cheap house and still holding off on paying off the credit cards so that I can have enough cash for closing on a house (at an interest rate of 1% ave).

Overall, things are going well and I am just waiting for time to work its magic.

This next month I am going to need to watch my food costs. Because my friend has not had a lot of money lately due to unemployment (a situation recently remedied), both our out to eat budget and food budget has gone high.

So, next month, I am going to see how high it needs to be for us to be comfortable because I am not sure if its just paying for the friend or if total food costs have gone up. I am pretty sure that part of it is food costs so I think I will need to adjust the budget accordingly.

I would like to cut all of our spending drastically again to see what we really need and what was just us not paying attention while keeping our friend afloat through the hard times.

Which begs the question, I seem to revamp our budget every couple of months thanks to various asundry items coming up but it doesn't seem like everyone else needs to do it as often so how often are you adjusting your budget?

So my friend checked her free credit report yesterday and discovered that one of the cards that her debt settlement company (this company is gone now of course, they caused her lots of issues)was supposed to take care of 2 years ago was never paid off. Not only that but in that time it has jumped from $5700 to $9600.

So much for her being able to contribute to an IRA. I will have to change that contribution into a debt payoff fund. They will no doubt want a lump sum.

The best part was having her tell me that since they stopped contacting her or her mother (yes mom cosigned and who do you think daughter dearest learned her bad money management from) that they thought it was paid off. What was a little ridiculous about this is that she thought they took $530 for $5k! Uggg..

But at least she is catching it now so we can get everything taken care of and this is the last of the old monster debts when she went nuts.

We were cooking fools this weekend. Our first meal included Saffron Rice, Tabbouleh (think parsley salad), Pita Chips (we had to make the pitas first since we didn't have any made up in the freezer), and Baba Ganoush (eggplant based dip).

Our second meal included homemade thousand island dressing, a corned beef roast and the rye bread for the sandwiches was store bought (we don't use enough to justify buying the flour).

Turned out excellent despite the fact that the Saffron Rice was a first time try and so was the thousand island dressing.

The funny thing is we only cooked on Sunday. Saturday we were pretty lazy and only managed to go grocery shopping.

The good news is that we will have the first meal for a couple of lunches and have the second meal for supper tonight so won't have to worry about food today. Now I just have to plan tomorrow's supper in advance so I am not tempted to eat out...

I admit, I am very excited. This means that this month is the last month that we need to help her out. Woohoo! No more worries on that score.

Obviously with a new job I will make her a new budget so that she can afford the things she needs to buy and start stashing money in a retirement account. An emergency fund and paying off her few remaining credit cards will be number one.

So now there shouldn't be anymore reasons not to be able to get a house this upcoming February. We were getting nervous that the downturn around here was going to make it impossible for her but things are finally looking up.

Couple of updates. My friend managed to get a part time retail job at night and on weekends which should help her keep her feet under her while she does graphic design contracts and builds the experience she needs to further her career.

She also looked at me this weekend as we were finishing up our chores and said (with a little shock in her voice) that she was starting to automatically categorize her spending into her budget without even trying. I take that as a good sign that the budget I made for her is working.

I didn't really accomplish much of anything this weekend like I planned but it was nice to relax. I did manage to finally order my saffron in bulk online so that I don't have to pay the outrageous cost of it at the grocery stores. Now just have to wait for it to show up this week so we can make Moroccan Lamb Stew, so yummy.

Figure I would put this here to avoid taking up a lot of space in the SA blog comments. That and I believe this is a little subjective.

I need a budget because it shows me how I am spending my money. It gives me a way of measuring whether or not I am meeting my goals and allows me to see if there is something that I need to change.

Money doesn't just buy things, it allows you to buy experiences as well. I realized at a very young age that most people like to accumulate things while I like to accumulate experiences. I like to travel, to read, to hike, to bike, to listen to music, to play video games, to eat and to watch movies.

Some of these things are more tangible than others but these are the things I truly value. Almost all of these valued experiences require material stuff so by no means am I claiming to be non-materialistic. In fact, these enjoyable activities can result in the accumulation of too much stuff if I am not careful so I work hard to keep the clutter down.

My point with all of this, is that I want my budget to reflect what I enjoy. I don't want to waste a lot of money on clothing, jewelry, transportation, housing, decorations or knickknacks. I don't care about these things, they are fairly irrelevant to my happiness and can get in the way of something I do care about.

As much as I enjoy eating out, at one point it was eating up too much of my money and not allowing me to spend on my other hobbies. I also let clothing get out of hand because I don't enjoy shopping so instead of hunting sales I would buy what I needed when I needed it. I couldn't see that until I had a budget. That doesn't mean I need to be a slave to it, but I do need to be able to occasionally look at my numbers and make sure I am still doing what I want to be doing.

My favorite poster as a child said "If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else." A budget is my way of knowing where I am going.

I have a credit card that tracks my credit score and the latest was 729, woohoo! Unfortunately and fortunately, that will probably be the last update until I go to buy a house because you have to have activity on the card for it to track the score. And since I just paid it off completely, no more activity.

My stimulus check is no longer going to go to debt. The $1200 check from the gov will go towards my friend's living expenses to keep her afloat through the upcoming month since she still hasn't found work. The good news on that front is that she has an interview on Monday for a full time job in her field. Its less money than she would like but she can't afford to be picky with her lack of experience.

Hopefully we will know more in about two weeks.

If you knew me, then you would realize how unbelievable this is. I actually went this entire week without buying myself an out to eat lunch. Everything was leftovers (even if it was leftovers from eating out at night which was bought and paid for using husband's b-day money).

I wasn't even doing it on purpose until Thursday when I realized it and then decided I would not eat out that day.

I don't even think I can remember the last time that has happened. It been at least a couple of months.

So we have saltwater tanks which runs the electricity up. We got fed up with our 125 gallon tank having sump issues and set up only our 55 gallon in its stead (no sump, so no more frustration for the moment).

My electricity bill is down to $70 and some change! Very happy, especially since gas doubled in price (literally) so both utility bills had added about $50 above normal in a very short time. My DH has been turning off phantom charge items too so he will be pleased when I tell him how far the bill has dropped.

$1700 payments make rather large dents in credit card debt.

Every two months until the payoff date, I should be getting rid of a card. Course what really matters is that the debt is gone not how many cards it is on.

Its nice knowing by this fall, the cards will all be gone and we can begin the down payment fund.

I haven't added a single thing to the debt since December which is nice because every time before I would take one step back for every two steps forward. I think this means that I have finally figured out a budget that works for us. Very useful.

Hope everyone has a good Monday!

because I was too dreadfully ill to do so. 5 days of only cereal does wonders for the grocery and out to eat budgets even when you do have to buy medication.

Oh, fyi Wal-tussin (Walgreen brand) tastes a lot better than Robotussin and its much cheaper.

Here's my little rant for the day.

Don't live solely for tomorrow! It may never come!

Maybe my background colors my view on this but having watched my mother die at the age of 36 and having had my father go through 2 back surgeries before the age of 40, I have to say, not everyone is going to make it to retirement healthy and hale.

I am all for preparing to live forever, just remember to enjoy life a little along the way. Too many posts lately have suggested having absolutely no fun and I don't understand the scrouge complex.

I get that a lot of people want everything now, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to have anything now. Balance people, balance. If spending too much is a problem, then so is refusing to do anything because it might cost money.

Frugal is being aware of how you spend your money but you become cheap when your "frugality" begins to make people miserable (including yourself).

*steps off soapbox*

I apologize, I have just encountered too many posts lately that seemed hyper critical of enjoying life's journey a little. Lord knows I am just as guilty as the next person when it comes to judging what I deem to be overindulgence (I am working on overcoming this hypocritical stance) but I can't see judging someone for wanting a little pleasure in the day to day living. So long as they are moving in the right direction, they should be able to enjoy themselves.

is about to save me a lot of money. My DH and I have recently turned into major tea drinkers and the lack of bulk tea in our area is breaking the bank. What I have been paying for 3 ounces will pay for a pound of tea.

Needless to say, this should help my grocery bill immensely.

While on the website, I also noticed they have 1/4 lbs of spices for cheaper than I can buy them in bulk locally so next time I need spices I will be keeping this in mind. Obviously this won't help most people but when you cook almost everything from scratch, you tend to burn through the spices.

Just plugging along. I did a 0% balance transfer to avoid paying the rate hike that Bank of America is doing. This brings my interest down below 7% for total credit card debt. I wasn't going to do this because I have been paying the card quickly but I can't beat 0% and it will allow me to pay them a little bit quicker.

I think I might make March an eat up what we have month since we have been over the top the past two months. Part of the issue here is trying to eat healthy by eating more fruits, vegetables and fish. The other part is feeding the friend who is struggling at the moment, especially since she has no idea how to cook and thinks TV dinners are good meals.

I didn't spend anything this weekend (noteworthy only because weekends are when I usually go grocery shopping now). DH bought us one meal at Brother's BBQ (very yummy)and the rest of the weekend we stayed home and relaxed.

Finally perfected a crusty artisan bread thanks to Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois' book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Love the fact that it takes almost no time.

Of course this means we will be spending lots more on balsamic vineagar and olive oil but there are meals that are far worse for us then bread and this dip.

Still contemplating how to adjust my clothing budget so I don't run out of clothes. Think I might have a plan so I will give that a shot and see how it works.

So I have an allowance now. Its not a big one, but its an allowance that is guilt free.

I just found out that Masterpiece Theatre has released some new Jane Austin redos on DVD and fanatic that I am I really really want them.

Only problem, is that I was already planning on buying 2 very nice pair of boots for work, one black and one brown to replace the 2 pair that are almost completely worn through. I have good reason to believe that these nice boots are almost sold out and need to be bought quickly if I really want them.

So do you know what will happen? I will buy the movies and just not get the boots. This is how I ended up with such a limited wardrobe in the first place. There is always something that I want more than clothes.

At least I only buy movies that I know I will watch obsessively, the rest I see through netflix.

I suppose I could afford 1 pair of boots and all the DVD's but then I would be broke.

Nope, my footwear will simply have to limp along and make it through the end of the season. I knew I should have had them resoled before I wore through the main part of the heel...

Vet finally called me after I left her a message asking what the status of the results were. The results came back negative for any problems. She did back off of claiming that my dog was dying and didn't ask for us to come back until 6 months down the road.

When I asked her if dehydration could affect the results since my dog hates water, she admitted that it could have been responsible for the high values. She didn't really explain why no one had asked me about that when they got the high results.

I am currently looking at a vet that does housecalls (our dog was literally shaking the last couple of times we took him to the vet so housecalls seem less tramatic). I have had a vet that did housecalls before back in Michigan and she was great so I am a bit biased in their favor. They tend to actually listen to you and learn about the animal.

My pug has cost a lot of money this month. Took him in for his shots and annual checkup. He kidney values were a little high (1/10 % off from normal) so they did a urine and blood work up. The urine was fine but the kidney value was still above normal so now we are waiting on the results of yet another urine test. (Can you see the dollar amounts climbing?)

After all this, we will need to come back in 3-6 months for yet another blood workup. If that one is still at that level they might accept that it is normal for him or they may want to go out another 3-6 months to make sure its normal.

In other words, all this may be for nothing. In fact, given that the urine test was fine and my pug likes to take 6 mile walks and then bounces around the house after said walks, kidney failure or even pre kidney failure is highly unlikely.

But this didn't stop our vet from talking like kidney failure was a foregone conclusion...As if panicking us for no good reason isn't bad enough, I saw on the receipt of our latest visit that they claimed we were overdue for 3 shots!!!

Ask them to check since we were just in for shots, the receptionist has to go to the paper file to realize, oh yes, you did just get those. At the time of the shot visit(previous week's appointment), I had to remind the lady with our paper file that yes, we had just gotten the bordetello shot and were not overdue...

The combination of not being able to keep track of the shots our dog needs and doesn't need and panicking us on something that may turn out to be nothing is not making us very happy with our vet.

I know when the vet calls today with the results of the urine test (which according to her is most likely going to be negative for urinary infection), she is going to try and get us back in 3 months from now and its not going to happen. 6 months I can see but not 3 months. If we saw changes in anything, we would bring him in sooner but nothing has changed.

Even though their prices seem to be on par and they are really conveniently located, we may need to find a vet with a better bedside manner who we don't have to constantly second guess (just ask me about the time they wanted me to pay them to pull baby teeth rather than wait for them to fall out).

This was provoked by BA's blog

My dh and I recently started making our own pasta from scratch and we have discovered that half whole wheat and half unbleached flour make the best pasta.

Its flavorful while still having a nice texture.

The best part of making our own pasta is that we can jazz it up since plain old pasta is boring. That and now we can't run out when we want to make something.

Now if I could just convince DH that we use a lot of flour. We keep running out because cooking from scratch goes through a lot of it and he looks at a half full container and can't imagine us using it up (two recipes later we are completely out...)

January was our catch up month (since we didn't let ourselves have an allowance until recently). We bought things that we had wanted or needed for the past year.

What amazes me most about this, is that we aren't behind. No credit cards got racked up, no bills had to be moved to a later date and no budget categories had to be skimped on. We simply had the money.

It sort of boggles my mind how much we spent this month and it really shouldn't because we obviously spent money to rack up credit card debt in the first place.

I think the issue is that we were able to accomplish so much with the money. There weren't any extremely expensive items purchased so the money went very far.

We spent a fair amount on clothing, bought roller blades and protective gear, bought kitchen equipment, bought crafting materials and ate out more than we normally allow ourselves.

The reason we could afford all this is that my DH paid off his credit cards early thanks to overtime and careful budgeting and we didn't go nuts at Christmas.

On top of all this, we both used our bonuses to pay down debt.

Oh and our date for final credit card payoff has moved up to September.

She was just starting to get her feet under her and then she got laid off yesterday. She is calling the temp agency today to get on their hiring list again and will be job hunting but needless to say, its going to be a bit rough for her.

Fortunately, they were nice enough to give 2 weeks severance even though they didn't have to so that should help. She will file for unemployment as of Monday since they will be paying her through this Friday.

It could be an interesting month for all of us. Uggg. I am not sure how much we should help her given that she made some bad financial choices that we promised ourselves we would not support...

Hopefully she gets a new job before that becomes an issue.

My Bank of America credit card is raising its interest rate. My current rate is 10.99, they want to raise it to 20.99 as of the 1st day after the March closing statement. Just like my Capital One when it raised its interest rate, I have the option of rejecting it and being able to pay it off over time.

Obviously, I won't do that since it would have a huge impact on my credit score thanks to losing all that unused credit limit so I am a little peeved.

Thankfully, I will have this card paid off in May at the latest which means they won't get much from me but its still annoying.

I find it to be a strange coincidence that my two oldest credit cards have now both raised their interest rates on me since you aren't supposed to get rid of your oldest credit lines. That's okay, once we have bought our house, they are going bye bye. I have two other cards right now that have much better benefits and are worth keeping.

Woohoo! This is going to be fun! As some of you may know, my dh is finally debt free so its my turn. So, my ticker is going to be dropping every couple of weeks rather drastically.

Oh, and I don't know where I would put this but my dh and I devouted pet owners. Two days ago, a slightly overweight beagle came bounding up to me and waited for me to open the door of my building. Since I figured the owner was probably nearby, I let the beagle in and went looking for the owner. No luck. So I dropped mystuff off at my apartment and started knocking on doors.

I figured she must have jumped from someone's balcony (a common enough problem for some owners there) so I went to the doors of people I knew owned pets. I figured they would recognize the animal.

Hmmm...so now I am worried. No owner outside, no owner home inside and no tags on the dog.

So someone suggests Dumb Friends League, they can check for microchips. We race over there in my friend's car before it can close and let them know what happened. I figure someone in our community lost him but we have locked buildings so I can't go knocking. The dog has a microchip and just on the off chance that she had visited there before, the lady checked the system.

Low and behold, she is in the system, they call the owner and let her know that I am willing to bring her dog to her if she would like me to (which saves the owner $45).

I get on the phone with her, get her phone number and head back. It seems she adopted the dog from the shelter and the dog had been placed in the shelter because she kept running away from her previous owners.

They had been out walking and the owner had been adjusting the leash when dear doggy ran off and refused to come back. She had gone looking but dear doggy refused to come within arms reach. The owner was shocked that I had been able to get the dog but I am one of those people that dogs follow everywhere so I had never had an issue getting the dog to go with me even without a leash.

The owner was thrilled to have her runaway back (especially since the next day had been projected for -1) so she gave me a $25 visa gift card.

I was just thrilled that I didn't have to make a "donation" of $20 to drop the animal off AND I had gotten the animal back home.

Any pet owner knows that night would have been rough on the owner.

That said, I should make sure to budget a donation for The Dumb Friends League just because I love the organization.