by Hope
As I looked at the next couple of months, I realized that this will be our last quiet month for a while. April will bring spring break and the younger two kids are planning to spend some time with their dad. And May will bring graduation and family visits. All this followed by a summer that’s completely up in the air…
For March my goal is to keep it quiet – stay home, do not eat out, no travel and no extra expenses other than what is already listed in my budget.
To this end, I have done several things:
- Created a meal plan and weekly grocery list
- Planned out the month calendar wise – track meets, kid’s have a single day off school, etc.
- Been very clear with the kids that there will be no “extra” this month
- Given myself a to do list with lots of “housekeeping” type chores to keep me busy when I’m itching to do something
I anticipate coming to the end of the month with a couple thousand dollars extra (between my W2 and 1099 jobs) and will decide them how much extra to put toward my car debt this month.
Oh, and I have to begin the process of filing my taxes. I gathered everything together that I could in January, but noted recently that I am still missing some documents. Reaching out to clients and following up on those documents will be a high priority this month.
Has anyone filed their taxes already? Are the changes significant?
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 3 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
Good luck on your month. Have you considered posting a retrospective on how it goes at the month’s end? Was your last challenge month was November? I don’t remember hearing much about it other than that one post.
I also would love to see some posts with a month end what you budgeted vs. what you spent.