Grateful for my faithful readers

So enough is enough and I need to quit my unofficial break from blogging. I think blogging has become hard because I feel like my regular readers are those I talk to on the phone and tell everything to and so writing it would be redundant for them. Sure I know blogging isn't supposed to be for the readers but sometimes I feel that way. The grateful thing has kind of passed. It's really hard to think of things that would be interesting to write about. But I'm gonna try but not limit myself to just grateful posts. So I'll fill you in on some developments to better my life.

A month or so ago I was talking to Julie about saving for a trip to France and she mentioned that she was gonna try to pay off her surgery by the end of the year. That is quite a hefty amount so I was mind boggled that she would be able to do that and she must be making tons more than me. Julie has never wanted to tell me what she makes but she told me so I could figure it out. She actually makes slightly less than me. (I hope I'm not giving away too much information, Julie.) I do have slightly larger expenses than her. I pay more for my car payment, student loans, tithing. I have internet and netflix, but she pays almost double my rent for her mortgage. So can she save that much money. She does have roommate income, but I'm offsetting that against her actual mortgage payment. She mentioned that shop more and eat out more than she does. Which is true.

So I decided to change my ways and really pay close attention to how I spend my money. I found this great website called Mint.com where you can input all your financial account information so it can update when you pay something, lets you know when a payment is due and file your spending into various categories. I can also fix something if it gets filed wrong but mostly it learns where things go really fast so I almost never have to do anything. Also, you setup a budget each month for each category that you want. I set up mine so that I would be able to save $200 this month for savings if I stay within budget. One of my favorite elements is the Trends Tab. It gives a colorful pie chart of your spending so you can see what the percentage of your spending goes to and then you can click on one of those areas and it will break it down even further if you have it set up that way and to the side shows where you spent the money like Walmart or whatever and how much went to that store over how many visits. It's so awesome.

The month is almost over and I have gone over on a few things slightly, but it's my first month and I'm not beating myself up about it. I just won't be able to save as much which is the kick in the pants I need. The goal is to get up to saving $400 a month, which should be doable. I absolutely love that website and check it religiously everyday and have an APP on my phone for it as well. It hasn't kept me perfectly in line but it does make me consider if I really want to spend that money on that and not get to spend it on other things later. I'm also hoping, because I drastically reduced my fast food spending from what I normally spend that it will help me lose weight. I've learned though that the groceries I buy need to be somewhat healthy too if I really want that to happen. I'll give an update next week of how I did and other things I'm gonna be struggling with that I want to buy and how I'm going to fit that into my budget.

Anyway that's one thing to improve my life, I'll tell you about another thing sometime this week.