The May Round Up, the June Goals and a Realization About Myself

I did a quick peak at my May financials. In a nutshell, they stunk. I went way over budget (not that there was a budget, but you get the idea) on a couple items-home improvement (which includes the garden supplies,plants, lumber, paint, tools), gas, alcohol and laundry. And I spent $57 on some magazine subscriptions-I've not subscribed to more than one magazine in over three years, I broke down and bought three subscriptions. Honestly guys, I wanted to try one month where I did not "care" about my finances. And it was a failure all the way around. I am just not good at winging it by the seat of my pants with my money. I can't trust myself unless I have a written plan!

WTF?!! I spent $65 on laundry!!. Granted I washed, dried, fluffed and folded almost every piece of clothing and blankets that I own, but wow, $65-there is not a cheaper laundromat around and sometimes my little portable machine just can't handle what needs to be washed (blankets, pillows, etc all). I did go a little crazy go nuts on gas traveling a couple weekends and to places that I did not need to go to (and at $55 a pop to fill the tank-ugh). I also bought a fair amount of wine and beer, both as belated Holiday and Birthday presents and for my own personal consumption. As I said in an early post, the wine and beer purchases stop-mainly for the waistline and health issues, but now for the pocketbook as well.

I had a boyfriend who called me a control freak. And he was right, I was a control freak at one point in time. Being this control freak made me good at a previous job, it got me two promotions and a couple decent raises, as well as it made me very one dimensional. I worked really hard to stop being a control freak. You know what~ it was around that time that I also fell into a big fiscal slide in my life. Are the two events related? Maybe, maybe not. I think they might have been.

Someone commented in my last post that I doing well re-organizing my life and they are right, I AM re-organizing my life, thanks for noticing! I do know that as a part of my "fiscal recovery", I need to "re-organizing" my life and if that means I have to become a control freak again, then I will. Part of the BK recovery is also about finding balance, balance in finances, balance in relationships, balance in life, and now a balance between being a control freak and not being a control freak. You know what, it's an amazing concept for me right now, it really is.

The June Goals

1) Really limit the grocery shopping-do only the bare necessities-fresh fruit, veg, milk
2) Continue the purge of the wardrobe and un-needed items-Goodwill here I come!
3) Pull the last credit report and get FICO score (truth time!)
4) Finally paint the kitchen cabinets now that I picked out the paint!
5) Continue on the second job hunt-nothing is scheduled for the part time grooms job until the END of June. I'd like to be able to have enough extra cash to cover my car payment by mid June-might not happen, but I'm gonna try.
6) Sketch out a tentative zero based budget for July based on April and May's spending.
7) Keep working on my gardens-free therapy and the grass is growing quite nicely now!
8) Seek out at least $150 in alternative income-pay per post, photo shoots, referrals, anything,anything.
9) Seriously investigate ways to monetize this blog. At least get some of those links up and running.
10). Post at least 2x week on personal blog (averaging about 1x a week now).

Hope you met your May goals and good luck setting your June ones!