The last month I started doing what Dave Ramsey refers to as a Zero-Balance Based Budget. Every dollar gets a name. My bf does a lot of number crunching in Excel as part of his job. I do too but not nearly as much. A few months consecutively I’ve always had more month than money. I thought I had all the answers. There are some nasty habits I was getting into.

Amazon.com shopping – I love shopping on Amazon and get some really good deals. However some of my purchases were non-essential and I would spend $400-500 or so over the course of a month on things that were nice. Since July 24th I haven’t made any purchases on Amazon. 

Credit Card – I fell into the trap of thinking because it’s earning points I should put every single item I want to purchase on the card. The problem is it’s ridiculously easy to underestimate purchases and make a silly justification about the points. My Chase Freedom card gives me cashback (right now it’s 5% back on gas plus the always-on 1% offer). My big bills I’ll put on the card but small things like food, movie tickets, it’s not really saving me much.

So here is what I came up with for a two weeks budget:

			Subtotal
Zero-Based Budget	Starting Balance	1600
	Credit Card	-924.67	675.33
	Roth IRA	-40	635.33
	“Nothing”	-150	485.33
	Check from bf for a/c	250	735.33
	Sallie Mae	-453	282.33
	Groceries	-100	182.33
	Car Payment	-150	32.33
	Haircut	-15	-165
	Emergency Fund	-50	-65
	Gas	-40	-90

So you may see the a/c is on there. We had company over the other weekend and they were complaining that it wasn’t getting cold enough inside. I was in denial for a bit, then decided to call in to report it. The technician came to the house while I was at work and replaced the capacitor in the unit. I came home and it was working fine. Did a double take on what he actually did to fix it. $275 and my bf game me $250 back. Could’ve been worse, had the compressor gone on the unit it would run over $3k.

Onto my budget, my $280 car payment is due the 14th of the month and I have $450 set aside in that account right now. Really loving the car right now, gets 30mpg in mixed driving and provides a nice sporty / cushy ride. Doing good on my grocery budget, can’t buy pistachios, walnuts, kale chips or anything like that at $7+ a pop but I manage pretty well without it. My credit card balance will be zero again after my next payment for the electricity / car fill-up. It was -$5 2 days ago and now $235 because of $158 utility bill, gasoline and some other small things.

Off to bed now, still working on the $1k emergency fund. I have it for 5 seconds then a bill comes up or I want to pay them down. Got a smaller raise than I hoped, but good feedback from my boss.