Pinching Pennies

With adulthood comes the financial responsibility of yourself.  Depending on how big of a spender you are or how you paid for school this can start of easy or this can start of hard.

I was the first in my family to go to college so the process was new to all of us.  I ended up in a school that cost way too much money and where the advisers weren't clear on what the actual costs were.  So while this was a great learning experience its been a very expensive lesson.

I have a fascination with personal finance and am always doing research and revamping my budget.  My goal was to be financially responsible for myself and to build my credit.

I just moved into my own place a few months ago and this has been a budget challenge!  You don't realize the resources you go through or how quickly the expenses add up.  I have a few credit cards that I am trying to bring the balance down on.  With the economy you never know what will happen I'm trying to be safe and get things 'within my means'.  My goal is to have 6 months of bills in the bank and eventually work that up to a year.  This of course comes after paying of my credit cards and getting myself to live within my means.

I'm currently working on a new weekly budget to snowball some of this debt.  I have an excel spreadsheet so I can forecast in the future which makes it easier for planning for larger purchases or to reach a savings goal.

Some of the websites I have found helpful that you should check out are Quizzle & Mint.  Quizzle will allow you to get your credit score for free every 6 months.  They publish interesting articles and its a good way to find out where you are.  They do try and sell you on a yearly plan which I've never done.  I don't find that it makes sense to spend money to learn how to save money.  I can maybe see it if you are more diverse with stocks and property.  Being that I mainly just have debt there are so many other free resources out there.  Mint is a website you can use make a budget.  You can program some of your bills into it and it will send you reminders and advise you if you have gone over your allotted amount for a particular section.  They too have helpful articles and advice.

My best suggestion would be to get real with yourself.  Write down all your bills and debt and make a plan, a reasonable plan.  Don't eliminate all 'fun spending money' because if you do you will crash and burn and end up binging.  Set up a realistic budget and goal.  Allow yourself to eat out on occasion and put a cap on it.  Search the Internet for cheap ways to do the things you are wanting.  For example I fell in love with this bracelet but couldn't imagine spending $60 on so I found out how to make my own.  I had the silver bracelet (recycle your old) and bought embroidery string in 3 colors for $0.37 each for a total of about $1.25 and my time which I probably would have spent out spending money anyway. 

I grocery shop every couple of days or when needed to ensure I'm not buying food for it to spoil.  I reuse grocery bags, sandwich bags and containers food comes in so I don't have to buy these things (often).  I don't buy paper towels I spent about $10 on dish towels and wash them weekly.  Bar soap is cheaper than body wash and smells just as good and cleans better.  I make my own floor cleaner rather than those pricey mop pads.  Pinching pennies has caused me to look at an item before I toss it and think can I reuse this as is or can I transform this into another use?