Over the last few weeks John and I have been talking about trying to cut out or limit our extra spending on items that really aren't necessary. We have also been discussing how to teach are children they have a choose as to how to spend their money. That they are not slaves to it. Instead of saying, we can't afford that (weather it's true or not) we are trying to say things like, This month are family is choosing not to spend our money on that or we didn't budget for that this month. We would be happy to put this on the list of things to consider buying next month. (Maybe, if they have to wait for something they want they will either realize they don't want it or realize they do really want it). We really want are children to be Thankful for what they have and we don't want them to have the "deprived mentality" when they don't get what they want or feel they need. Somehow we have aloud ourselves to feel this way. There is far more to life then "stuff". We are going to start to have a small budget every month that John and I can use to bless other with when we see a need. We would also like the boys to do the same, this will allow are focus not to always remain on ourselves and our needs but the needs of others as well.
To keep us accountable I am going to be posting our discretionary (food, clothing ect)spending every day. Being accountable to making a post daily will make me think twice about the unnecessary purchases. Example; Just this weekend we spent almost 10 dollars in one day on coffee and the funny thing is it was at 3 different coffee shops...I don't even remember going to 3 different coffee shops? Why is it when something becomes such apart of your life routine it's harder to change or to see that you need to make a change?
Here goes yesterday's spending:
Starbucks: $12.95 1 pound of ground coffee from (They have Christmas Blend now!!! Yummy.
OFC: $16.22 John has not been feeling well so I had to buy him some Tylenol PM which was about $7.00 dollars for the generic brand as well as some soup he could take to work for almost $3.00 but while I was there they had 10 for 10 deals on things I would normally buy so I bought a few things.
Our family's total spending for the day: $29.17
This is also going to help me balance our account on a daily basis...since I will already have the receipt's out! Wohoo! (I am good about doing this every few days but every day would be better so I don't miss anything)
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3 comments:
Good for you Tana! At least you balance the account. I haven't done that in years!
Yay Tana! You will do your boys a great service by teaching them how to manage their money!
That is so funny that you are doing this. We are doing the same thing with our boys (and using envelopes with cash for spending). It is hard to say no sometimes and explain... "Well, we decided this month to pay for electricity instead of buying you that toy that costs the same amount ;-)".
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