November of No Name

I can't think of a fun alliterative theme for November.  So, I'm just going with November of No Name.  It's not fun, but it is still alliterative.

Time for everyone's favorite: my monthly goals! 

My goals this month fall into two categories: Organizational and Financial. 

My organizational goal is to go through every problem area in my house and get rid of unwanted belongings.  Christmas is coming up, and that's a time when we will acquire more belongings, so it would be a good idea to clear up some space for those new belongings.  I think it will also be good to unearth some recently-neglected toys and bring them back to Nathan's attention; like getting brand-new toys for free!  The same goes for me and my clothing.

As for my financial goals, I continue to refine my budget-tightening.  After two months of record-keeping and frugality, I am finally ready to take the step of defining specific budgets for specific items.  I'm starting with just two budgetary areas, food and toiletries/household items. 

I have determined wildly optimistic goals for each. 

At the beginning of the month, I took $400 cash out of the ATM.  I put $300 in an envelope for food.  Food is defined in this case as anything you can eat or drink, procured from a store.  My point is, it does not include restaurants or miscellaneous takeout/drive-thru snacks (e.g. Starbucks).  Now, an obvious shortcoming of this plan is that we could easily fall into the trap of We ran out of money in our monthly grocery budget, we'll have to eat out every night, but we do a pretty good job of maintaining the spirit of frugality and limiting our restaurant expenses. 

(In reading over the previous paragraph, I realize I should establish a restaurant/take-out budget, but there are many unpredictable variables in restaurant eating.  Examples: An errand takes longer than planned and you're starving, your friend invites you out, Bill unexpectedly has to work late, and so on.  So I'd rather just keep my restaurant budgeting in the more nebulous range of we'll try to eat at home as much as possible, rather than setting an actual dollar figure.) 

My other budgeting envelope is $100 for toiletries and household expenses.  Again, in my tendency to over-analyze things, I have come up with a lot of questions about what defines a household expense.  If the need for a household repair arises, that will not come out of the $100 (seeing as these things always cost more than $100 anyway).  Household expenses will have to be determined on a case-by-case basis, but I'm thinking things more in the area of light bulbs and batteries.

I have absolutely no faith in my ability to maintain these two budgets, seeing as it's November 6 and we're already halfway through the $300 for groceries (though that is due to our big monthly Costco trip).  I also wonder if it's a bad idea, weight-loss-wise, to limit my grocery budget so severely.  I'm sure we could live for months on the items we have stored in our kitchen, but that doesn't mean we're eating healthfully. 

Oh well, it's good to be aware of what you're spending, at least.