I bought more food this week and I am now over the food budget by $9.25. Since I am working with a rolling budget I will see if that amount can come from the remainder of the gas budget since I have been under the gas budget for the last few months. As long as I am under the total budget for the month I will be ok even though I have gone over the food budget.

I still have a bit left on the budget but the only thing I have left to pay is the phone bill and the rest is discretionary spending for things like gas etc. I do have tuition for summer classes coming up as well but all my tuition gets paid out of a dedicated account and is not part of the monthly budget.

During the last part of the semester I have had books and papers piled everywhere and my desk is a mess. I decided to begin cleaning out papers and things that I don’t need and then realized that I need not only a physical clearing out but also a mental and emotional one as well.

Books

I have to go through the books that I am not going to need in the future and see what I can sell off. This will not only clear up much needed space in my tiny apartment for new books, but it will also free up some cash that I can use towards buying new textbooks for my upcoming classes.

Papers

I also need to go through all of the papers and handouts that I have littered all over the place. Some of those papers were the power point lectures that I printed out since I prefer reading paper when I am studying, instead of looking at a screen. I need to make sure I save those slides to my computer so I have a digital copy and then I can go ahead and throw away the paper that I am not using.

Emotions

I tend to hold on to emotions (like not being able to get over my mother’s death) and these tend to be mostly the negative emotions. I take things personally and I dwell on what I have done wrong, replaying the different ways I could have done something else to change the situation. I need to learn to let go of things because I cannot change the past. I can only change the way I deal with the consequences of what happens as a result of what I did. I also need to learn that not everything that went wrong is my fault and I can accept help when I don’t know what to do. I need to change the way that I think about my future because I do have a very big goal in my future and unless I implement the changed attitude I will not be successful.

Here are a few simple ways that you can save without having to think about it all the time. You don’t have to worry about actually taking the time to save because by simply making the following a part of your daily life you will eliminate the ‘I have to save’ mentality and you will just start saving automatically.

1. Enroll in your company 401K.

Many, if not all, employers offer some kind of match when you put money into your retirement savings. While it may seem that you will suffer from having a smaller paycheck every month, you are building up valuable savings for your future. Plus if your employer even puts in 1% that is free money coming to you.

2. Cut the cable.

I am sure you are tired of hearing people say this tip but it really works. Even if you are paying $40 a month for cable it adds up over the course of a year. On a monthly basis you have that extra $40 to put towards other things and you might even reduce your electric bill since you are not watching as much television. In any case if you really NEED to watch some of the shows you feel you cannot live without you can always catch them on Hulu (which is free…and that is what I use!!!) or on Hulu plus which costs about $9 a month. You can always go with Netflix which is much less than traditional cable as well.

3. Use a rewards credit card for purchases.

I know many people say to stay away from credit cards if you want to save money. I completely disagree with this UNLESS you are irresponsible with your card use. If you can use a credit card and pay off the balance in full at the end  of the month…why not use it for those purchases you have to make on  regular basis. You know you must put gas in the car. You must buy food during the month and you do have to pay that cable bill…unless you cut the cable in step 2 above. Why not put those purchases on the credit card, earn the cash back on them and then write the check that you would have sent the cable company over to the credit card. Take the cash you would have handed the cashier at Walmart and pay the credit card. Just because you buy things WITH credit it does not mean you are buying things ON credit!!!!

4. Raise your car insurance deductible.

This tip might be a little more difficult for some people and it does take a bit more planning than the other tips. Many people have their car insurance deductible at the very minimum of $250 because they believe they want to be protected against having to pay a lot out of pocket for damage to the car. Did you know that you can raise the deductible to $500 and end up saving a few points in interest? You can save a ton more if you raise it to $1,000 but that might be a bit of a stretch for the average consumer. Call up your insurance provider and find out how much you can save each month if you increase your deductible to $500. Then save up that money in the emergency fund and enjoy the savings!!!

5. Bring your lunch to work.

Yes you are tired of hearing the ‘brown bagging is better’ mantra but it really does work. I am not going to bore you with trying to calculate the cost of making your own lunch but I have experimented both ways. If I buy lunch every day my budget for food is MUCH larger at the end of the month than if I cook at home and bring leftovers to work the next day. I have not an actual break down of the cost of a tuna sandwich vs. my potato salad…but when I look at the total food cost for the month there is a definite difference.

So go ahead and try out these 5 small ways to save big and see if they make a difference in your savings!!!!

I have been very fortunate (or cursed, depending on how you view it) to not have to travel much to hang out with friends. Usually we will be on campus and decide to walk to a place that is nearby to eat. In other cases someone will just swing by my apartment to pick me up and I don’t even have to spring for gas.

I normally fill up when my tank gets to about half full because I don’t ever want to be caught in a situation where I need to get gas on the run. This time it was a little below half and I spent $39.65 to fill it up!

Although this is almost half of the gas budget for the month, I did not buy gas last month so I have that extra amount to roll over to this month just in case the price of gas goes sky high or I do decide to get in some extra driving.

I will also earn cash back on the gas that I needed to buy anyway so there is a silver lining to the shock of the high bill on this purchase.

I have finals coming up this week and next week so posting will be lighter than usual for most of the next few days. I will resume the normal posting schedule once I am done with exams!!!

Until then, keep monitoring your budgets and try to find new ways to save money.

I found that the rolling budget had gotten messed up because of Mint’s tendency to classify some things in certain ways. I would have to go and update a few of the ‘rules’ I had in classification and it was really throwing me off.

I figured I would just go in and remove all the prior rolling amounts and just start them over since I needed to adjust the budget now. I have a new bill coming up in a few months and paying it would put me over my budget as it currently stands.

Even though I don’t need to begin paying it until July I decided to adjust the budget now and reduce things like food and household expenses now.That way I have two months to get used to the reduced spending on those two areas before I actually HAVE to spend less.

I also made a few other tweaks here and there and reduced a few categories by $10 or $20. The changes to the individual categories are not very high but the total does make a big difference to the total budget.

I am on a VERY strict budget because of school and we don’t get paid very much so I really cannot afford to splurge and get carried away because I do need to pay tuition!

Tuition payments for summer school are actually only a few days away and it will be a big drain to see that money come out of my account.

I know people keep saying that they hate credit cards but I think that with responsible use you can still benefit. I don’t carry a balance because I pay the card off every week, instead of waiting for the due dates. I use the card to pay for the things that I normally purchase all the time, like my rent, I pay the card off and then I benefit from it every few months.

This $20 will go to supplement my income for the month and will be added to my budget for the month since I was in danger of going over in some categories!

I spent $40 because my black ink ran out in the printer and I had to get a new cartridge for it. I had ordered colored ink a few months ago and about three days after replacing the black ink I needed to replace all the colored ones as well!!!

I am doing well on my food budget this month and I have $46 left that I can spend. I will be going shopping tomorrow as I need to get bread, milk and other staples.

I have been waiting until the last minute to get assignments done and because of this I end up staying up late. Of course everyone says college students are supposed to NOT sleep but I totally disagree. I made it through years of bachelors and masters programs by getting a lot of work done during the day….by working on something every day.

Yes it was tedious to spend a couple of hours every day, even on weekends, on school work…but that lead me to not have to be up until 2 in the morning. I got lots of sleep and got good grades.

Now with this one class and all the stress it brings I have been getting very poor sleep because I am going to sleep much later than I normally do.

As a result I am cranky all day the next day and want to sleep halfway during the day…but then cannot sleep when it is time for bed.

I guess this does affect my money in the long run because I have the lights and the computer on longer since I am working into the night.

It is getting close to finals now so I cannot afford to procrastinate any more…I need to study!!!

I will not let this happen during summer school!

Preton

Preton is free printer software that allows you to set the amount of ink that goes on the page. The software works by intercepting the print job before it reaches the printer. You then are able to reduce the amount of ink used by up to 70 percent. Even at that reduced amount tests show that the text is still legible. Reducing the ink by higher percentages would only be useful for documents like emails or Web sites. However, you can save ink by reducing the ink by 10 to 20 percent with no noticeable loss of quality.

Preton essentially does the same thing your printer can do by selecting draft or another low quality mode in your printer settings. However, Preton gives you more control over the ink savings vs. quality. For instance, Preton allows you to set lower levels of print quality for text than for graphics and images on the same page. This way your charts and images will still look good while you still save ink on the text printing.

Inkgard

Inkgard printer software offers the same features as Preton but it isn’t free. It costs $10 a year and allows you to manually adjust the amount of ink put on the page before the document goes to the printer. It offers everything Preton does but costs you a yearly subscription.

GreenPrint World Edition

GreenPrint is a versatile piece of software that you can also download for free. This software specializes in eliminating the number of wasted pages and unnecessary graphics from your print job. For example, if you ‘re printing from the web the preview screen lets you eliminate those elements you don’t want to print, including ads, images or graphics. It also allows you to see and remove additional pages that get attached to the end of many documents. Ever printed off a flight itinerary from the web that also included a few lines of legal jargon on a separate page? GreenPrint can help you eliminate that waste.

GreenPrint also works well in conjunction with other ink saving software such as Preton. It comes with a PDF writer that allows you to save important documents to your hard drive, such as emails and web pages that you otherwise would have to print. If you choose, you can upgrade to the Premium edition for around $20.

Brian Prowse is a writer and self-proclaimed tech geek. He writes for sites such as 247InkToner.com that specializes in Dell toner cartridges or playing around with the coolest gadgets on the market, Brian enjoys traveling and graphic design.

I received $8.59 from Lending Club and spent $28.91 on food. My car was grimy after we had a couple of dust storms so I spent $10 on getting it washed. I only go to the car wash about twice a month so that was not too bad. Most times I go once a month but we had two really bad dust storms here and the car was really dirty.

I also got a $2.01 refund on one credit card for something called credit monitoring but I have no idea what that is since

-I did not have any credit monitoring and

-I do not have any charges on that card for anything related to that.

I will just watch it and see what happens. The rolling budget is coming along very well and so is the experiment with rotating the credit cards to see which ones give good rewards for my normal spending.

The one problem that I have right now is that since I decided to use one card per month I seem to have a new unexpected expense come up that goes on the card. It does not affect my budget for the month since I take the money out of the associated fund, but it does change the amount that would normally be spent…and therefore changes the reward level.

If you want to save for  a big goal but just find the process to be overwhelming then why not start with a small savings goal first. Aim to save $1 a month if that is what you need to do.

Set your savings goal.

Make it automatic.

Once you have done it for a few months then go ahead and increase the goal to $2 a month. When you become comfortable with that small goal then you can increase the amount to something else so that you can have a higher number in your savings.

Think slow and steady to get to the goal instead of trying to set too big a goal and then becoming frustrated when you do not attain your goal. It is better to save small amounts that you absolutely will not miss than to try to sock away a large amount and then you end up having to borrow from your savings.

Most of the time when things are on clearance they are in bad shape..

-clothes have missing buttons

-clothes are dirty

-clothes are torn

In some cases I have been able to find nice looking clothing on the sale and clearance racks but then they end up to be either the wrong

-size

-color

so I end up not getting them. The sale and clearance racks are usually crammed with things of different sizes and styles so it can be a daunting process to go through them…only to NOT find something that fits or that I like.

I do realize that it is well worth the effort to take a little more time to go through the sale and clearance racks to find something that may have been originally $20 and is now priced at $5 because that is a good discount.

In an effort to save money when I do need to end up getting clothes I will be shopping the sale and clearance racks so that I can get the best price on my items. The clothes are the same anyway and since I am not a fashionista I don’t need to be wearing the latest trend as soon as it comes out.

I can stick with classic pieces that are not trendy and even though they are on sale I can still get something that looks good for less money so that I can stick to my budget.

I was able to create a new Lending Club loan this week in addition to receiving $6.28 from the leftover money. I have not spent any money this week on food since I have everything I need.

I did need to go ahead and buy some more kitty litter as I was running out and may need to go to the grocery store over the weekend.

I want to save money but the taste of blue berries has been making me waste money.

I mean I really, REALLY hate the taste of blueberries. I hate the way I can’t tell if they are ripe by looking at them….or smelling them and sometimes by even touching them.

I used to buy fresh blueberries to eat and sometimes to make smoothies as a way to get more fruits and vegetables into my daily diet.

I did not eat them every day because I just don’t like the taste and texture and invariably I would end up throwing some away because they had gone bad. Then I thought about buying the frozen fruits instead of fresh so that I could have them last longer even though I could not use them every day.

I bought some frozen name brand fruits and added them to smoothies and the taste was not too bad. I also tried thawing them out to eat….but that was just a horrible idea because the fruit was just mushy.

Then I decided to try out the store brand frozen fruits and they were just the same as the brand name. I can now save money by purchasing the frozen store brand fruits and keeping them in the freezer for a long time. I save money because I can use the fruits on my own time and not worry about them going bad!!!

I still buy other fruits such as bananas fresh so that I can eat them…but when it comes to those pesky blueberries I get mine straight out of the freezer and use them in smoothies. I get to consume my fruits and vegetables for better health and I save money because I do not throw away any food that goes bad.

You might want to check out purchasing frozen fruits and vegetables for those instances where you don’t actually need fresh fruit to eat. You can use the frozen for smoothies and for cooking and end up saving money with your freezer.

I got on a new shared phone plan and my part of the bill this month was only $25. I think I might be paying about $40 on the bill every month when it finally settles..but that is for unlimited minutes, unlimited data and unlimited messages so that is actually a great deal for me.

I paid rent and electricity and also the car loan and the insurance. Most of my bills come early in the month so there is a big outflow right after I get paid on the first. I hate to see the money leave in such a big chunk but luckily I have my accounts set up so that cash can flow freely at every week without running my checking account into overdraft.

I did have an unexpected outflow last month when the air conditioning in my car gave up. If I lived somewhere else it would not be so bad but it is already very hot where I live and summer is not even close yet. I got it fixed with the money in the emergency fund…which is now drained and back down to zero. I will work on rebuilding that slowly every month based on my zero based budget.

Areas where I remained under budget:

-Home: I was a little bit under budget in this area because I set the budget a little bit above what I currently pay. I have reduced it from what it was in the past and since I already signed a lease for next year I know what I will be paying in the future. I padded the budget a little bit to take into account any future rent increases so that I do not have to go back and adjust the amount.

-Utilities: I paid two sets of phone bills this month (one for my old prepaid plan and one for the new post paid plan) and still managed to remain under the budgeted amount for the month. My electric bill was also higher than I would have liked but in the end it all worked out.

Areas where I went over budget:

-Auto: As I mentioned earlier I had the unexpected air conditioning blow out which I had to pay for out of the emergency fund. Although I paid for this repair out of funds that were preallocated I still count the cash flow as part of the monthly cash flow because it gets treated that way in Mint and I do not want to exclude it because then I will not have a way to track the total spent on car repairs.

-Food: I really have no excuse for this and I don’t know how I managed to go over my food budget. I know that I changed the way I eat a little bit because I started to buy more frozen fruits. I have been getting bags of frozen fruits so that I can make smoothies, as a way to get more fruits into my diet. I guess they cost a little bit more and since I have also been using more than I normally did when I had fresh fruits that will count for part of the increase in cost.

I sometimes would talk more than that so I had to use different things to supplement my calling and I had some very spotty service for that price. I was saving on dollars but the added stress of dropped calls and having to constantly monitor minutes was making me crazy.

I just entered a post paid shared plan with a trusted friend and I will be paying about $40 a month (the first bill was actually less than that but I think we still need to settle into the system) for unlimited minutes, texting and data.

This is financially a MUCH better deal and even though I may end up paying almost the same as I was in the past I will now have

-better coverage

-no worries about going over minutes

-no dropped calls (I hope)

I will still be able to log in and pay my portion of the bill on the website…so I can still earn points on my credit card for doing so. This will allow me to manage my zero based budget without having to worry about paying the other person in cash!

I am enjoying this new plan and the freedom of mind it gives me to know that I can use my phone as I want to but still only pay a certain amount for my bill every month. Since the new bill is less than what I originally planned for in my reduced student budget I can now either save the difference or move it over to another category.

I am actually going to split the difference between increasing another category for spending, adding to debt repayment  amounts and savings.

I decided to get groceries this week instead of waiting until the beginning of the new month because I was out of milk! I spent $53.92 on food this week which brought me over the total for the month but it will just roll into next month’s budget since I have the rolling budget every month.

I received $8.07 from Lending Club this week and I can’t wait for the new month to start over so that I can make a new loan and then start collecting money again.

It actually turned out to be a family member who know his information and had opened  a series of credit cards using that person’s name.

The victim noticed a few cards that did not belong to him and because of what he had learned in class he immediately contacted the credit bureau to dispute the charges and the accounts. The investigation turned up information that linked the accounts to a mailing address that he recognized and he found out who had used his information.

The victim is now still dealing with the credit report companies because he is not on good speaking terms with the person who stole his identity. He placed credit freezes on his account and is getting the accounts sorted out and the person is now being investigated for fraud.

It is important to continue to monitor your credit report because even if you don’t personally use credit you never know what is going on with your information. Even if you think that your credit is safe you should still the opportunity to look up your credit report when you can. You are able to do this free from the annual credit report site that gives you one free credit report every year.

One of these sites happens to be Transunion, which allows you to see one of your credit reports every twelve months. The site is easy to use and on the page that I linked to you can find most of the information that you need. It tells you thinks like

-what your credit report really is

-how to correct inaccuracies you may find on your report

-how long it takes for items to drop off your credit report

-what affects your credit report

-how to improve your credit

By monitoring your credit report and your credit score you are taking control of your credit destiny and you can be aware of any changes that may occur in a timely manner.