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Sat down tonight and started working on money stuff with Wiley. If I'm serious about this grad school thing (and believe me, I am), we need to get ourselves onto a solid budget - so that we can build up a cushion now, and so we can be better able to adjust to cutting my share of the household income by half or more than that when I start.
right now I'm torn between being happy by the fact that once all the non-negotiable monthly bills are paid (mortgage, car payment, insurance, utilities and groceries) we still have a good deal of money left over, and being aghast at just how much money we are blowing through on a monthly basis without even being aware of it. It's good, because that's all (or at least 75%) negotiable, but oooh, it's going to take a lot of willpower to find the strength to start saying no to the things we're used to being able to buy and do, and that we'll still want to do very very much. (I swear to god, I did the actual math. My 2 iced coffee a day habit costs $105 a month. Holy Christ!)
Next step is to write down what we spand, on what, and how we pay for it. We'll do that for a week, start figuring out where the money's going, and try to build a budget that's based on our real-world spending habits. Gah, this is hard. I think this might actually be harder than dieting, dammit.
right now I'm torn between being happy by the fact that once all the non-negotiable monthly bills are paid (mortgage, car payment, insurance, utilities and groceries) we still have a good deal of money left over, and being aghast at just how much money we are blowing through on a monthly basis without even being aware of it. It's good, because that's all (or at least 75%) negotiable, but oooh, it's going to take a lot of willpower to find the strength to start saying no to the things we're used to being able to buy and do, and that we'll still want to do very very much. (I swear to god, I did the actual math. My 2 iced coffee a day habit costs $105 a month. Holy Christ!)
Next step is to write down what we spand, on what, and how we pay for it. We'll do that for a week, start figuring out where the money's going, and try to build a budget that's based on our real-world spending habits. Gah, this is hard. I think this might actually be harder than dieting, dammit.