November Summary

Well, the months keep zipping past and I'm doing my best to keep up. With multiple visitors and a big holiday trip, I didn't have quite as much time this month to focus on both Finance and Career, so November ending up being strictly Finance focused.
For the most part, my week without purchasing food was a success. The dishes I made lasted up until the day I left for Thanksgiving vacation (about 5 days), but then all bets were off as I traveled to San Fran.

I did an uber detailed budget spreadsheet with every fact of my finances that I could possible think of, including projected spending with a minimum, budgeted, and maximum possible budget category. And with that information, I decided to try a more extensive envelope system for budgeting my months food, entertainment, and shopping purchases. I took out $720 and am going to do my best to make it stretch through the entire month for any expenses over my usual bills. I can tell it's going to be difficult as I've already blasted through a good chunk of my food money, but with the major purchases out of the way, which will last for quite a while, my grocery bills should be much lower for the rest of the month.

The Envelope System is something I was introduced to when my dad sent me the Dave Ramsey financing kit. It has pockets for keeping budgeted cash with a place to keep track of what you've spent and how much you have left. And like Ramsey says, psychologically, it hurts more to spend cash than to swipe a piece of plastic.