One Million and Beyond

Weekly Budget - Week 6 (June 30 - July 6)

July 2nd, 2008

This week’s budget is a bit on the late side because of all of the house stuff that’s been taking up my time. I’ve also finally tallied up the amount of spending for the last week and I missed a couple categories but overall I came pretty close with my estimation (I’ll be posting about this later today). This week is a bit hectic like last week in that there are a lot of things that need to be done around the house. A semblance of order is slowly coming back but it’s not quite there yet.

Spending this week should be more in line with what I’m used to and this week’s budget is going to reflect this. We’re still trying to figure out where the best places to shop are as well as getting the small miscellaneous things that we need around the house. I expect that next week everything will have settled a bit more and we’ll have a much better sense of what the new budget will be. Here are week 6’s budget numbers:

I’ve left the alcohol number relatively high since there’s a holiday involved and its really nice to have a couple beers after a day of construction, painting and packing. I’ve also left eating out for lunch high because we’re not quite settled in the kitchen so making lunches isn’t the easiest thing to do just yet. The Food amount stays the same though I highly doubt we’ll be anywhere close to this (I’m being cautious as we figure out the best stores to shop at). Miscellaneous items are set at $75 and that’s mostly because I expect we’ll have forgotten something or other as we work around the house. I hope that this number will be a lot lower. Finally the transportation amount is high this week because of the monthly parking fees at the office along with paying for street parking – next week I’ll be purchasing a sticker for 6 months of street parking to really reduce this amount.

Contest Note – I missed my final budget of the contest and I’ll be making the announcement about the winner later tonight. Thank you to all who have followed along – I came close to meeting my budgets but it seems that I still need some work at this. I’ll post an overall assessment of how I did on Friday.

Posted in Budgeting and Planning, Monthly Planning | 1 Comment

Week 3 Budget Assessment

June 16th, 2008

Last weeks budget was aggressive and completely achievable in my opinion and the results help prove this. I missed my targets in two categories and both could possibly have been kept within their targets. Here are this week’s numbers:

The two categories that I missed were food and gas; one has a good explanation and the other was purchasing some additional food for this upcoming week. The price of gas has been slowly climbing and I haven’t been driving very much to compensate. This week was father’s day and we hadn’t seen my parents for a while so we went out to see them. Rather than hoping the remaining $15 in my budget would cover gas for the drive I decided to suck it up and fill up. I was completely floored by the fact that gas cost me almost $70 to fill up! On a positive note I won’t need to fill up at all this week.

On the food front again we spent a bit more on food partly because we were making fathers day dinner for one of the dads. But with all that said the allocated amount could have been kept in check. I think with some smart planning and budgeting the grocery store purchases can be brought into check quite easily.

Other than these two items I’m very happy with this past week. All of the other categories were below what I was expecting to spend. I also went out of my way to make sure some of the categories were below their numbers rather than above them. I wanted to write a post about this later in the week.

Finally the cost of gas and trying to control cash flow has made me ponder getting a smaller car. I don’t drive a lot but the fuel efficiency is something I’m sure to notice not to mention insurance prices on smaller cars aren’t as high as SUVs. I’m still pondering the idea and don’t want to make a hasty decision though if gas prices keep going up I’m sure I won’t be the only person thinking about downsizing their car.

Posted in Budgeting and Planning, Monthly Planning | 2 Comments

Weekly Budget - Week 1 (May 26 - June 1)

May 25th, 2008

I’ve been floating along with my finances for way too long and this week I simply decided to get a handle on everything. I reassessed my cashflow which wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been but that doesn’t mean everything is all happy in the land of Matt’s finances. I’m still spending too much money and the only way to get a hold of that is to simply cut spending. To achieve this end I’m have started tracking my spending daily.

Today is the first week that I’ll be posting my budget for the week. I have kept it fairly high level for the time being which works for me and I’ll see how it plays out. I’ve also kept my bills off of this budget, I know what they are and they’re being addressed they also haven’t changed very much in the past year so getting the spending under control is step on.

Posted in Budgeting and Planning, Monthly Planning, Financial Situation | 3 Comments

March Update and Snowflaking Experiment

April 2nd, 2008

The past couple days have been a bit crazy in that I haven’t had much time to sit down and write but that has given me a little time to mull over the past month and my goal for April. Rather than come up with a couple goals that I wanted to work on I’m going to stick to one singular goal, my snowflaking experiment, but I’ll get to that a bit later.

March was an interesting month since I started working again but this time rather than doing this as an employee I did this as a contractor doing so through my company. I have never done this so it was a learning experience. I’ve gained a lot of valuable information about the sales side of the business world and I have a new found respect for it. Financially March was a good month though I spent a great deal more on food than I have in any other month.

On a good note I spent a great deal less on smokes, going out and alcohol which are really items that I don’t need to concentrate my time and money on. I was happy with myself and the results even if I still spent a bit too much. The one unexpected expense was getting new tires for the car which cost a lot more than I would have guessed. They ended up costing almost $900 with the balancing and alignment. I can’t complain though since they needed to be replaced and I’ve been seeing the benefits from the moment they were replaced.

Now onto the Snowflaking experiment. I am using my salary (or invoiced amount) as my base income and all of my expenses have been budgeted for. The only unknown at the moment is the food costs since I seem to have spent a great deal more than I was expecting in March. The target of my snowflaking will be my Visa which I need to put $194 on this month. I was planning on putting this money on from my next invoice next Friday. Anything that I can save or make I’ll add to this amount instantly.

To make sure that I’m keeping track of my spending daily and weekly which should allow me to keep a running total of what’s going on. I would have liked to try this experiment when my income had steadied out and my new expenses were 100% known but I might be waiting for along time for this. So the goal is to simply put as much as I can onto this credit card.

• Starting Balance: $6,627.33
• Expected Payment: $194.00
• Expected Balance at the end of the month: $6,433.33 (plus interest charges)

Since there will be an interest charge during the course of the month I’m expecting the final balance to be offset by that amount (I’ll make a note of this in my final assessment) I’ll post periodic updates over the course of the month and give a more detailed update at the end. Wish me luck!

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Mid November Update

November 20th, 2007

I had some lofty goals when it came to this blog unfortunately time hasn’t allowed it and really when it comes to it I needed to pull back in a couple places of my life lest I loose my sanity and burn out. I did want to write a mid November update because aside from not being able to write as often as I was hoping the month is shaping up to be very productive on the goal front.

The side business is progressing, the business plan is mostly written (then again I don’t think any business plan should ever leave this state – its supposed to be a living document). The background work is being done and finished up. I’ve looked into what will be involved from a governmental point of view (Taxes, etc.). I was hoping to have everything in place for December 1st but that’s not very likely at this point. I underestimated the amount of work involved. The good thing is I’m probably not too far off it.

On the personal front I’ve managed to track all of my spending and to keep everything in check. I’m still overspending on a few categories but at least I’m keeping an eye out for it and conscious of my spending. I think this maybe the first month in a few where my cash flow balances on the side of positive.

Finally on the smoking front – I haven’t quit yet but there have been trial runs so to speak. A couple days here and there where I don’t smoke. For the most part I’m starting to notice what happens to me when I don’t smoke and I should be able to compensate for most of it. I’m still not great at recognizing when I’m being cranky. But I think people will simply need to deal with it if I am.

Thank you to my patient readers. I am toning back a few items that have been mentally sucking me dry as this happens I would like to start writing more again.

Posted in Monthly Planning | 2 Comments

November Goals

November 7th, 2007

I think the very first step in getting back into the writing is to set some goals both financial and literary. From a financial point of view I’ve been doing better than I have in previous months. My cash flow is starting to balance out which has been a serious challenge and is the root cause of many of my problems. To that end I need to continue to track my spending to every penny spent as this really paints a good picture for me what’s going on. Until my cash flow is under control I’m not going to worry about how my net worth changes (up or down). As for my credit cards the goal will be to not use them at all though realistically if necessary they are a fall back.

I have also mentioned in previous posts that I’m working on a couple side business ideas the goal for the remainder of the month is to continue this and ideally bring one of them to the point of operation. I’ve definitely caught an entrepreneurial bug somewhere this past year and now the goal is to focus these energies one at a time. If this works the way I believe that it will this will help ease the cash flow and debt issues a little.

Before I get into my writing goals for the month I’m also trying to quit smoking, which will make me a bit cranky here and there. Thankfully all of you reading this don’t get the pleasure of dealing with me when I am cranky. Wish me luck!

Now there have been a few topics that I wanted to write about and to ease myself back into the habit of writing daily I am going to start with posts Monday, Wednesday, Friday for the rest of the month (unless of course I manage to get some more inspiration and time). I enjoy writing on this site; it provides me with inspiration to do better while learning more about the world of personal finance.

Goals Summary:

• Keep Track of Spending
• Get Cash Flow to Balance for the month
• Don’t use Credit Cards
• Get Side Business ready for Launch
• Write 3 times per week
• Quit Smoking.

Overall I think this is a completely achievable month. Though I have to say that the last point might be a bit of a challenge and if it’s the only one I accomplish then I’ll be happy with this months results.

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October Assessment

November 5th, 2007

I may have not been writing very much in the month of October but I didn’t stop living nor spending money. You really can’t get around either without some serious effort. I managed to keep all of my finances tracked and my cashflow was only off by $100. All things considered that was a drastic improvement. This also means that I’m back in the habit of writing down all of my expenses, which I am very happy about.

The biggest issue I had with the month of October was how busy I became at the office. I would literally come home and try to avoid the computer as much as possible on the rough days. And on the days that weren’t too bad I was trying to work on my business plan. The good thing is that the business plan is in pretty decent shape and I’m actually starting to work on the details and parts of the implementation.

Overall the month was just way too busy. I had to start dropping things from my to do list that I enjoyed and wanted to do (like this blog). I needed to have time to calm down and decompress because of the 60+ hour weeks. The good news is that this is now starting to pass; the workload has lightened and there’s now help. I’m taking on a slightly different direction at the company and it won’t be nearly this rough for me anymore. At least I hope it isn’t.

I should be back to writing more frequently now, my November goals will be up tomorrow morning. I really missed the writing when I had no time for it. Now its just a matter of time getting back in the groove.

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September Assessment

October 2nd, 2007

I have to say that I’m both a little disappointed with my September accomplishments and happy with them. I ended up traveling a fair bit for work and for personal stuff (nothing bad) which impacted my overall goals a fair bit. On the positive side I was able to keep the spending down as much as possible but I wasn’t able to keep track of all of my spending so I have no accurate view of where my money went this month. This is very frustrating since this information is crucial to being able to cut down my cash flow problem. On the slight positive note I was able to keep almost all of my receipts so I should be able to reconstruct a fairly accurate picture. The goal isn’t to collect everything till the end of the month but to track it as the spending is occurring because inevitably some receipts get lost and you don’t always get one.

The monthly goal/accomplishment that I am most happy about is the fact that I was able to increase my net worth by $1,092.72 to $16,608.07, which was very nice since the goal was a quarter of that. This increase is a bit inflated since I put extra money onto my credit cards for my business travel, which is something I wouldn’t have done otherwise. I also have a couple outstanding payments, which are also not reflected in that snapshot. This month thankfully is a month with three pays (the benefits of a bi-weekly pay structure).

Overall the month just flew by and I wasn’t able to address the day to day tracking as well as I could have but on the flip side I wasn’t reliant on my cards to get me through the month. This just goes to show that although I don’t have an accurate picture of my cash flow it couldn’t have been nearly that bad.

On a final note I have started the process of planning out my business idea and I’ve actually gotten some thoughts and plans down on paper. Although this isn’t a full business plan it’s a definite start. I really need to spend more time getting this up and running because of how much of a benefit I think it could be to me financially. Ideas are a dime a dozen, even good ones, you have to act on them and try them out or they’re nothing more than ideas.

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September Goals

September 7th, 2007

September is going to be an incredibly busy month for me work wise and I don’t want to set some crazy goals for myself that are not going to be manageable. To that end I’ve come up with some goals that are similar to last months and I’m not going to try working on too many side projects on top of that. The net result when you try to take on too much is that everything suffers including the really important tasks.

To that end here are my goals for September:

• Decrease my spending my 10%
• Increase my net worth by $250
• Keep track of all my spending for the month
• Come up with a base business plan for one of my projects
• Adjust my budgeting to fit my spending.

With all of this said to decrease my spending by 10% will mean that I need to spend about $400 less this month. I think this goal is perfectly achievable especially since I’m going to be busy with work and traveling a bit. Also the summer is ending so there will be fewer trips to the boat which inevitably cost money.

Increasing my net worth by $250 is a pretty small task since as long as my assets don’t decrease or my liabilities increase just the paying down my car should be sufficient to cover this off.

I’ve been really good the last couple months in tracking my spending; it’s just a matter of continuing this trend. I’m at the point where I’ve got enough data to accurately determine my spending and where I could cut down (this meshes with the first point). At the same time this works really well with the last of my goals which is to adjust my budgeting to fit my spending. All three points that are linked should make it that much easier to achieve.

Finally I’ve got a couple ideas that I’m in the process of developing as small side businesses. I know what I want to achieve with them but unfortunately I need to make sure that both of these are approached correctly. With that in mind I’m going to build a business plan (a basic one) for one of the two ideas – this is to continue to lay the ground work for what I want to accomplish.

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August Assessment

September 5th, 2007

I have to say that I’m both happy with my results for the month of August and a little scared. First off I was able to spend a great deal more money than I earned, almost $2,000! But to put this into context this did include some furniture and some electronics (the DVD player broke) and some needed clothing. So overall there was more spending but some of it was simply necessary. From a cashflow point of view the month was pretty bad and I haven’t even had a chance to go through the numbers in detail just yet. The good news is I now have 2 months of detailed spending information that I can use to create an accurate budget for September (provided I don’t take too long to do it).

Other than the spending August was a good month, I got a couple ideas for businesses rolling which includes some possible financing/co-ownership, which will help me out greatly. These aren’t very far along but if all goes well one or both of these little ideas should bring in a little bit of extra money (I think it might be a bit early to guess about the amount just yet).

Finally from a net worth point of view I managed to increase my net worth by $1,289.93 to $15,515.35. This is a really nice rebound unfortunately its mostly due to the fact that I’ve just received my most current pension statement which had some nice growth. The unfortunate aspect of this is that it would have jumped more if I wasn’t spending money faster than it was being printed. If I’m able to curb spending next month I should be able to increase this even more.

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