Today was payday and my Direct Deposit is now in action so my pay was in the account early this morning. Nice! And although I worked only a few hours one of the two weeks in this pay period, my pay was about $100 more than I expected. Also nice! But a powerful testimony of my poor skills with numbers.

I made enough to fund the grocery, laundry, and entertainment envelopes for the next two weeks and the remainder, small as it is, goes to savings. DH will have to fund the gas envelope but that shouldn't be any kind of burden.

DH and I went out for Mexican food tonight. We still had the original $25 we'd budgeted for 'entertainment' and decided to use it for a meal out. We had a nice time with no guilt feelings.

I just love paydays! I feel a little bit of power on these days and even though short lived, it's a great feeling.

Most of our bills are paid for this month. We do need to pay the storage bill and the Yellow Pages bill but have a little time until those are due. We have most of the money for March rent and are working on saving for March utilities even though it's still February.

Have I mentioned how much I love the envelope system? It's been amazingly successful for us!

On the smoking cessation front, it's been 2 weeks, 1 day, 12 hours, and 31 seconds. We've saved $192.84!! Go us!

We started on February 1st using Dave Ramsey's envelope system for our personal expenses of food, gas, clothing/laundry, and entertainment expenses. And so far we're doing very well. We'd budgeted $86 for food for 14 days and we're at $108.22 only 8 days into the month. Interestingly enough, that's about the amount we haven't spent by not smoking, which right now is $108.19. Ha!

We've definitely spent more than we'd budgeted. However, we still have $24 in the food envelope. The difference between the $108.22 and the amount we've spent from the envelope, $46 and some change, came from a combination of our personal spending money and entertainment money. A little over $24 of that was actually for nicotine patches rather than food so it isn't quite so bad as it looks. But I include it all in food here because I'm lazy. For you purists, I have it all properly broken down in my spreadsheet, though.

This month we're trying to spend as little as we can for most things. We're hot and heavy on the trail of an increased emergency fund and paying the bills! In light of that, we're using quite a bit of food from our pantry and eating meals like slow cooked beans, rice with a little chicken gravy and tossed salad, homemade taquitos, chili, etc. We have a beef roast, some ground beef, and several big hens in the freezer but I'm cooking with less meat for health and wealth. So rice, beans, small amounts of meat and lots of vegetables are the way to go this month!

So here's what we've spent so far:

Business rent, utilities, advertising, etc., $1000

Food, $108.22 This includes spending for groceries, eating out, snacks and drinks at work, and cat food

Gas, $49 (budgeted $86 for two weeks - will be re-funded on the 15th)

$100 for Financial Peace University

$35 to oldest stepson (we'll more than likely do this every week or couple of weeks for awhile so I might create a new envelope for it)

$60 supplies for office (not something we buy monthly - we usually don't spend even $5 on office supplies in a month)

$15 personal (budgeted $20 each for two weeks - will be re-funded on the 15th)

$7 laundry and $11 for a work shirt for me (budgeted $21 for two weeks - will be re-funded on the 15th and will have to increase that amount a little I think though I don't buy any kind of clothing every month much less every two weeks)

So far, so good. We have bills due again starting in a few days but we have most of the money for those and will have the rest by their due date, I think.

All in all, Financial Peace University and the envelope system are really helping us. And it's great to know the bills are paid..or almost paid!

In the 1 week, 1 day, 11 hours, 10 minutes, and however many seconds since we quit smoking we've saved over $105! And we've only spent $24 and some change on patches so that's a nice savings, indeed! DH will need more patches on Monday but he wants me to get Step 2 rather than Step 1.

Now, if I actually had $105.88 lying around I'd add it to my challenge money!

That's how long its been since I've smoked. DH has had a few butts here and there but certainly isn't what I'd call 'smoking'.

In the process of going a little over a week without buying cigarettes, we've saved....

drum roll, please....

$94.71!

I'll say it again - no wonder we never managed to pay bills on time and seemed to never have money. Our money was going for cigarettes. Ugh!

In response to my last entry, Tweaking our budget and envelope system, compulsive debtor suggested keeping track of every cent we spend for a month to help us come up with an allowance amount for each of us. We're doing that and it's helping us tremendously. We've done it before but even though it made a difference in our relationship with money, it didn't cause lasting changes and that's what we must have. However, I think we're in the process of making some of those changes now. So, keeping track of all money spent is going on and will continue to go on for awhile. And I think that very soon we'll have a pretty firm hand on what our allowance amounts need to be.

I just checked our quitmeter and it said this:

4 days, 10 minutes, 32 seconds since the last cigarette and $45.48 saved!

Wooohooo! Every now and then I get hit by a craving for a smoke but it happens rarely and when it does I just find something else to do to occupy my mind and hands. That seems to help. DH on the other hand is having a much harder time. He's doing very well but it's a struggle for him. He's smoked a long time and smoked about twice what I did and this is just extremely difficult for him. But I'm so proud of him for wanting to quit and working so hard to quit!

Tonight is our second FPU class. I'm looking forward to it and will more than likely post an entry about it tonight or tomorrow. I'm amazed at how much just one class has helped us and am eager to see what other progress is in store!

Wooohooo! That's how long its been since I've smoked! DH has cheated a little but all in all he's doing beautifully.

We've not smoked 155 cigarettes and we've saved.. drum roll, please.....

$30.07!

::and the crowd goes wild!::

That's our spending for yesterday and today. That includes $10.59 for food at Wal-Mart, $2.24 for a hot dog and drink for me at work, $1 for coffee for me at work, gas in our truck, and $35 for my oldest stepson. The hot dog and drinks for me at work should come out of the food money since that $87 is for groceries and eating out so I removed $3.25 from the food envelope and slipped it into the savings envelope. I'm not sure if I should have just kept it for myself since I used my money to buy the things at work but I decided to just put that money in savings. That seemed fair to me.

$66.07 seems like a lot of spending for two days but we didn't spend $28.71 on cigarettes in the last two days and that's a very good thing.

DH confessed that he found a couple of butts and has smoked them but he's an adult and I can't prevent that. As for me, I haven't had a smoke or even touched a cigarette since we quit the morning of January 31. I know myself. I can't smoke one, not even one little drag, or I'll be off and running again.

My patch came off at work last night and I haven't replaced it. I'm fine without it. Oh yeah, now and then I think about smoking but it's when I have nothing to do, which isn't often. And even when I think about it it's a fleeting thought. For some reason I don't experience the physical agony and such that so many people do. But that doesn't change the fact that I love to smoke and am addicted. Or that I have to avoid only one cigarette...the next one.

I so very much wanted to go out to eat tonight. Instead, I grabbed a container of store bought barbecued shredded beef from the freezer and nuked it and we had bbq sandwiches. I'd also put some wings in the slow cooker this morning and DH had drained them a few times for me. When I got home from work I drained them again and covered them with Country Bob's Sauce, let them cook about an hour more and we had those with the sandwiches. Not as tasty as mexican food would have been but certainly much cheaper!

And now I want a cigarette. Oh yes, I do want one. I won't have one but I want one!

Since either DH or I had a cigarette. Cigarettes not smoked - 125. Money saved - $14.06. Not bad, not bad at all.

Since DH and I had a cigarette. He's having a pretty rough go of it but I'm doing okay for the most part. I keep thinking, "Hmm, I think I'll go outside for a smoke.." then realize that I can't/won't. One end of the straw I have is chewed up, though. Ha! And I'm trying not to eat everything in sight...

This is Day 1 of what DH and I call "The Quit". Before I got up, he'd made and eaten his breakfast so when I got up I made a cup of coffee, sipped a little of it, checked email, then cut his hair for him. Rather than have that "man losing his hair but not admitting it" thing going on he keeps it cut very short all over. I like it but then, I think bald is sexy. I do! Yul Brynner was one of the sexiest men in my opinion. And while DH has much more hair than shaved Yul, I can only hope he is someday totally bald! So yes, I cut his hair for him and that's always a nice savings.

I also shaved a spot on his back for his nicotine patch and placed it on for him. It isn't sticking too well but it's there. I might have to use some medical tape to keep it on. Mine is on my left arm. And we're each in possession of a small piece of straw. It gives us something to hold in our hands and in our mouths. It really does help with the physical habits acquired during years of smoking.

So far, so good. We aren't yelling, snapping or biting one another but it's only been a short time. We'll see how the day wears on. The nice thing is, even if we have a rough day, at the end of today we'll have saved close to $10. How 'bout that, sports fans? I need to get my quitmeter up and running. It really helps keep with motivation.

So, here's to those of us who are bald or love bald, saving money, and quitting smoking. May we be successful!

It was a good day at work. It wasn't quite as busy as I like but it wasn't horribly slow, either. During my lunch break I ate my turkey pastrami sandwich and a few of my chips and drank iced water. Spending today? Nothing, zip, nada, zero!

I got home a bit ago and decided to sit for a few minutes before making dinner. It won't be anything fancy, trust me. DH is having chili dogs and I'm having chicken tamales topped with chili. Later I might have a chili dog but right now that doesn't appeal to me.

In the past, he'd suggest that we go grab something and I'd heartily agree. But tonight he didn't suggest and I didn't bring it up or even consider it. Rather, I asked him to give me a few minutes to rest before making us something to eat. He agreed and we'll soon eat our frugal but tasty dinner.

While at work I priced the store brand nicotine patches. 14 of them cost $24.99 plus tax and that box will last us one week. So, even while we're using them we'll be spending less than we spend on cigarettes. Gotta love that!

I just talked to my other half about our spending habits and the ways we waste money. He agreed with me immediately that we need to stop the waste and also agreed to some tactics I have in mind to help. One is that we stop smoking. The other is that we limit eating out to once a week. So, this Friday when I get paid I'll buy nicotine patches. The last time we used them I only needed them for 5 days and he needed them for about 3 weeks. If it goes that way this time we should have the $40 a week we normally spend on cigarettes freed up by the middle of February. And if we only eat out once a week, we'll see the savings there immediately!

**Quickie update** I was feeling a little hungry and thought about making some scrambled eggs and beef sausage. But I remembered some of the spicy chicken I used to make quesadillas was still in the fridge so I made myself a spicy chicken and cheese quesadilla and microwaved it. It was better than the skillet ones a few nights ago and I used up most of the chicken. There's still a little left, just enough for a quesadilla for DH for lunch. I asked him to please eat that up when he gets hungry. He kind of halfheartedly nodded but just now made himself a beef sausage sandwich. This isn't going to be easy!

So, wish us luck!

Last night when I couldn't sleep I perused some blogs. Ima Saver had a brief entry in hers about using the envelope method. I like her way of doing it so I figured out how much we would need to put back per week if we did it the way she does it rather than how we do it now. In reality, there isn't much difference but my mind was reeling last night so I was up late playing with numbers. What was left came to about $200. The shop income varies but that's a rough guess. Huh? $200 a week after we pay bills? We never have that much! So, where is it going?

Let's figure this out. From the $200 let's subtract $40 for cigarettes. Yes, I know we need to quit but honesty is vital here so I'm stating for the record that that is an expense. Okay, we have $160 left per week. Now let's subtract $50 a week for gas, understanding some weeks it might be more and others it might be less. We now have $110 left each week. Most weeks we spend about $45 at the grocery store. Again, this varies but that's a fairly accurate figure. We're down to $65. Throw in the $8 or so a week for laundry, the $20 or so DH gives me throughout the week for whatever I might need and we're down to $37. From that subtract the drinks and snacks he likes to get when out and about and whatever little incidentals might come up. Uh huh, that's where it goes! But wait, somewhere in there we eat out and we do it too often! Hmmm, no wonder we're always short on bill paying money!

So now I know why we never have $200 after putting money in the envelopes. The question is: what can we do about it?

Well, the first and most obvious thing we can do is quit smoking. That frees up about $40 a week, though not immediately as we'll use the nicotine patch which is expensive. It's cheaper than cigarettes, though, and once we're finished with them the money spent for them will be available. We're already pretty frugal with groceries and because of dietary restrictions we can't get much lower than $45 a week so that will need to stay about the same. However, we can reduce the food we waste and further reduce eating out which will help a lot.

So if we just quit smoking and cut back on eating out, $70 or so a week will be freed up. Hmmm, in theory, anyway. This all looks fine on virtual paper but how realistic is it? That's what I don't know.

Something else for me to ponder today while at work....

I went to bed but couldn't sleep. I have a knot on my gum that is causing me some discomfort. I got up to take some aspirin and drink something hot but that hasn't helped much yet. So here I am again, reading and thinking, thinking and reading.

Here are more of my musings on creating some kind of financial plan for this year. It's hard! But putting my thoughts in a blog entry and getting feedback seems to help the process. So does reading the blogs of others. I've gotten some excellent ideas and am very thankful for that. On the other hand, I read the blogs of some members (like Ima Saver and Lux Living) and feel like such a spendthrift at times! But that's not necessarily a bad thing. If reading their blogs inspires me to do more to cut back here and trim there and save this way or that way, this is a very good thing! Again, I'm thankful.

I've thought a lot about waste the last couple of weeks. I'm not sure why but it's been on my mind. Perhaps the recent political issues in the news got it started. Then I talked to my youngest son tonight. He's an OTR driver and called me from Indiana and we got into a discussion of government waste and the national sales tax concept. Regardless, waste of this sort and that sort has really been in my thoughts lately.

DH and I are wasteful. Compared to many we aren't but compared to many others, we are. I think we're too wasteful and want to work on reducing waste.

We throw soft drink cans in the trash. That's wasteful when we can sell them for a little bit and that could be added to the challenge money or put in savings.

We smoke still. Yes, we quit for almost a year but started again. We smoke less than half of what we used to smoke but it's still costly in many ways and wasteful. We need to quit. Period.

We try very hard not to waste food and for the most part we're good about that but we do it at times. We need to put an end to it and eat or freeze leftovers before cooking something else.

We waste time. Oh, do we! We're at the shop more than anywhere else and unless we're open we're wasting time. There's no television at the shop but we stay online when not busy. There are other things we could be doing - reading books about personal finance, discussing strategies to save and the need for a plan for 2008, continuing to work out goals for our marriage, etc. Surely there are more constructive ways to spend spare time.

Those are just four ways in which we're wasteful. The first three directly impact our finances and eliminating or greatly reducing them could save us a bundle. Quitting smoking alone would save us about $35 a week. The last one indirectly affects our finances but I'm not sure what the solution to it is or if that solution would save us money.

Okay, now I'm all verklempt. Give me a moment..feel free to discuss amongst yourselves. Opinions, suggestions, accolades and spare change welcome!

DH made sales calls today and ran to the post office to mail some things. He spent $13.44 at the post office and that's it. I haven't spent a cent in days and days.

Oops, that wasn't it. He told me he also spent about $5 on a drink, peanuts, and a pack of cigarettes.

So the total is $18.44

I didn't quit smoking on the 1st as I'd planned but I did quit on the 2nd of January. This is what my quit gadget just gave me:

17 hours, 55 minutes and 29 seconds smoke free.

60 cigarettes not smoked.

$7.00 and 11 hours of your life saved.

Wow, $7 saved already! Impressive