Living from Envelopes

As part of our "husband is home from war" to-do list, we are taking stock and reexamining our budget.

If you know me at all, you know I LOVE saving money, or feeling like I'm saving money (two entirely different things, lets be honest). This budgeting business is just another way to do it ... or to do it better ... or to keep track of how I'm doing on it. Whatever.

I've been inspired over the last year by a variety of sources, including ladies at my PWOC chapter, a few blogie friends and, most recently, the lovely Alisha, to look into the whole Dave Ramsey budgeting system, which includes a detailed plan and paying cash for certain things, such as groceries.

Over this holiday weekend the husband and I have made a budget and started using the envelopes. We are doing a few practice weeks over the end of February, just getting the hang of things, and will start diving fully into the system come March. The reason for this is our fluctuating income (thank you, post deployment) and an inability to figure out exactly HOW MUCH we are making due to the whole mid-month government LES business.

Alisha will be making me some truly lovely envelopes so that I dont have to use the boring white ones. So phew that's done. And I'm taking a new view towards our groceries to make sure I'm not only using coupons, but preparing meals that are economic to start with (think: chicken and vegetarian meals based off commissary sales).

For this coming week (starting tomorrow) our menu plan is:

Tuesday:
Hamburgers (a Luke request)
Pineapple

Wednesday:
Cheesy beans and rice

Thursday:
Honey-mustard chicken

Friday:
Ravioli with sweet potatoes

Saturday:
crock-pot sloppy joes (to use up those extra hamburger buns from Tuesday)
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In other news, I'm actively preparing for my triathlon! I'm going to try to add a countdown clock to this blog. Luke bought me a bike we found on sale! ... more info later.