Frugal Fail: Busted Budget

We all know where good intentions lead.

... in this case, to a frugal failure.

It isn't so much that I totally blew our grocery budget, clothes budget, craft budget or any other money restrictions out of the water. It's more that I completely lost track. Hopelessly so.

It happened like this: one day, after the commissary, I did not write down in my Excel ledger how much I spent. The next day, after I shopped somewhere else, I did the same thing.

And so on and so forth, until I realized I was so hopelessly behind that spending time catching up would be worth more in time than any amount of money I've saved at the store.

There's always next month, right?

To make things easier I finally sat down and figured out how to use the Mac version of Excel, Numbers. I am ashamed to admit that it took me, oh, a year, to get around to that and yet it was not hard. Or really any different than Excel. I'm just that much of a procrastinator.

But what this means is that now I can use my mac for both my lists, shopping and account keeping. Previously I'd open the PC, open the Mac and put them beside each other. I'd then open Excel on the PC, the bank account on the Mac and worked it that way. ... but the PC is slow. S-l-o-w. On it's best day. And so this becomes a time consuming process. But who likes to go to the trouble of getting out a second computer?

So now I can do it all on Mr. Mac.*

The other thing that has thrown a catch in my whole budget-bank account-syncing is my trip to D.C. and our upcoming one in two weeks. While the foundation paid for it all, it was more like they are GOING to pay via reimbursement. Meanwhile my credit card bill is looming, waaaaay higher than normal, awaiting that lovely check.

And as for the budget, like I said above, there is always next month for keeping track accurately. I do know that we have been spending less. I do know that we have been saving more. I'm just not clear on how much more or less there is.

*In other news, related only because it is also by Mr. Mac, I discovered that Magic Eraser really IS magic! It gets rid of those ugly, black palm marks my hands leave next to the touch pad. So exciting.