Congrats on getting through your first full week of tracking your expenses! If you missed adding or confirming any of your spending, saving, or giving, that’s okay. Take some time to catch up now.
Today’s Assignment
- Get caught up. Add or confirm any transactions in Goodbudget that you missed earlier in the week. Tip: If you’re having a hard time keeping up with adding your transactions, Goodbudget Premium can sync with your bank and bring your transactions into Goodbudget automatically. Then you can skip adding all your transactions and just confirm and categorize them.
- Reflect on the week. What surprised you about your own spending? What was challenging about the week? What was fun or brought you joy? Don’t forget to share your reflection with your budgeting partner. And leave a comment below to let your fellow budgeters know how it went too!
Note for couples: It’s very possible one of you is a more detailed tracker, while the other might be better at seeing the big picture. That’s okay, and it’s actually a strength! Agree on a system that will allow you both to get the info you need, while playing to each person’s strengths. In some couples, one person hangs on to receipts, and the other puts them in. Or in others, one person only puts in their own cash transactions, while the other puts in everything from the debit card by logging into their bank’s website.
Happy budgeting,
-The Goodbudget Team
17 thoughts on “When We Fall Behind…”
I had a conversation with my budgeting partner about how much I eat out. I think it’s higher than it could be, but it brings me some joy and enjoyment, so I’m going to have to figure out a happy medium.
I am definitely the logger in my relationship, and my husband is definitely the “bigger picture” type, so I let him know where we’re at with the spending when we start to get low and we both ease back.
I noticed how much we eat out during the week. We definitely need to budget that expense.
I found that I started to not add things into my budget. My husband and I both spend out of the same account and he forgets to tell me when he spends money or how much he spends which makes me feel like I will never have the account balanced. It can be frustrating. We are working on the communication part now.
I am generally really good at keeping receipts. And have a specific place i put them. So this should go pretty smoothly.
I noticed I missed adding things to the app a lot my budget doesn’t reflect what I am actually spending
When I feel I am falling behind I take from a splurge area and do without that treat for the week
I eat out way too much! Period.
I need to be rell careful now what my expenance
The surprising part for me was how much money I spend because of a emotion.
at the end of the week my envelope for working was full of money and my fun envelope was empty.
Our spending was no big surprise to me and hardly out of our budget because we’ve been doing this for years. What we are finding difficult is learning the really really stretch a dollar. We both make a good wage but we’ve seen a drastic increase in the cost of gas, and food and that has been difficult to re-adjust into a tight budget.
I was able to easily track my expenses and write them down. There’s still the issue of eating out and buying snacks. Putting down every little expenses was fun to do.
Right now, I’m kind of all over the place. I need to get a better grasp on my over all spending and then focus on specific areas.
I feel like I came a long way this week. My Wife suddenly asked me for $100 for something random, and I explained to her why we can’t just jump into it like that. She understood.
I felt like it was kind of stressful trying to stay on track with where I should be spending things and where I didn’t allot for. There was some impulse buying, but I managed to keep it under $5.00. (I found something that would be used for a upcoming holiday that I hadn’t thought I’d find at this time of year.) My adhd wanted to create a problem by saying something like this – I don’t want too. I deal with numbers all day at work and now you want me to deal with more. I managed to override that feeling but boy that can be hard.
My monthly pedi is included as a fun budget item. it almost counts as a need. My eyesight is failing and I’ve nicked my toenails by mistake to the point they bleed when trimming them myself. That said, I had not budgeted for the total amount. I had not factored in the tip that I give. Or the taxes that are charged. To compensate I’ll stretch the time between pedis. This is not something I had considered before.
I feel like I have a real good idea of my spending. I like to save money, so this week went well for me.