Budgeting

This week I made myself a budget. We're trying to work on saving some money to put towards the house we'll be building and also of course, for some fun. I used the Gail Vaz-Oxlade interactive online budgeting tool to help me look at how much money I make, and what I'm spending it on. The principle is that you add up all of your income for one month, take off your fixed expenses, and calculate your variable expenses. You then take the variable expenses and divide them on a week by week basis, and voila, you've got the money you can spend each week. 

This has already made me aware of a few things. One, moving into your own home, there are some things that you might need to purchase that are outside of your regular necessities. Like, a cat litter mat. Seems like something you could live without, but when you've got a cat that loves kicking litter all over the house, it soon becomes an issue. Or, if you have a friend over that isn't so comfortable sitting on the floor. We came up with a solution, but it was interesting. 

It has also however, made me conscious of the things that I don't need. For example, I spent most of my weekly allowance already on groceries. Admittedly, I got more than one week's worth of some things just because I went somewhere a little out of the way. But I just shrugged and figured, well, I guess I'll just have a very frugal rest of my week. This isn't including gas of course. At this point, that's not an option. 

This has reminded me of why I want to simplify. If I can live without so much, what do I really need except an income, the fuel for my body, the roof over my head, my family and of course, kung fu.