money, money, money

While my brilliant plan to make and stick to a budget hasn’t happened yet, I’m at least starting to track my finances. That is, I’m paying attention to how much money I’m losing versus how much money I’m gaining from my investments. Unfortunately I’m not taking such notes at any sort of regular intervals, so my data is rather splotchy.

At least now my work check is deposited consistently on time thanks to direct deposit. And my boyfriend helped me set up automatic payments for my phone and cable bills, which means that cash disappears from my checking account “on time” too. I’m saving plenty just paying these bills on time. Of course, my payment for my car insurance and car registration renewals are late. Or at least I think they are. And my rent check is due soon and God knows if I’ll get that in on time. I’m out of town for the weekend, so I’ll have about 24 hours to remember to drop off my rent check when I get back before I get a hefty $50 late fee tacked on to my already ridiculous $1050 a month rent.

Anyway, looking at my data, I see that on June 21 I had $25,140 (total in savings/checking/investments/etc) and on August 29, I have $24,762. That means I’ve lost a whopping $378. Ok, so that’s not too bad, considering my mutual fund and Roth IRA investments are down. It looks like somehow or other I haven’t been overspending by too much. After all, I didn’t even get a paycheck for one pay period in July since I was taking time off in between jobs. Still, I need to reverse that and start MAKING money each month. I’d be surprised if I end up spending more than I make next month, but we’ll see about that. I have one heck of a talent for overspending, regardless of how much money I’m making!