I have decided to post my weekly spending for the previous week on Fridays so you know how my cash has been flowing for the week. Please note that I get paid on the last day of the month so my cash flow net effect will usually be negative until the last day of the month.

This does not mean that I am adding to my debt, it just means that the money coming in is less than the money going out because bills are due starting on the first but I don’t get paid until the last day.

So again to clarify (since I get so many questions), this shows the cash FLOW for the month. On Day 2 of every month I will have a negative FLOW because I have paid rent etc so money has LEFT my checking account. I have not had any money come in on Day 2 of the current month since I got paid on day 27 or 30 or 31 of the previous month so that income is counted for LAST month.

twentyIncome for the month to date: $51.22

Expenses for the month to date: $2427.78

Net effect: -$2376.56

Since the last posting I have paid more bills and sadly I incurred some more debt. I had to take my car in for the 75 thousand mile checkup and they discovered that I was leaking oil and needed a whole BUNCH of stuff changed because of that. Grrrrrr. The emergency fund was already dead so that really killed me this month.

Luckily I have been doing okay on the No Spend January so the money will go towards paying the extra bills.

I bought gas finally as I went on a little trip to see a friend on the long holiday. I spent $24.63 on gas which is less than half the budget for the month and since we only have one more week left that is very good. This means the balance of the gas budget can go towards repaying the bills that have jumped up.

I got some fresh fruits and olive oil in addition to some other foods that I needed.  I was happy to use a coupon for a name brand item that ended up being cheaper than the generic after coupon use. I normally buy Great Value evaporated milk but it cost $0.78 per can. I had a coupon for $0.50 off two cans of Carnation ($0.92 each) and since I only had two cans of milk in the pantry I decided to get the Carnation milk.

As you can see, two cans of Carnation would cost $1.84 and two cans of Great Value would cost $1.56. With the coupon the Carnation cost $1.34, which was a savings of  $0.22. I know this is a small amount but I got four cans with two coupons (remember this is from the free pack of coupons I got earlier during the year.)

I also bought some filing supplies (will have to claim those on my teacher expenses) so that made the shopping trip round off quite nicely. I got the kitty some litter as he had run out over the weekend (he has two litter boxes so everything was under control and I got some fruit and cereal bars to use as my snack at work.

I will see you guys and gals later as I continue my journey to save money and become debt free!!!!