Organize My Life - Budgeting!

Yeah, I think my parents definitely decided to sell, they just have to decide what they want to buy first. It's so confusing.

I didn't get to that bin until yesterday. I suck. But what I did do is stay up til 5:30 yesterday morning working on budget spreadsheets in Excel. I made one for this month and plugged everything in, using a template provided for free even in my Starter version. I then made one for every month for the rest of 2012. I threw in thirty bucks for Ever's Halloween costume in October, if I feel like dressing her up. (It's a photo-op and I just can't resist those.) I budgeted in for Christmas in December, deciding how much we should spend on Ever and whether or not Erik and I will pay for our gifts to each other ourselves or if they can come out of the family budget. I allotted for a forty-a-month-each cash allowance for whatever the fuck we want. (We need that system.) And, even though December ended up negative, I managed to have us saving one hundred dollars a month - and that's without me getting a better job (I'm meeting with the guy from the Animal Research Center at St. Jude's next week Thursday, though) and with him leaving Best Buy after August.

Guys, I even budgeted in a box of my hair dye every month.

I wasn't done there. I went ahead and made a quarterly sheet for July through September and one for October through December. Then I made a yearly one, though it only calculates June through December. Then I went fancy and made those sheets (all in one file, a feature that makes me nerdgasm over Excel) calculate automatically.

Then I made 2013, January through December.

I was on a roll, guys.

I have a cold that hit hard Monday morning and basically wiped me out. I stayed up late with friends Sunday to celebrate Ever's baptism and then slept til after four in the afternoon, unable to make myself wake up. Then I napped all evening after dinner until I woke around ten or eleven. Then I couldn't sleep.

Do you want to see the beautiful fruits of my labor? (The answer is yes.)

You should totally look at it full-sized. It's awesome. Even though I forgot to turn "monthly" into "yearly" in the income sections. Oops...

I got to brag about it to Erik in the morning and then my mom. At first this will only be to find out how much we spend, where we can save, and eventually how much we can afford to live on when we move out. As it stand now, we're never getting the hell out of here. But if some things change around (if Erik gets a personal trainer job when he finishes classes, if I get a better job) we'll be able to work it out, and I'll e able to figure it out with the help of my handy-dandy spreadsheet.

I'm so excited, guys.

On a related note, I did get to the yellow bin last night. I had very little to throw away, but there were a lot of loose papers and folders just stacked in the bottom of the bin that I needed to file, plus a chunk of unused or barely used notebooks/journals that I need to rehome. I began to condense all Erik's school crap before needing to go to bed. (It was already a little after three.)

However, the only reason I wasn't able to do more was because in between I stopped and put away two big baskets full of Ever's laundry. There was so much folding and hanging! Then I went so far as to completely redo all her clothing storage. She has a new home for her socks, I got all her hats and bibs in their bin, and I relegated all pants, leggings, and skirts to a bin in the cubical shelves, even if they were the match to anything. My back was throbbing and burning by the time I'd finished. But hey, now I know where everything is. Erik doesn't, but I do. Haha.

There's so much that I want to do and so much going on. And I go back to work next week. Both excited and desperately not looking forward to it. I wanna get out of the house, but I don't wanna be on my feet that much. I hate retail. Hopefully it'll help give me the boost to lose all this weight, though. Anyone heard of the three day diet? I'm tempted to give it a shot while my dad's out of town. Problem is, I hate tuna. I don't think I like grapefruits, either, but I can give it a shot.

I've got more I want to do, but tonight is a break night, I think. I've got laundry going, a major multi-day project that's been building up and needing tackling. It counts. I need to be lazy, and maybe try to sleep at a decent hour tonight.

I leave you with my favorite picture from her exorcism baptism:

IT BURRRRRRRRNSSSSSSSS!!!!!