Okay, so I know it is now the middle of July, and I’m just now looking at what happened with my June budget. But we had two birthdays and a holiday in there. Better late than never!
On a positive note, I saved $176 using coupons in June. I got a lot of free or near-free stuff using coupons such as cereal, razors, face wash, canned tomatoes, lotion, and baby body wash. It was a good month in terms of stocking up.
On the other hand, I’ve noticed an unfortunate trend in our monthly spending. We’re a bit like the iguana that grows to the size of its tank. The more money we earn, the more we spend.
My husband is teaching two online classes this summer as part of his job as a community college instructor. We love the flexibility of his summer teaching schedule. He doesn’t have to travel at all for work. He can simply head downstairs to our home office to do his job. It’s also flexible in terms of the times he works. He usually does some work in the mornings and again in the evening after the kids are in bed, but has most of the daytime hours free to spend with us. It’s a GREAT schedule.
In addition to having more time to spend with the family, his salary for the summer courses is on top of his regular salary. So for 10 weeks of the summer we nearly double our regular salary. It’s a nice boost to our finances.
Needless to say, all the extra money is a real temptation for us. And on top of that, we have more time on our hands to spend it.
While we should be saving on gas and squirrelling away the extra cash, we’ve actually gone to town more, out to eat more, and bought more toys and things.
Now I know that it’s okay to splurge a little bit. We’re not overspending; we’re just not saving as much as we could.
The greater risk is that we’re getting a little too used to spending this larger amount of money. I worry that when the fall rolls around, we’ll have a rough adjustment back to the regular pay.
So, for the last few weeks of the summer session, we’ll try to put divert more of my husband’s paycheck into savings. This will help us boost our savings and get us used to living on our regular income once again.
We’re doing okay in July. We’ve had a few extra expenses, but things have been much more controlled.
We’re definitely human. And we’re learning as we go.
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