Budget Slip-Ups and August Goals

I went over my budget much more this month (+ $146.17) than last month (+ $27.25). The main culprit areas were: Groceries (+ $74.49), Eating Out (+ $27.81), and Misc (+ $50.80). I really must be better about my budget than I am right now. Especially impulse grocery purchases (though I have a pantry full of stuff that needs to be used up), and impulsive eating out when I am too lazy to cook.

I spent a good three hours today reorganizing my kitchen and pantry and taking stock of all the food I have at home – all cleanly entered and color-coded in Excel. I know… it seems mad, but it will prove very useful the next few months. I am amazed at how much stuff my small pantry holds! I am even more amazed at some of the things I purchased. No doubt at some point I thought I was going to cook and eat these things, but they were stupid purchases anyway. I will have to be very creative the next few months, and I am not looking forward to it, but it will be fun to restock once I have used up a lot of this stuff.

Here are my goals for August:
• I’m going to halve my grocery and eating out budget to guilt myself into cooking more at home and using up supplies that I already have.
• Stick to the budget as much as possible.
• Maximize my snowflakes and send it towards paying my semester university fees (my tuition is paid for by my department, but the miscellaneous fees are not). This would be approx. $330 for the whole semester.
• Talk w. payroll and see if my extra pay (for the 5hrs/wk I am working on a grant application for my professor) can be sent separately directly to another account so I can use it for internship applications and/or travel expenses to India at the end of this year. If they can’t do this, set it up myself through the bank.
• List more stuff on Craigslist and Amazon, and hope it sells.