It's days before Christmas and I am among most people who still have a few last minute errands to do and wrapping to get accomplished all while trying to juggle normal life until a (small but sweet) holiday break from work. All the while, my ever pending budget and bank account looms over me, especially now that we are expecting our little baby boy to arrive in four and a half months. We had our ultrasound this past monday and found out we are 'Team Blue' which also poses the internal war of "I want to go buy boy things NOW!! Everything is SO CUTE!!" vs. "No! Don't spend money! You have plenty of time before he gets here and you know between showers and your registry and everything you will have MORE than enough 'stuff' jam packing your house so just wait! Also, you need to be SAVING for baby to get here so you can (somewhat comfortably) be able to take time off of work (without pay) and have a little cushion to get you through!" AHHHHH! The SAVE! vs. SPEND! monsters sitting on my shoulders always having wars with each other.
So I have decided, even in the midst of holiday shopping and spending to start one of my New Year's resolutions early (thank goodness I don't have to worry about the whole 'dieting' resolution this year as I am growing a human inside of me!) and re-evaluate and establish a new budget, aka the 'Now we have a baby budget'. We do use mint.com to help us see where our money goes, which is great, but also as a hairstylist I get a lot of tips in cash and that is harder to keep track of. I always say that the cash will be our spending money and that I'll use our card/bank account only for bills and necessities like groceries, etc. but the line gets blurry and I never stick to that plan.
I'm even thinking about going back to the good old 'envelope system' where you have labeled envelopes to put money aside in and that's what you will spend the money on and ONLY that. I have some tweaking and fine tuning to do with this new budget but I am bound and determined, especially for my new little man, to have our financial situation as organized as possible for him to have a good start to life as he enters the world! (I CAN'T WAIT!!!! :)
This is my morning rant as I go through the motions of getting ready for the holidays and getting ready for our baby all while trying to live life day to day with as low of stress as possible and get the most out of it.
