Frugal Babe

A rich life without a lot of money

Keeping Track Of Our Spending

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Recently I got an email from a long-time reader, asking me if we still keep track of our monthly expenses.  I guess the answer is both yes and no.  We do pay close attention to what we are spending, and I check our bank balances and credit card transactions on a daily basis.  But we… Continue Reading

Credit Card Spending Goals

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My husband and I have a self-imposed $1000/month spending limit for our credit card.   We put everything on the card, so it’s a good way for us to keep track of our spending.   When we’re getting close to the end of the billing cycle, we’re usually pretty close to our $1000 too, and… Continue Reading

Back On Track

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I’m happy to report that we seem to be back on track financially.   We’ve had a long-standing self-imposed spending limit of $1000/month for everything that can possibly be charged to a credit card.   This includes things like our phone bill, gas, food, entertainment, etc. but does not include things like the mortgage and… Continue Reading

A Happy Surprise

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Our corporation got its final commission check for 2007 today, and it was bigger than usual from that particular insurance company.   Combined with the fact that our business expenses were quite a bit lower in December than usual, we have about $1000 left over in our business account.   So we’re getting holiday bonuses…. Continue Reading

Financial Accomplishments in 2007

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We’ve both had our final paychecks for 2007, so I have total numbers available for income and savings.   Our pretax income was $70,106.   We paid a total of $15,618 in taxes – not sure if we might get some of that back or not (this was our first year of being W2 employees… Continue Reading

A Bonus I Forgot

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Last night, on our way home from the gym, my husband got a hankering for Village Inn.   We haven’t been to a Village Inn in years, but as we were driving by (like we do every night), he said he felt like going in.   What the heck – we’ve been spending less than… Continue Reading

September Expenses

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Time for the September expenses.   I can’t believe I haven’t always kept track of our spending like this – it makes everything so much more clear!   Anyway, here it is: After-Tax Income:   $4793 Expenses: mortgage = $1266 groceries = 451 health insurance = 329 household = 148 gasoline = 101 dermatologist =… Continue Reading

A New Credit Card Record Low

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At the end of July, we decided to start tracking our expenses.   August was our first full month, and we find that tracking feels pretty easy now – we don’t have to remind ourselves to keep receipts and enter them in the computer, we just do it out of habit.   Sort of like… Continue Reading

Expenses for August 2007

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Well, we just finished our first month of tracking expenses.   We’re not going to be spending money for the rest of the day, so I decided to post the results for this month.   It’s interesting to note that we’re on track to have one of the lowest credit card bills we’ve had in… Continue Reading