Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Kaizen Progress

It has helped so much to keep all of my school websites organized. It doesn't feel like a chore to simply begin my homework. I still procrastinate, but it's not as bad, and old habits die hard. Kaizen is about the small changes anyway, and I'm happy with the progress it's helped me make.

Monthly Budget: Updated

I make $2.13 an hour, plus tips, making my income very unpredictable. I also work anywhere from 3 to 6 days a week, depending on how often I'm scheduled. This would be based on an average income I may receive in a month's time.

If I work 5 days in a week (typical), and make around $40 a shift, that would mean about $800 a month.

I can guess that I spend $150 on groceries a month. Regrettably, I probably spent $50 on eating restaurant foods a month, so that's around $200 a month (if I get cheap food). We're down to $600 now.

For electricity, I usually spent around $70. Comcast is around $60. That's $130, so we're down to $470.

I probably spend $70 a month on gas, so I have $400 left. Thankfully, my mom started helping me more with rent. I used to pay $175 a month with both parents contributing, but now it's taken care of and I can focus on buying fun things... such as car repairs.

I keep having to pay for my car repairs, so I'll add it because they will never end. I've spent $130 this month, contributing to a larger cost. The money I can expect to have left is $270. (That is, if I don't choose to spend more on the repairs)

Dog's grooming: $35
My haircut: $47
There's $188 left...

I'll probably end up spending that on extras for myself, my dog, a holiday, a party, a fun weekend... Yeah, it's all gone.

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I realize I need to change some things in order to be able to actually save money. First of all, I may need to work more (pick up shifts that other people don't want, etc.) For perspective's sake, I made $28 a couple nights ago but I made $45 last night. So yes, my income is very unpredictable.

Let's still say I have $800.

Food:
$800 - $175
I would like to spend a little more on groceries and a lot less on restaurants.

Bills:
$625 - $130
That probably won't easily change, so I'll keep that.

Gas:
$495 - $65
The price has gone down (for now), and I don't really need to go anywhere far.

Car Repairs:
$430 - $100
There will be forever something wrong with my car. I'm still paying off from last month. Thankfully, the guy who works on my car also works with me so he lets me pay him when I can. I'll ease up on that.

Miscellaneous/Fun Money:
$330 - $150
There's always going to be that late night bag of cat food I have to buy or that shirt I really want or the fair or a party... All of the social outings are so expensive, so that's why I put what I did (it's a good thing I won Howl-O-Scream tickets).

Savings:
$180
It will add up over time.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Kaizen

Something that really frazzles me when it comes to school is all of the websites I have to keep up with in order to simply get started on my work. Only one of my professors uses Blackboard, so I have several other "class websites" to keep up with. It contributes to my already bad procrastinating habits. I don't even know where to begin with homework sometimes; I feel like a hoarder trying to clean up. Something I can do to fix that, I suppose, is to bookmark all of the websites so that they're staring me in the face (not just hidden away in my notebook).