Adventures in Budgeting

This post may seem pretty boring and mundane to most people, however I get excited whenever I feel like I am able to become more self sufficient. and the following is one small way I am trying to increase my independence. As a hint of what this involves:

Lately I have decided I want to be in better control of my finances. Don't get me wrong, I already do pretty well with my personal finances. I am very diligent about tracking where everything goes, I just haven't been very good at planning where it will go. The biggest culprit...

What can I say, I love to cook especially for other people. The whole cooking for other people can get me in trouble because I will think, "This just needs 1 more thing to make it perfect!" and then after thinking that several times I have spent too much.

This is where the budgeting comes in. Now every time I get payed I get my grocery money for the next two weeks in cash. When the cash runs out, so does the food buying. This is working great for me, as I don't tell myself exactly how I have to spend the money just on a general category called groceries. This is preventing me from feeling strangled by my own budgeting practices, which is why it has never worked for me in the past.

Now that my grocery spending is more under control, I am feeling like I am doing much better in this aspect of my life. Now onto the next aspect of  self sufficiency...