The 7 Month Budget Project

I keep talking about new directions for this blog and then only half committing to them. It's hard to commit yourself to writing on top of working 45hrs a week. I've been questioning a lot lately who I am as a person and what are my ambitions and goals. I think the answer to these questions will be found in the writing.

Going forward with this blog, I'm hoping to streamline my posts into: Politics, Travel, Budget, and Lifestyle. You can expect to see more regular posts on Canadian politics as I cover our up-coming Federal election, more posts on travel as we have a few trips coming up, a big year long budget project, and a few lifestyle posts about life as a nearly 28 year old bartender in Montreal.

My first new project that I'll be writing about is my budget plan for the rest of the year. This new plan entails a detailed tracking of all our spending over the course of each month, with a target of cutting non-essential spending (i.e take-out, shopping, coffee shop visits, etc) by 10% the following month. I want to see how we can maximize our income without minimizing our lifestyle and social life. My goals for this project will be:

• Cut 10% of spending each month (I am aware that this goal is VERY ambitious)
• Pay off our credit cards by July 31st
• Save 10,000$ by Dec 31st, 2019

I'll post at the end of each month a detailed update of how we are doing, along with graphs of our spending, plus tips and tricks. I'm hoping this project will be inspirational for anyone who is trying to learn to save. 

So where are we now financially? As of May 13th, we were debt free, having paid off all our outstanding credit card bills. Now two weeks later we have new charges on our cards, totalling 3105.00$. These charges come from a few new trips we booked (I'll be writing about those soon!), and paying for a few things for our wedding. All of our bills are paid to date, and we have 350.00$ in our checking account. As we head into June, the goal will be to accurately track our incoming and outgoing money and begin to think about ways in which we can save while still enjoying our life here in Montreal. I don't expect that every month each goal of this project will be met, but the point is to become a more conscious consumer.

I hope you guys will enjoy following this project, and hopefully it will inspire you to start saving yourself! Keep an eye out for new posts and a new look coming to the website soon.

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