Budgeting love? Me? What?!

Since December/January-ish, I have been obsessing over our budget.
And it's GOOD. It's really good. And I've NEVER been a budgeting person!
I use www.geezeo.com.
I've been using it for at least 8 or 9 months, but would use it as more of a guideline instead of being specific. It was mostly effective, but kind of not at the same time.

So starting in January, I busted out the specifics.
And I log in and categorize things every day. Sometimes multiple times a day because I like to see how we're doing. (It's weird, I know. I used to really enjoy emptying out my piggy bank and counting it as well.)

My life since the stricter budgeting has begun?
So much better.
I love feeling in control of things.
I love telling Jon about how much we've spent in which categories and keeping him aware.
And I love the challenge of seeing if I can cut costs.

Every time I make a little trip to the store, I have those numbers in the back of my head and our financial goals and things that we are saving for etc. and I actually don't make any impulse buys! (okay- except for today when I bought Alex the Clifford set of these - which is just going to come out of the grocery budget or out of Alex's "allowance".)
I like trying to see if I can do things for even less. And the planning in advance for things has been great.

Example- we're going to San Antonio for a weekend. Since I knew we'd be eating out, I figured out what food we already have and made a meal plan for the rest of the month (good thing it's a short month :) ). Now I don't have to spend as much on groceries this month because I'm making stuff out of what we already have, thus leaving a little space for us to spend a little more on eating out/other expenses of going to San Antonio.


Anyway, I just had to blog my love of my budgeting website and how having specifics and goals and limits and being able to see things in real time has helped me immensely. I'm a nerd because I rave about this to everyone. Because it's great!
For the first time in MONTHS (years?) we spent UNDER our "budget" *cough* guideline* and we were still able to "splurge" on stuff that wasn't spelled out in the budget. It rocks my socks.