I (we) have two checking accounts with BofA, and one with Chase. I gave each account a "color" and ordered checks in those particular colors to keep everything straight. On my budget, I note the color the bill was paid from.



So, one BofA is Green, and one is Yellow. Our Chase is Blue.

So... why not open an Orange account? Especially @ 3.00% interest? There was no reason why not, so I did.

I have 200.00 going to our regular Savings account (which currently is colorless) - so I will change that so 1/2 of that will go to Orange. I want to keep some cash in our local Savings, just in case - but I also plan on using our Blue account just for the Escrow, Allowance, Household, and Emergency Fund - so once that is built up - I can switch to add more of that amount to the Orange account.

So - I have a plan, and everything is in place. I just cannot wait to start seeing the difference my plan makes.

What a month. Budget wise - we were okay until last weekend - where we got a little Target happy (baby shower for twin boys) and eating out happy (hangs head in shame). I cannot believe we did it again. Over extended ourselves.
My Verizone Wireless bill came in $100 over budget (those kids and IM - locked down the phones though). We ran out of so many "every other month" things in the middle of the week (when, seriously, who has time - or money - to shop?) like toilet paper, baby wipes, and paper towels.
I know - "Get back on the horse" - and I plan to. I think it was last Saturday, when we went out to a BBQ place for dinner (the 5 of us) and I signed the check for $64.00 (of which 0 was budgeted) and realized that could have been a week's worth of groceries. I have been so mad at myself ever since.

I find myself reading the blogs every day - but not having my luck @ writing. I think I need to write every day - to remind myself to stay on track.

Okay - with April over, I wanted to look @ what we did. Mind you, April was our first month on this particluar budget. I think we did okay... we learned a lot, and cannot wait to make a huge difference in May.

As I mentioned before, we started out negative in April, as we had to catch up on two bills. I am happy to say, we did just that.

Because we had to pay certain things this month, our savings took a hit, and we have no EF or Escrow $$. We will start those this month!

I had something happen to this month, I had to pay for a huge mistake I made 3 years ago. Huge. To the tune of $544.29. I didn't mean to cause drama... I just never took care of it. I will never do that again - ever. It cost me something more than just the $544.29 I had to shell out. Anyway - It's hard when you make a committment to do the right thing, and for three or four months, all is well - and then BAMMMM!! something from your past catches up to you. It un-nerved me, to say the least. Plus I had to come up with the cash, and make 2 car payments to my Malibu. 2 good things happened surrounding that though. 1) I had to go to downtown Phoenix, and had DH and lil DS with me. We then had to go to another city...it was around lunch time. So we stopped at Wendy's - even though we should have saved the money. After trying to order, and get everything right (the machine was doing weird things) - it wouldn't take a credit/debit card payment - so we got a free lunch! Kinda nice! And then, DH's paycheck was $600.00 more than usual due to OT. So, the Big Guy up there was saying, "Teaching you a lesson, but still going to be nice about it - not going to knock you off of your feet, totally".

It's been a crazy few weeks.

I don't like that Target beat me. I hate that we used our debit cards a few times (shame on us). But it's a learning experience. We will get there.

So, without further ado... here'ssss April!

So... curious as to when we will get ours... anyone know?

Last two of primary SSN - 87
Filed/Postmarked April 14
Owed - 700 bad boys.

Any idea if it will come soon?

TIA!

P.S. I have a lot to post abt, just very little time. Hope tonight will work. I want to examine what we did in April.