Money, where are you?

That's what other people say. But I know where our money went coz I've been recording our Monthly expenses thru Microsoft Excel in my laptop. I've been keeping receipts too thinking that I might exchange or return an item later which happened every now and then. Keeping the receipts really helped me track our spending habits but that's not enough. I thought that recording expenses and knowing where the money goes is a good idea that a couple should do but reading about money from experts changed my views. I started writing down the amount that I want to save (for emergency purposes) for one month and then divide the remaining amount for 31 days. In that way, I know how much money that we can spend in 1 day, 1 week and 1 month. At first I thought it's easy but seeing the written numbers surprised me and that's the reality. I never thought that we're spending more than we should. I learned something from Melissa d' Arabian the new winner of The Next Food Network Star when she mentioned that she made a recipe out of her pantry when she overspent buying clothes for her little girls. That words struck me. I should do the same coz our pantry is overflowing and we run out of room for the new items that we just bought. Anyways, I handed hubby my written down budget the other night after dinner and he said "I can do that". He admitted that he made some impulse buy lately and will try not to do it again. Well, we both made mistakes and admitting it is a good start. So now we're planning to beat the temptation from buying unwanted items and hoping for a successful Victory in the end. This time, we'll try our best. :)