2nd paycheck from husband's new job. I've been sticking with YNAB and it is nice to see GREEN categories for all our bills because I have put back the money.

I worked extra on web design this month and I should have about $450 to throw at the credit cards. That is nice, hopefully I can keep it up and pay them down quickly.

Husband did a little bit of balking last night at our new budget. He seemed to have thought that the $400 additional money he will be getting a month would just be "extra" and he was miffed when he only ended up with $70 for spending money this week... (He thought he would get to blow that first $400 extra) I had to sit him down and go through the budget with him explaining that in the past we didn't budget for things like car insurance so we would just scramble to pay that large chunk every 6 months. Now on paper we have a line item for everything and it is taken out weekly. No more living check to check.

In the past he got about $30 a week to cover any spending he did. Usually his extra spending was going over on groceries or a clothing/house shopping trip every once in a while. Right now he is getting $70 a week which he will use to buy a couple splurge items he has been wanting. In about 2 weeks $20 a week will start coming out for retirement, and then in March another $25 a week will be taken for insurance. Then he will be down to $25 a week spending. He is freaking out that his spending will be even tighter than it used it be but we also budgeted more for groceries so his personal spending should be able to be used for actual fun stuff rather than than covering discrepancies.

I asked him to just try it for a while and see how it goes. We can make adjustments if needed but I think $100 a month for fun is more than enough... He honestly doesn't buy anything for himself, it is always groceries, or getting Chinese takeout once a month or less, or getting a few needed clothes. Now that our entire budget will be less tight I think he will actually get to use his fun money for fun and he won't feel so poor. We'll see how it goes.

I get about $55 a week for "spending" which is almost always used for housing purchases, or covering discrepancies in the budget. Neither of us are big wasters or have expensive hobbies thank goodness.

For example, since husband is going to be starting night shift soon we HAD to get some blackout blinds for our bedroom. (We have no curtains or blinds anywhere in the house.) Well I found some on sale for over 50% off, after searching for a while I could not find anything else that would fit our windows that was cheaper so I went ahead and bought them. About $115, yikes. But a needed purchase, so there goes my "spending" for a couple weeks.

Once we get used to this budget we might have to chunk out our spending categories even more. Maybe add a clothing line item and a housing line item. But I didn't want to get too strict right away. We will re-evaluate at the new year.