$51/day

Over the course of the last few months Minhee and I have realized our need for a budget. We tend to spend without paying much attention and it leads to a certain amount of fiscal irresponsibility. So for awhile we tried to go by a weekly budget but didn't do a great job of abiding by the boundaries.

So last weekend we did a detailed breakdown of our spending and realized that after all monthly costs (rent, car loan, utilities, internet, school loans, phone, etc.) that what we had left was an average of $51/day for spending on all the rest (food, gas, shampoo, oil changes, gifts, movies, etc.). And so this week we have embarked on a new budgeting journey as we keep a daily tab of spending.

For some reason this is much more fun to me. For those who have played the board game Risk, it kind of feels like the regular deployment of resources that you get on each turn. Each morning I wake up and I have a new $51 to spend for that day. And, if I didn't spend all my money yesterday, that means I have even more today as the dollars are all "rollover dollars".

So last night I went to bed with $32 and this morning, after a fresh deployment, I walked out the door with $83 for the day. This is also very appealing b/c it forces us to pay attention to each dollar which we didn't do before. And my hope is that this will not only make us more fiscally responsible but will also help us learn to live more intentionally and allow us to become more generous with our finances.