I average spending about $11.00 a day on lunch or roughly $220 a month. That is just on lunch. This is completely ridiculous. In all honesty, it is a bit embarrassing for me to admit that I do this! So how am I going to deal with this monumental waste? By planning ahead.

I have a rough budget that I follow, and yes I factored in this current cost. What is going to happen is the following. First, each Sunday I will sit down and plan out what I am going to eat each day for lunch. Seriously, I am writing down a list for Monday-Friday. One of those day will be a day where I eat out. The reason for this is social/networking. The current job I have is through networking and staying in contact with old coworkers and friends. Next, I will take that list to the grocery store and buy what I need. Finally, I will post on here about it on Saturday as a way of accountability to see if I stuck to my budget. For the moment, I am scheduling $30.00 for lunch money through the week.

This is part of the battle. Identifying where my week areas are and fixing them one at a time. I know there are plenty more, but this is the next step. Once this is under control, I will improve another area. Keep in mind, I am still paying down debt so every improvement is speeding that process along.

-Kevin

1. Debt: I have a little under $5,000.00 in credit card debt. This amount is going down quickly, and barring any bad decisions I should have it gone within six months.
2. Emergency Fund: I currently have $1,000.00 in a savings account. This is a great start, (considering where I came from), however I want to get it to three months of living expenses or about $5100.00.

These two are my main goals to get myself on track. Great progress has been made in reducing my overall debt in the past year. I was at around $10,000.00 in credit card debt. Once these two goals are met, I will continue to grow my emergency fund until it is six months of my expenses, work on increasing my 401k contributions to 10%, and save money for a down payment on a house.

Several things are changing in the next couple of months. My roommate just got engaged, so I am going to have to find a new place to live. There are several apartments around that are reasonable, although I am also looking for a possible roommate as well to save a little money. The emergency fund estimate listed above is assuming I don’t find a suitable roommate.

So tay tuned next month to see how I am doing.

-Kevin