Meal Binder - January / Financial Binder

Okay, guys. Here's the first of my "binder posts."

I decided to make a meal planning binder for this year. I'm going to do one binder at a time for each month. I did January in December, and this month I will be working on February, etc. This is supposed to help with grocery shopping and our budgeting. I know the first few months will be rough, but I'm confident it will be a piece of cake later on.

Here is the menu for dinners in January. Before finalizing it, I had my husband take a look to see if everything on there looked good to him. After that, I typed out all of the recipes. I printed them out and put them into clear sheets in the binder. That way, food and spills can't mess up the recipes. Once I start accumulating more recipes, I'm going to put them into a large binder and sort them. This will make it easier to find the recipes later.

I'm also planning on making a shopping list for each week to put into the binder. I also need to learn to buy ONLY what is on the grocery list, and nothing else.

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As for the financial binder, yeahhhh. I get really overwhelmed every time I start trying to lay out pages for that.

So far, I have my paycheck split into the following categories:

• Rent - $320.00
• Groceries - $160.00
• Debt (CC, Loans) - $200.00
• Gas - $100.00
• Spending Money - $50.00
• Laundry - $20.00
• Weight Watchers - $20.00
• Organization Materials - $20.00
• Remaining (Into Savings/Vacation Fund)

It's a start, right? I also have bills laid out on a calendar with the dates they are due. I will be trying the envelope system, which was developed by Dave Ramsey.

We haven't worked on budgeting my husband's paycheck yet, but hopefully that will be finished up this weekend. I know this is going to take a few months to perfect, so I'm going to try to be patient with it. I'm excited to see our financial status in a few months!

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This weekend, we are putting away the Christmas decorations - since the 12 days of Christmas ends on the 6th. It makes me sad, but it means Spring and warmth are on the way! Here's a Christmas photo, because I'm just not ready to let it go yet.

We are also taking both animals to get their shots updated and talking to our bank about getting approved for a mortgage (eek!). The Bengals are playing the Texans in the playoffs on Saturday, too. Busy weekend ahead! Hope you all have a good one.