Budget recap - April

When you read through Dave Ramsey's book and browse the forums on his website, most people concede that their first few budgets are a complete joke. They're usually not accurate, there are a lot of categories that are over/under, and you usually tweak it a bazillion times.

Michael and I are no exception. Although I've kept a "budget" for years, it's never been really strict. And it was always more like a list of our bills and when we'll pay them, but any income above our bills was not budgeted so it was just spent on "stuff."

In looking at April's budget in review, I have to admit that we've become self-proclaimed masters! Our budget is really close to what we projected and in any category that we went over or under, I can pinpoint a specific incident or change that occurred that caused the overage/shortage.

Take a look for yourself:

We went slightly over on food in general, but not by a lot. Our travel was higher because Michael paid for his luggage from his tour and we're waiting for reimbursement. And we purchased some spark plugs for the car which sent us over a bit on the car repair category.

We went under in fuel because the last few weeks, Jill put gas in our car even though we didn't ask her to, so that was nice. Had she not, though, we would have spent $25 each time for $50 total - putting us right at our budget.

And we spent way less on Entertainment- we budgeted $200 for when his parents came to visit, but for the most part, their stay was relaxing and uneventful. We had to work so that didn't leave a lot of time to do much so we didn't spend nearly what we thought we would.

The $40 "shopping" was because I lost my running sunglasses and needed a new pair. I expected to spend around $40 but found some on sale and spent a little less.

I'll be curious to see where we come in at in May.

Soon I'll be able to update the debt payoff total on the right side of the blog. Seriously, I can't wait... we hit a MILESTONE this month and I can't wait to announce it! Hurry up Shitty-bank, cash the checks I sent you!!! :)

On a fitness-related note- I can barely lift my arms after those sumo deadlift high pulls from Tuesday. My forearms, biceps, triceps (from the dips), back, and chest are all incredibly sore! I LOVE IT!

Tonight I headed to the gym right from work to do CrossFit's "Elizabeth" workout. The workout calls for the following:
21 cleans
42 tricep dips (actually only 21 ring dips, but if you don't have rings or can't do a ring dip, you have to 2x's that many regular tricep dips, hence 42)
15 cleans
30 dips
9 cleans
18 dips

I did the cleans with a 55 pound bar which I'm really proud of because they are tough. I could only do 3 at a time during that last round of 9!

My time for "Elizabeth" was 9:24!!!

If I thought I couldn't feel my arms today, tomorrow is only going to be worse!

Here's a video from YouTube of a clean:


Kelsalynn