The Biggest Kitchen Table - Living deliberately & Money

Hi All,

Been rather busy so I am catching up now.

Rhonda Jean at Down to Earth is doing a week of 'the biggest kitchen table' posts so I have decided to join in although I have to play catchup as I missed yesterdays!

So firstly...

Living Deliberately & Money.

No spending week - It was suggested that we all partake in a no spending week where we do not spend any money at all on anything. Unfortunately I cannot participate in this as I need food shopping & Loo rolls, fuel for the car and as part of my part time job I go to our local social club to do the bookkeeping so need to buy drinks etc.
However I will try to keep Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri as no spending days!.

Living Deliberately
Rhonda Jean makes a great point about making sure that you are living in the moment and are sure of your goals and motivations so that you are always working towards them (and not being tempted to stray onto another path).
My main aims in life are...
To have a family and stay at home to raise the children and keep the home. I aim to do this by ensuring we have sufficient savings now whilst i'm working so we have a buffer in case of any unexpected bills. I also will ensure we have a strict budget to ensure that we pay all the bills but also that we pay the minimum so that there is more left for savings/family time & experiences.

Money
Thankfully at the end of last year we managed to pay off all of our debts we do not owe anyone for anything we have no loans, credit cards, overdrafts, car repayments, finance, even bills on installment. Everything now is saved up for and paid for in full no matter what the cost.
I like the idea of Rhonda's envelope system and think we will put this into practice as we have a few categories of spending which are a little haywire.
These are purchasing of food and going out! So I will make up some fabric envelopes and start this system soon! I think I will also make up an envelope for Allan to put his skittles money into each month.
We also have a 'bill account' as a separate account on our online banking and once a month we transfer a lump sum into it. This is analysed on a spreadsheet and the account basically is then split into categories for tv licence, mot/repairs, car tax, car insurance, christmas, birthdays, baby fund, electric, water, gas, contents insurance, pet insurance, pet emergency fund, general emergency fund and dentist and each month is equivilent to a monthly installment against this.
This system works really well for us it is just the food and going out parts that are an issue so we will work on these.

So to achieve the above I need to make some envelopes and start using the envelope system for cash purchases.