New Week, New Goal

I just finished reading the lesson for this week and received a lot of really great insights. I loved how the lesson said:

"Our attitude determines how we cope with financial difficulties and their long term effects."

No matter what our circumstances regarding finances any difficulty we face our attitude can determine how well we cope. This is my first goal for this week, improve my attitude towards the reality of our finances.

One of the ways I am going to work on that this week is to follow the counsel of our prophet that he gave yesterday in conference (wasn't conference wonderful!?). President Monson talked about how we often fill our minds with trivial matters (I think I do this a lot) instead we should be focusing our energy and our thoughts on things of an eternal nature.

This week I am going to keep myself from thinking about or feeling disgruntled by our lack of money, our debt and my desires to make certain purchases. I think it will be so relieving to simply not think about those things (I don't think it is going to be easy, but I have hopes that I will at least get better at it as I go through the week).

My second goal is related to budgeting. I am kind of a nerd when it comes to budgeting. I actually really like it. I love knowing and watching where our money goes. I love seeing us keep within our budget. I love watching our savings grow.

Since D started law school the budget has been an interesting beast and although we have a set budget it has been months since we stayed within that budget. I am tired of this happening and I am determined to make changes so that we can stay within our budget.

1. I am going to access what changes need to be made. I can't be successful in keeping our budget if it really isn't realistic. If we really and truly need to add $50 more dollars to our grocery budget then so be it. Can we do without the $15 allocated to entertainment and try to find other activities that don't cost money? These are the types of questions I am going to ask myself.
2. I am going to be conscious of my purchases and limit spending so that I can stay within our budget.

Number 2 is going to be the tough one. I am not a crazy spender but when I really want something I am pretty good at finding a really great reason why we need to buy it. I think I also get caught justifying a lot of little $1-5 purchases. These add up and most of them we could probably do without. Needless to say I have my work cut out for me. My hope is that after this week I can think and act more wisely with regards to our finances. 

What are your goals for the week? How do you keep yourself from spending money on unnecessary things?