Balancing Budget

Sometimes I'm not super careful about my budget. It ends up getting away from me. This time it ran away on me for several reasons:
1. There was holiday money on my second paycheck of the month.
2. The second paycheck was also the beginning of my health insurance through work.
3. I wanted extra money around to do the OLAY rebate.
4. My boss finally gave me my raise and back dated it, but gave extra on my third paycheck.

Okay . . . Now I know what my normal pay check looks like (about 10-15 over my budgeted!) I can actually go back to a stricter budget. Normally money overage doesn't bother me, but with the OLAY rebate it got a little out of hand. I brought back everything to zero. At least I didn't over spend. (That usually happens about once or twice a year.)

The solution for the rebate problem is to start a rebate envelope. As I begin to get some of this money back I will cash the checks and put it into an envelope. I think I want to start one for CVS & Rite Aid as well. This way I don't over spend. While I may have "money makers" CVS at least doesn't actually give me back cash. Somewhere along the line I do spend money at CVS, weather it's Soda or my favorite shampoo (Biolage is expensive!) I will spend some money.

Now to decide what exactly to set aside . . . I would like to keep taking my extra money and use it to fix the car and pay of loans, but I should have something for the drug store trips and target may well end up on this list.