Penny Squeezing (18/30)

Over halfway done with the amended (lower carb) Whole30. While this tweak of foods has been completely doable and I feel is more likely to produce better results on the scale, I admit that I have not been exercising much. That is going to hinder my weight loss, I know, but between work and rehearsals I've just been begging to spend all my free hours in my bed, reading or asleep.

Tomorrow's pay day, and believe me, it can't come fast enough. Getting paid on a biweekly basis is a pretty big switch for me, despite making more money than before (there was that few weeks-period before the checks started rolling in where I was very happy to have my emergency money stored up, but that's depleting and I feel much better when it's in the bank not being touched!). When I worked fulltime for a theatre company, I got paid once a month. And while some people don't like that idea, it was actually PERFECT for me, since I budget monthly, and I pay for pretty much everything with cash and coin. On payday, I'd write out my budget, go get all the cash I'd need for food/ gas/ laundry/ whatever, move some into my savings account, and leave the rest in my checking account for the automatic electronic payments of bills and whatnot, until the next check came in.

Going from that, to temping (where you get paid every week) was a change, but it was typically doable because if I made a mistake at least I knew there was another check coming at the end of the week. For some reason, that was easier than getting paid every other week (although to be honest, getting paid monthly again would be nice so I could get the math out of the way and move on with my life.)

So, I've completely revamped my monthly budget and will essentially be writing up a new budget for each paycheck. I'll still have my monthly expenses plotted out in a little calendar (so I know which check accounts for the utility bill, which check accounts for rent, etc) but each time I get paid, I'll do what I used to do - take out cash for the pay period (just 2 weeks instead of a month,) contribute to savings, and leave the rest to pay appropriate bills until the next check comes in.

Operating on a zero-based budget has worked wonders for me (I've been debt-free since December, having paid off a car, my student loan and all sorts of other crap) but it does make the last day before pay day a little lean (since by the end of the day you're technically budgeted down to zero).

Also, because I haven't bought a big haul of groceries for batch-cooking in WAY TOO LONG, most of my lunches have been way more expensive than normal since I'm going out to fetch them every day.

My usual lunch - taken al fresco in the car while reading or listening to music

Tomorrow (I usually get paid on Thursday, by direct deposit mid-morning or early afternoon) I plan on picking up a few non-perishable food things at lunch, since I have to go straight to rehearsal after work. Then tomorrow night (the Safeway by me is open mercifully late), I'm going to go all-out and stock the hell UP. Friday night I'm off rehearsal and Panda is out house-sitting, so I can crank up some chick flicks and cook up a storm and pack lunches for the weekend and the following week (Saturday I'm working all day on my cousin's film for 48HFF, Sunday I have a friend's wedding in Pleasanton, then it's straight back to work.) It's gonna be busy, but it always feels so much better having a stocked pantry (and freezer!) and it'll be so much cheaper buying things in bulk and cooking them myself. I can actually rebuild my emergency money, and save for fun things like vacations. How novel.

Did I mention I get paid vacation time now? I haven't had that in ....WAY too long. It's gonna be epic.

Anyway. I'm living proof you can complete a Whole30 (with or without your own quirks) on a budget. And I'll be doing a much better job of exemplifying that, once I get paid tomorrow. ;-)