Daily routine

Here's a list of things I would like to get done during the course of a day.

Morning, ideally:

-do a full stretching routine
-go for a walk or work out in some other way
-shower and put on makeup
-eat breakfast
-pack lunches
-do freelance work for an hour and a half (two or three days a week)
-work on writing/AMRN stuff
-plan, prepare, and shop for dinner
-mess around online or watch videos for 15-30 mins (I always tend to do this in the morning, so why not plan for it?)

Lunchtime:

-eat lunch while working
-go on a walk or work out at the Y during actual lunch hour

Evening:

-cook and eat dinner
-ride the bike (on its stand)
-relax

I am going to go ahead and post this, but it's incomplete. I need to figure out how long each morning thing would take me and how early I would have to get up to accomplish it all. I think the writing and freelance work would have to be on alternate days, but even then would it be practical? Because I have to start working out in the morning regularly; there is just no way I can't.

Also, I obviously can't try to start doing everything at once after I've nailed down a routine. I'll have to come up with a good plan and then start adding each item one at a time every week or two. I'm already set to start freelance this Friday, so I guess that'll be the first thing.

Expenditures

I copied all debits listed in our checking account for the last 90 days into an Excel spreadsheet, then labeled each one with a category. I sorted by categories, totaled the categories and all the expenditures, then calculated what percentage of our spending each category was.

My categories may not have been completely accurate, because I can't always tell what a debit is for, and I also may have debits that fit more than one category. I also left out transfers to savings and two one-time debits that didn't really fit anywhere.

Here's what I found out.

Bills: 21.99%
These are our regular bills that we will arguably always have, like rent, phone, internet, power, websites, etc.

Food: 19.67%
Eating out and ordering in.

Car Payments: 14.91%
My Yaris. Sean likes to make double payments each month. Should be paid off soon.

Health: 14.88%
Various bills related to my congestive heart failure. Nice.

Entertainment: 8.47%
This is mostly the purchase of DVDs and books from Amazon.com, though it also includes a few webcomic-related purchases (t-shirts, books, subscriptions).

Furniture: 7.26%
The dining room table, my desk and filing cabinet, and the decorative stuff I recently bought at Target.

Groceries: 3.89%
Anything I buy for home use, including toiletries and cleaning stuff and, of course, food.

Beauty: 2.47%
My salon visits and Sean's haircuts.

Gas: 1.92%
I really thought this would be higher in the list.

Clothes: 1.87%
This isn't accurate, as I usually use my Cato card to buy my clothes, so this percentage only includes the stuff I recently bought Sean from Lands End.

Family: 1.58%
Basically if we spent money on family, like presents or cards.

To put that in perspective, here's a nifty pie chart:

I knew we I spent a lot of money on eating out, but that is a pretty big portion of our overall budget.

I'm not sure what to make of all this yet. It's definitely given me something to think about.

Okay, rich boy

From Scuttlebiz:

With the exception of one international trip, every flight I have ever booked while living in Augusta has originated from Augusta's airport. The fares on each of those flights from Augusta Regional have always been "reasonable," which I define as being within $100 or $150 of Atlanta or Columbia.

Yeah, well, some of us can't find $100 or $150 in our couch cushions. Yeesh.

(Then again, if it gets to the point that it costs $150 to drive to Atlanta...:P)