we went out to Juayua, a small town in the mountains, where we used to have the farm...they always have a gastronomic festival on weekends..and also for special vacations...I spent $14 total...
We had a nice time there, and, even ran into our favorite aunt!...
There was also a funny incident with a friend of my sister's that lives there...he called another of his friends that is building vacation homes in the outskirts of town...this guy was already a bit tipsy and started hitting on my sister's friend from work (L) that had come with us...what was funny about that is that, my sis and this girl seem to attract these type of guys that think they're Valentino and, that say the stupidest pick up lines...they call it either "animal attraction" or their "fatidic attraction", because it attracts mostly animals of fatidic candidates! LOL!

total damage for today: $25
$7.50 for lunch with sis and friends (to come out of lunch budget)

$17.50 for trip to the fair! ouch!

oh, well, we'll just have to be more restrained the rest of the week!...
didn't find any Xmas presents at the Dollar store but, found a sand art set and puzzles for Ale (sand art kit was $1.50, the puzzles were 6 for $1.25), and a box to put her school supplies ($3)--this is part of the list the school gave us...the rest was parking, entrance tickets, rides and food

I'm making some payments before leaving for the holidays (too much tempation to have that money in my account!)...
I paid my loan with J and also my sister's half of the rent (she gave me the money yesterday)...
I also have to pay the phone bill ($51!)...but, my cousin owes me $15 for her use of the phone this month and, another friend owes us $5 in international phone calls...I'll see if I can collect this before paying that bill...I also have to leave $75 for Ale's school and $40 for her transport (due on the 10th) and, I have to pay my cc on the 15th (or thereabouts, preferrably BEFORE so I don't incurr in late fees!)...

I just finished another article (3 pages)

2 people just came by to ask if I wanted a coffee, as they were getting ready to call The Coffe Cup....I said no, 3 times! ....
One of the guys actually understood, he said: "oh, it's August, it's a new budget, and it's clean...so, eventhough that means you 'have' the money for the coffee today, it's also a new opportunity to do better and keep the budget 'clean'for as long as possible!"

It is also a month with a 4-day weekend...and that tends to be expensive! (or, at least, tends to cost more than "regular" months!)

At one point, it seemed that my posts categorized under Progress and those categorized as Setbacks were "even"...72/71, or 72/73...a while back I was posting about how the balance seemed to be tipping in favor or Progress....well, looking at those 2 categories now, it's Progress 141 vs Setbacks 114!!!! (And I even get to categorize THIS ONE as Progress)

August 2005 was a turning point for me, financially....this is when the apt finally sold and I was able to "catch up" with my debt!...the outlook is still pretty much the same...finishing with debts in mid 2008...but, although the numbers are more or less the same, the attitude is more positive now...
Hopefully, this August will also bring good things financially (my life seems to move in cycles, I've noticed...July and October are times of BIG life changes --engagement, separation, divorce, pregnancy!...I'm still learning about my "financial" cycles, though!)

I’m doing much better, but there’s still room for improvement:

the only categories where I was at or below budget were:
SCHOOL
ENTERTAINMENT
CELLPHONE
CLOTHES

That leaves me overbudget in

GROCERIES (ALMOST made it!)

EVENTS
LUNCH
CAR

OTHER (no excuses, just plain stupidity!)

so, for July, the result is 4/9

The great news is that, OVERALL, I was on budget this time ($10 under, actually!!!)

Hoping to have better results for 060901!

((remember this covers variable expenses only))