It's all about the budget!

  Let's talk money!
    This used to be my most dreaded thing in adult life. We have now been doing the cash envelope system from Dave Ramsey for the past three months. In this time I have learned so much about what we have been doing with our money.
 Our budget for the month looks something like this.

WOW yes that's what I said too but here we will look at how we stay on budget.
Clothing is one that I really love to do it's a fun challenge. I have learned that if I buy my clothes at the consignment shop or thrift stores. I have learned that our local consignment has three dates and each one has a price with it. Along with that if the last date is a month or more out there is additional savings.  Our kids clothes come out of their allowance which has made our house run much more smooth with the kids all having jobs to do.  Even if it is just the cat and dog and their rooms.  They have a mother chart to fill in for extra chores they do around the house.  They have 5 categories they put their allowance in each week savings, tithing, clothes, food/treats, and Fun (toys or extra activities )  Our budget works out to be $150 for me a year and 150 for my husbands clothes a year and $300 for outer wear which I rotate who needs new outer wear each year.  So My Husband got new snow stuff this year next year the kids will and I will the following year.  We also get hand me downs here along with some great thrift store finds as much as possible.
 Food is a huge part of our house hold budget that runs smooth if I have the planning put into it like I should.  I run a menu plan that goes Crockpot or campfire/BBQ grill Sunday, beef on Monday, Chicken Tuesday, Breakfast Wednesday, Pork on Thursday, Friday pizza, Saturday is soup in the winter and make your own/leftovers in the summer.   We get about 75% of our beef homegrown and split two pigs with the neighbors so that is all the pork we need for a year.  I would love to get garden produce so we are working on plans for a garden at our house this summer. (I head one at our old house)  I am learning to coupon slowly and that is helping out too.  I buy my flour and oatmeal in bulk and any other dry baking goods possible from Country Life Natural Foods. I will store it in totes in my pantry and make premixed pancake and waffle mix to save on these Items from the store.  I like to get produce from Bountiful Basket if possible in our schedule.  I get coconut oil from Bountiful Baskets whenever it is available. I use the jars from it to store bulk backing goods in after too.
 Our mortgage is a 5yr loan and we have it only taken out of my check so the $920 is put in savings for the year.  Part of the $920 is pulled out each month but because I only work 9 months we budgeted that to be covered by my income and thats all I work for.   Once that is done I can retire right? :)   Fuel for our vehicles is one area that we have to keep track of as well as we try to make sure we are not on the road more than we need to each day.
   The rest of the Budget is our monthly bills or money we move to savings for annual, by annual or quarterly bills.
   If you have any questions on this please feel free to ask. If you have any of your own advice please feel free to share it in a comment below.