Do you spend your savings on Lattes and Lunch?

Daily/Weekly Spending.

So over the past month or so I have noticed my spending to be going up a little bit, I'm usually pretty good with only buying 1 or 2 coffees($2-$4), 1 snack($3-$5), and lunch once or twice($10-$20, so spending $15-$29 a week isn't terrible in my book, but it not only needs to get better, but it needs some more attention.  My goal is to keep my total to $20 for the week, this includes coffee, snacks, and lunch.  I'm going to keep track of my spending during the week and see where I am at.  I encourage you to do the same.

Day 1-Monday-Running Total at the Start of the Day $0.00

$8.50 on some amazing Paleo Granola mix, this should last me throughout the week as a snack, it's a little more than I usually spend, but it's for the whole week.  Strike that I ate the whole bag today, i'm pretty sure I gained 5 pounds doing so and it was delicious.  I also brought my lunch, so while this saved me some cash, the amount of food I ate, Paleo or not was about as much as an Offensive Lineman for the Packers.

Day 2-Tuesday-$8.50

So I lost my fantasy football bet and decided to pay up today and reward myself for losing apparently, 2 medium coffees $4.   Well in terms of losing I apparently lost on this one.  Good news is I am doing an intermittent fast today(http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/08/06/a-beginners-guide-to-intermittent-fasting/).  Here's a good website that gives the details good and bad.  I've done it a couple times over the past weeks and I find it great for balancing out my body and practicing hunger control.  Sounds crazy, but many people do it intentionally and unintentionally every day.

Day 3-Wednesday-$12.50

I have decided is going to be No Money Spent Wednesday, I mean I have a goal right, based on the way i'm going I'm going to lose and I don't like to lose unless it's the LB's, that's pounds for all you metric kilogram trackers out there.  I did a great job, brought in my coffee and ate some leftover chicken for lunch, I really feel like I won today.....Winning

Day 4-Thursday-$12.50

Well it certainly helps to have a Chili-Cookoff at work, I am spending $0 today on lunch, I will be doing my best to not spend over the $15 my wife "gave to me" for a Happy Hour, plus a little money coming from my work for the event always helps.  The good news is I was able to use the $15 for the Happy Hour from my wife, I'm going to include that in my total, I'm also going to include the $5 entry fee for entering the cook-off which if I would have won(should have won my Chili is delicious).  So I did spend a total of $20 today on the extra's in life, beer and chili.  When I came home my wife did happen to buy some take out food, which I do not count in my specific budget, but that is something I'm hoping to work together on very shortly:)

Day 5-Friday-Running Total at the Start of the Day $32.50

Today is a good day right, because it's Friday!  I started the day off with a free coffee(I have a coffee betting problem and I'm not afraid to admit, I won today).  I brought some lunch from home, keeping it simple with lunch meat, cheese, and an an orange.  I'm working on keeping this day free of spending, so I plan on wrapping it up with a total of $32.50.

Day 6-Saturday-Running Total $32.50

So once again the good news is I was able to not have any spending on my part, which for a Saturday is semi-amazing.  My wife and I did stop by portagegrounds.com
for a coffee purchased by my wife, while we figured out our spending habits and I am going to help set up an automation system for my wife, starting January 1.  I also ate my Paleo breakfast before I came so even if I would have spend money it would have been $2 or $3 total.

Day 7-Sunday-All-in Total for the Week $32.50

I did not spend a dime on food, actually cooked a couple things on Sunday(key to success for limiting Eating Out).  The most I did was drive the car to go play basketball, so I brought my water, worked up a sweat, and finished up the day right.

So in Summary for the week, this is actually really expensive for me from what I would like my budget to be.  The budget I would like to keep is $50 for the month, so in Chicago that amounts to about 1 coffee and a lunch a week.  I feel like I have been doing a poor job of my eating out budget, so I am sticking strictly to cash for the month of December, taking $50 out of the checking and calling it a month.  Well if anything this has kept me accountable and I learned that I still need to keep a stricter budget with coffee and eating out during the week because it encourages me to eat more healthy and Paleo and also keeps the costs down.

Thanks for reading and make sure to comment on what your budget is?  How you manage bringing in your lunch and eating out?  If I'm crazy for keeping track of this?