New Year, New Budget?

Even though this might temporally be a pink ribbon type blog, last year my focus was blogging about money - how we make it and how we spend it - and considering I now have more time than ever to focus on ayetozee that hasn't changed. Last year one of my biggest goals for this site was to start a money diaries challenge on here and Though I startedthough, got submissions, got my editor to check one, and was getting somewhere, at the end of the day I wanted to protect the anonymity of my readers more than I wanted to have content so I shelved the idea for a while as I wracked my brain for a way to make it both informative and private. While it's important we have money discussions I don't want people trying to guess who makes what based on something I put into the atmosphere.

Not to fear, my version of money diaries is back! I'm hoping with this new version, people will be more willing to share since I'm asking for way less personal and identifying information.

This time you'll still track your spending for a week (a month was suggested but I know just like the rest of you how the tracking part can be the hardest), group your spending into common areas such as food, utilities, etc and provide a little wrap up about areas you wish you could cut back in spending or how you plan on setting up your budget now that you see the numbers in black and white. This time you also won't have to track or type your day to day spending and activities so I'm hoping that also helps to make it more user friendly. Unfortunately I won't be able to accurately participate due to my current circumstances but if you remember my constant Butterfinger purchases from last time, not much has changed.

With all things considered, if you'd like to participate, the new and improved template is below. You can still anonymously submit via my submission page at this link or if you don't care about anonymity you can submit at ayetozeemoneydiaries@gmail.com (don't worry I still won't share your identity publicly or privately for that matter it's just another way you can submit).

Age: PLEASE FEEL FREE TO BE AS VAGUE AS POSSIBLE (EG: I would put older than 25 but not yet 30)

Weekly Spending

Gas:

Groceries:

Other food (such as eating out):

Utilities:

Drinks & Dancing: (all the happy hours etc go here)

Entertainment:

Miscellaneous: if you want to be specific here you can

Weekly wrap up: use this section to talk about your weekly spending, where you'd like to cut back, what your actual budget is in comparison to what you spent and how tracking your money helped you look at your spending. Feel free to include any other details or lessons you learned about you and your money.