August Budget Update & September Budget

August was another great month. We were very fortunate and won a ton of prizes from Quality Auto and Utah Carzz. I signed Mike up for text alerts earlier in the summer and he was a finalist to win a car (well $10,000 towards a car and it had no cash value which would mean we'd have to buy a car and sell it to get the money. Hassle!) He didn't win the car, but instead walked out with Lagoon tickets, Beaver Mtn tickets, movie passes, a night's stay at Anniversary Inn and basically $400 cash! We used $100 of it that day for a fun day at Bear Lake (groceries for up there, plus shakes and then we went to the fair). We also each gave ourselves $50 for blow money. $200 went towards the snowball. So here's the rest of the month:

• We over spent a few areas (eye doc more than we though, we went out to eat once :( , blow money was a little more than planned and our "other spending" was higher because of a weight loss thing Mike and I are doing. We did plan for that in Sept though).
• I had Gaucho Grill call me for a SMART class and had 6 people there. I did have 2 other classes this month. One had 1 person, the other had 6. Had some people call, so hopefully September is a great month!
• We still have 1 more of Mike's checks coming this month, but we have no August bills left and our mortgage, utilities and my car payment is already made for September.
• Estimating his check (more realistically that I do when I write the budget) we have about $750 left over in our budget!! Mike did get 5 checks this month, so there's extra because of that. The other is my underestimating his checks.
• I will be driving to Brigham City to make EIGHT EXTRA car payments!! I'm going to see if they will apply it to principle only. This should bring the car payments on my car down to 25 left until we own it!! Originally I thought we'd be paying on it until April 2012 but I really think we can get it paid off by December or January.
• I sent paperwork in to see about refinancing our home. We're 6 yrs into a 30 year loan at a 5.62% fixed rate. I'm hoping to get into a 15 yr loan at 3.something %. That would rock. I'll keep ya updated.

September we're planning a Lagoon trip because the tickets are only good for 2011 year. We're going to pack lunches and then we are allowing ourselves $50 to spend down there. We're taking Mike's dad and it should be a fun day! We also are using this weight loss supplement that costs us around $60 a month for the two of us. In 2 wks I have lost 8 lbs and 2 inches on my waist. I only have 25 lbs left to hit my goal and I'm hoping to be there by Christmas!! We also have 3 parents birthday's coming up too. And my dear friend Jade's baby is turning 1 on the 29th so I get to go down and see her.

I'd love to see gas prices drop because we've upped our gas budget and it'd be nice to have some extra money there. And hopefully our utility bill goes down now that it will (hopefully) be getting cooler. It's been pretty pricey this year.

Ok I'm ready for September! Bring it on!!!