How I did for February (budget crunch)?

My grocery bill did go up a little bit. (as I predicted).  It was about $150 increase.  I lump gas and groceries together.

My shopping budget improved by 83%.  Meaning I saved a lot of money here.  My goal was zero dollars, but I cheated.  I bought a $81 / rug for my son's room that was on a super sale and I had been looking at for months.  I decided to buy it as it was the lowest price I have seen.  I cut spending by a ton!  I hope I did the math correctly.  I saved a ton and won't put my actual values on here, but know I didn't do zero, but did save a lot. 

My 7.50 a day work day budget was super hard.  I ended up doing pretty well on that.  I cheated in that I counted toward an order that I sold in February and also counted my ebates quarterly check (which was $69 - mainly from holiday shopping).  I tried to get on ebates anytime I bought holiday gifts online. 

My comparison was based on December where my budget is pretty high due to holiday shopping.

I said that I would not book travel, but did spend this much on travel.  Not much, but still beyond my plan.  I did this because I wanted to go to a city where travel would book quickly due to an event in April. 
7 - Travel -230.44
I also got satellite radio - and paid for one year - which was not part of my plan.
For me, I have to network for work and go to happy hour, so I did spend more money on that - than December.  December my work lunches were less likely due to holidays and also I didn't go to happy hour much due to the holidays.  I counted this under my eatingoutwithoutkids budget. 

I actually came up under my $175 a month budget, but like I said I cheated a little.  My husband took me out to lunch two days.  I counted my happy hour budget on this - I believe - and I brought down the spending by counting my left over money (really lots of change from all of january). 

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Positives:
1) using money that I received and my ebates check to counter my lunch spending.  (as stated previously).  I don't get an ebates check every month, so I can't. 

2)  Another positive.  I hand made all gifts for 3 parties that my kids were invited to.  I had the tshirts already, but I did spend time workign on them.  I will say try to set a budget for kid parties.  $10.  Of course, if they are a close friend, I spend more.  We were invited to more parties than I anticipated due to lots of parties due to turning 4, etc.

3)  I also made home made valentine cards to save money. 

4)  Understand how much you are spending.  I categorize everything into buckets. 

5)  I took all my change (mainly my husband's change, but part of my change) from the month of january and took it to coin star.  It was $35.08 in change and that was including all the change in my purse.  So I subtracted 35.08 from my shopping budget.

I'm doing another month, but won't be as strict on my $7.50 a day budget.  I will be mindful of it, but continue to save.  I will say that I do have some items that I planned to buy in March for my son's room.  I know they will go beyond my shopping budget, but I may try to buy stuff in pieces (like I bought the rug in February).