It has been awhile since my last post.

I am now living in a more expensive part of NC. Living cheaply is even more of a challenge. I have been here for 3 months.

My weekly take home was $523.00 a week and now is $585.00. Plus they pay for all my health insurance. I can afford to be sick now.

My original goal was to save half of my take home. I have done better than that and have saved over $10,000 in the last 7 months. My goal was to save $10,000 in 10 months.

I have had limited success with all the other goals.

I am working on my budget for the next year. Here are some major points it will cover.

In about 2 ½ weeks I will move into the house I will rent. It has 3 bedrooms and is on a couple of acres. I can only see one neighbor. The house is $600 (negotiated down from 650) a month, which is well below market price. It is a budget stretcher though. That is about 25% of my take home pay.

I will reduce my savings to 25% of my take home. Part of that will be in the form of an IRA that my employer will match my contribution to.

I will spend the 25% I will not be saving on developing a second income. I have two websites I need to build traffic to, and I am starting a third website on outdoor cooking.

That will leave me 25% of my take home to live on. I’ve played with the numbers a little and they don’t seem to be working. It will be a challenge.

My project for the weekend is developing a budget and setting it up in my envelope budgeting software. I will post it here when it is done.