Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Budgets

A friend of mine mentioned today that another mutual friend had gone shopping and was not adhering to her budget, and this got me thinking about the word budget and what exactly that means to us.

For a grad student budgeting our money can be well difficult and very important, on the other hand having a calorie budget is important to weight loss, and last, but not least, budgeting our time in grad school and in weight loss is also important. Ok, so now budgeting seems to have taken over my life and I'm sure a lot of yours as well.

I recently decided that a monetary budget was something I really needed. Up until now I don't have so much of a spending problem that I was having trouble making ends meet on my lowly graduate stipend, but I am planning a trip to Italy next fall and I would really like to be able to buy souvenirs and still have a savings account when I get home. I've only officially kept track for a full month so far, but I've managed to stay mostly in bounds. Some not fully expended areas covered a couple that I went over in and so far, so good. It is a big step into adulthood to keep track of everything... I always wondered why my mom had piles and piles of receipts on her desk... well now I know. Welcome to real life

Ok so calorie budgets, we all have them, do we stick to them? Well I know we try, which is a good step in and of itself. Sticking to our calorie budget means we feel good, we (hopefully) lose weight, and everything fits into place.

Budgeting our time, ok grad students unite on this one, if you don't budget time in lab, nothing ever gets done. Turns out this is true with the rest of life. Cooking healthy food takes time, exercising takes time, sleeping takes time, well you get the idea.

Overall point: Budgets are important!

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