To boost my savings and ease budgeting, I have directed most of my income into savings and a dedicated checking account to use to pay fixed reccurring expenses throughout the year. This has left me pretty cash poor. I just realized that I have about $9 balance in my regular checking account and I need to buy coffee. So I transferred $20 in from my other non-long-term savings account so I can get out $10 in spending money to buy some coffee and have a few dollars available. Thank god I get paid on Thursday. I think I need to tweak the budget a bit because I seem to be ending up broke every other week. I think what happened that got me off track was fixing up the bathroom. I painted it last month and had budgeted $75 but I actually spent $110. It was money well spent and the bathroom came out great but it has put me in a bit of a hole.

My credit union dropped the interest rate for the second quarter. It was paying 5% last quarter, but this is now down to 4.25%. I realize that this is still a good rate, but it is unfortunate all the same. Too bad.

I walk to work every day, and usually do a lot of my errands on foot as well. This helps cut down (pretty dramatically) on my transportation costs and gets me some exercize, which is great. I started walking shortly after I quit smoking almost a year ago. Aside from walking to get somewhere, I also regularly take long walks just for the heck of it. Helps me clear my mind and get some air. Also costs nothing except for shoes. since I walk a lot I buy expensive walking shoes. I was wearing out cheap shoes in just a month or so!