Oh moneyo Oh moneyo wherefore art thou?

So I began going through the last two months of bank statements. That is all I have kept. bad me. It's been interesting to see it all on a grand scale. I can go through it and clearly see how many times I filled up on gas, went for groceries, hit Walmart etc.

I've never really been a bank statement reading kind of gal. I guess deep down I just didn't want to know.

I went through, dividing things into categories such as mortgage, loan, fuel, utilities, eating out, groceries, boys, personal etc. Doing a bit of math showed me what percentage of my net income went towards each component.

It was frightening to see how often we eat out...how often I go for groceries (just a few things here and just a few things there), how many purchases were made in a day etc.

I learned our food bill is easily 20% of my income. Utilities, phone, satellite are 11%. Mortgage and loans (vehicle and personal) is 30%. The boys' activities fees and roadtrips runs about 10% on average. Fuel for vehicles is 14%. Beyond that is insurance, household supplies and a myriad of other smaller things.

I learned that having two different accounts with him paying some of the bills and me paying the rest, makes it harder to keep track of things.

I learned that the ATM cash withdrawls make it harder to track where that money is going. I am keeping track starting June 25 but that is not something he is willing to do.

Having only one of us on board with the need to keep track of expenses and get down the debt makes me feel very isolated. Bringing it up is not possible as that is a huge trigger for disagreement in an already tenuous relationship.

I view this as a learning experience and perhaps through my own growth and change the other half will see the benefits.

But I am excited about empowering myself with basic financial knowledge. Already I see things I need to modify on the budget, which I accept is a work in progress. The budget is for my net income only, to start with.