Time Budget

We had our visiting teacher over today after church. She gave us a wonderful message from the March's Ensign (you can see the VT message here). Sister Goa said something though that has been running through my mind all evening, she said that Satan has realized that he can't tempt us with the bad things like smoking, drugs, and drinking. So instead he has begun to tempt us to do "good." Now at first that doesn't sound very bad, it even sounds like a good thing, hey Satan's on my side! But upon referring to the talk entitled "Good, Better, Best," given by Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles during the October 2007 General Conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (you can read it here). You discover that what Satan is doing is not in the best interest of you and I. He is tempting us to be not the "best" of our abilities.

I think that this has been running through my mind over and over this afternoon because I realize that it is very true for me, not that my days are always filled with bad activities, but they aren't filled with the best activities either.

What does this have to do with time budget? One of my areas that I am not doing the best at is time budget, I spend much too much time on facebook, twitter, playing games and other such things. I am starting a new goal, a new rule, every night I can not be on facebook after 9pm and have to turn my computer off at 10pm, unless I am working on my class. I am hoping that by making this new change/goal that I will be able to accomplish 2 things: that I will be able to go to bed earlier and receive the sleep that I need (lately I have been going to bed between midnight and 1, not a good thing when I should be getting up at 7) and I hope that with the time that I am not using my computer that I have been that I will be able to fill my time with more scripture study, pondering, prayer, conference talk reading, and other wholesome activities meant to build my testimony and help me to become the best that I can be.

Budget

Those of you that know me know that last time I did not come with a budget in mind at all and when I came home I didn't come in the negative but I didn't come home with as much as I should and could have.

As my "plan" had been to stay at home, work, and save money for when I go back to school I decided that I needed to come to Taiwan also with a plan or budget to helped me succeed.

So this is my budget:
Every month I am paid approximately $900 US, this money is put in a savings account (of which I have a ATM card to and have full access to)--my plan is to leave that untouched for the next 6 months and take it all out at the end and put it into Travelers Checks to take home and put directly into my savings/checking accounts.
This time I will have 6 tutoring jobs every week and from each of those I will receive $300 NT (Taiwan dollars, so about $9.50US). From each $300 I will put:
$30 for Tithing
$100 for any spending that I want to do (includes food, shopping, special supplies that I want for my lessons, etc.)
$100 for any traveling. Andrea and I have talked about going to somewhere in China or somewhere else but before I can do it I want to have most of it put aside in this envelope so that I am not putting out more money than I have.
$50 for savings--my goal is to have enough money between this envelope and what is in the savings account her to pay for 2 semesters of school by the time I go home.
$20 towards paying back my Mom what I owe her.

Last week I went through my desk and found envelopes, I wrote on each of them what they are for and how much I should be putting in each one. Every night after I have received the money from my tutor students before Andrea and I go anywhere I divide the money up and put it in the correct envelopes.

I haven't always been good at saving my money or keeping a budget but I believe that this budget can work for me and I am excited to work towards my goals!