Budgeting Blues

OK so here were my goals for last week:

Weekly goals:

1. Start to track of a full month of spending when I get my April salary to get a bigger picture and plan an ongoing monthly budget.
   
2. Put money away into various saving accounts when I get paid. Trying to keep as much as I can through the month and then saving it doesnt work! My need to be adjusted when i get a better picture of a full months expenses.
3. Plan menus on a weekly basis from what I have in stock and write a shopping list based on what we need. Shopping without a list is another big weakness of mine.
   
4. Cut down on smoking. This weeks money tracking has given me an honest view of how much I smoke. I know its on the 'to go' list but this early in sobriety I'm not doing too much at once.

Progress

1. Done - started a spreadsheet, well several spreadsheets, which is the problem. Budgeting spreadsheets are not my forte, I could NEVER be an accountant! But I think I've managed to produce something useful. One tracks my weekly spend, item by item and then I transfer the totals to a monthly one. Problem with this is I delete the weekly as I go and therefore lose track of out of the ordinary expenses. So I doubt I am doing this right, any suggestions?
2. Done of sorts - Set up accounts but managing cash is trickier. I have two purses now one for grocery/household and one for leisure etc but I keep spending from the wrong one so part way through the week I found writing down everything spent was better.
3. Hmm, not bad. Did a shop today but still found I was bulk buying on offers so it doesnt reflect a true week. So have decided to look at how the total monthly spend pans out. So far I'm well over budget for week one but things like petrol and some food items are bought for the whole month.
4. Didnt cut down - but tracked everything spent on cigarettes and its horrifying, I spent more on fags than food this week!! :-( I've bought some nicotine gum and am going to work towards cutting down and stopping. I am smoking over 30 a day!!! Given my track record with drinking, cutting down was never an option but I'll give it a go and monitor that this week.

Summary

I spend too much on non food stuff, I was shocked to find food was the least of my outgoings. I also smoke far too much. So this week was less working to a specified budget and more monitoring how much I spent on what. Apart from cigs, cans of pop and takeway food still figured highly after promising myself that would go down. I also spent on the nicotine gum and my herbal/vitamin supplements (2 months supply) which are part of my recovery plan, so at least that spend is towards my health. If I stop smoking and continue not to drink that expenditure can go too.

This weeks goals:

1. No takeaway food at all.
2. Cut down smoking by a measureable amount, hopefully half but at least 1/3 per day. Most of my smoking is habitual rather than a response to nicotine craving, I'm sure of that.
   
3. Continue to monitor spending. I'd like to monitor rather than budget for the whole of this month to get a true picture, with a view to working out a realistic manageable weekly budget for next month. My weekly estimate for this month is well under if these last 2 weeks are anything to go by.
   
4. Use the food I have in stock and only buy perishables as I need tham. I still throw out far too much unused food, left to go out of date :-(