Hard to believe that January is half-over already. Friday is pay day and rent pick up, so with two NSDs (today and tomorrow) I'm confident about my report:
1) Biggest accomplishment was sending $500 additional principle to the mortgage.
2) Second biggest accomplishment was accumulating $500 for the car repair that didn't need to happen
3) The utilities category was a bit low because of the way the payment due dates fell, moved over $50 to the utilities category for next go-around
4) Did a decent job on groceries and gas categories ($195.54 on "living" - groceries, household, pet, and $135.09 on gas). Shopped at Aldi's and refrained from coupon/ad scanning.
5) I paid for the small extraneous expenses from the living expenses account: $15 for science class, $14 for field trip, $11 for haircut, $5 for art supplies). The Miscellaneous expenses were for the Pinewood Derby cars for Cub Scouts and the 8th graders science fair project board.
6) No credit card usage of any kind. 
7) Transferred two Rxs for daughter and got $50 gift cards which I managed not to spend and will carry over for the next period 1/18-1/31 of the budget.
8) I made $15 being a dog walker, and will make another $30 tomorrow. The $ tomorrow will go to "feed the pig" - we have a ceramic piggy bank on the counter that people are "feeding" for our monthly family outing. (This is something new for 2013)
9) Organizationally speaking: gave one bag of hand-me-downs to my friend, returned stash of surplus T-shirts to church for VBS.
10) Also in an effort to economize and simplify our lives: daughters have dropped to one 1.5 hours of dance a week (saving $100 a month) and when we found out that soccer evals are next week, 2nd grader decided not to play basketball with the YMCA (since this was first go-around he was placed with 2nd grade girls and 1st grade boys, so no socialization with friends) which garnered me a $55 refund going back to the big extraneous fund. Definitely realizing in this large family we can't do it all, but everyone can do something.
11) Also this is the first pay period where we are at 11% in the 401K. Barely feeling the tightening of the budget due to better planning and full-funded budget categories.
So I consider it a success.
Mid-month check-up; the money snapshot
January 16th, 2013 at 04:10 pm
January 16th, 2013 at 04:15 pm 1358352928
January 16th, 2013 at 04:18 pm 1358353096
January 16th, 2013 at 04:34 pm 1358354090
January 16th, 2013 at 11:21 pm 1358378463
January 17th, 2013 at 12:43 am 1358383417