I've heard a few stories about waitresses receiving large tips ($1,000+) from customers. I have a story similar to that myself:

Sunday I was serving in the restaurant between the two banquets I had to work that day. I had two customers come in together and one of them had a two-for-one coupon. Their bill (after one entree was discounted) came to $8.54. They tipped me $10!!

Obviously quite a bit less than $1,000, but I thought the customers were being more than generous by tipping me that much.

School started on Monday and so far it is going just fine. It's amusing to see the freshmen walking around with their maps and walk up and down the same block 5 times before working up the courage to ask for help. I can't believe one year ago I was one of those freshman.

I have to take this moment to make fun of my boyfriend: he was supposed to sign up for Spanish 112 (first year Spanish II) but instead accidently signed up for Spanish 212 (second year Spanish II). Even though he has been in class the past two days, I was the one to notice that he signed up for the wrong class. Luckily we were able to get him into the right class today, so it worked out alright.

Onto financial news: Starting September 1st, I'm going to switch to the envelope system. I haven't been putting as much into my IRA as I would like, and I think I can do that better with the envelope system.

So my plan is this (I feel better writing it down): I get paid on the 5th and 20th of every month and I currently have $100 of each paycheck going into my checking and the rest into my savings. On the 5th, I will cash $100 from my checking, and withdraw $165 from my savings (to cover gas, groceries, and spending money). On the 20th, I will withdraw another $100 from my checking (and possibly my savings) and put that into my IRA. The amount I put into my IRA will depend on how much I have saved in my regular savings.

I'm going to the bank in a couple days and I will switch my savings (which is currently a flex account) into a a regular savings account. With the flex account you only can withdraw your money once a month, but with a regular savings you have 6 withdrawals a month. I can also access my savings online if it is a regular savings but not if it is a flex account.

The past few months I haven't been following the budget I set out (I couldn't even tell you what it is). Thankfully, I've kept my spending in check. The only thing I bought that wasn't a necessity was my bike.

With the school year approaching (less than a week!) I decided to create a new budget that I would stick to.

$300/month into savings
$90/month for groceries
$100/month for gas
$75/month for spending money
Whatever is left over will go into my savings and IRA accounts.

I think this will be an easy budget to stick to. I will probably carry my spending money in cash instead of putting it on my credit card because I don't want to go over the $75.

I need to sit down tonight and update my finance records.... I usually keep my binder and envelopes nice and neat but lately I've just been stuffing all receipts and documents into one of the cubyholes on my desk.

Summer makes me so very lazy.