Our Budget
I take all my estimated income for the month (net) and subtract ALL the bills I know we pay each month. For utilities, I use mint.com to find my averages. I always round up my numbers to stay conservative. Anyway, the difference between my income and my bills is then divided by 5 weeks. There are some months when we only need 4 weeks of money, so that 5th week goes into savings. If my husband makes more than his estimated income, I put that extra into savings. If he earns less than his budgeted income, the difference comes out of savings. This helps save during good months and rescues us during the bad ones.
Hurdles to Budgeting
With all my math worked out, we get $300 to spend per week. Every Monday, I start out with $300, and everything I buy comes out of that. I subtract groceries, gasoline, gifts, clothing, going out, activities, etc. We've had some set backs/surprises in our weekly budget however. The first surprise was an annual fee from our online backup company. That $50 came out on a Tuesday and made things tight for the rest of the week. The next surprise was worse. We realized we only had $5 left on a Saturday and had planned on doing a date night. Our date night was then downgraded to an "eat at Costco" night. I kid you not, Costco's annual membership fee came out the same day. I saw a charge for $55 and was not expecting it. That brought us to NEGATIVE $50 for the week! Because of that surprise falling so late in the week, I had to carry the negative into my next week. As I type this, I have $39 remaining in my budget to last through Sunday (and it's only Thursday). I've thankfully already deducted $20 for date night to prevent anything from ruining our fun again. While driving to get gasoline, my car's oil change light came on. I thought, "you gotta be kidding me!" We can't afford the oil change this weekend, so it'll have to wait until next week. In the past, we would have overspent our budget. When we overspend our budgets, it's a slippery slope. We lose control and all of this gets blown. That's why I need to keep my addiction up.
Budget Helpers
I don't do a lot of driving, so we probably fill up our gas tank once every 2 weeks. When I fill up, it's a huge chunk of change that hurts our weekly budget. Instead, we've decided to fill up once per week no matter what. It'll help lessen the blow of the fill up on those odd weeks. Another tip I've learned to help stop spending is related to Zulily. I read somewhere that many of their sale priced items are on Amazon for similar prices. The other day, I was tempted to order a few outfits for my kids because they all coordinated and looked amazingly cute. Before purchasing, I remembered to check Amazon. Upon reading reviews, I learned that the company's sizing ran small and kids outgrew them quickly. Really, the reviews weren't good at all. I quickly closed Zulily and saved myself at least $50 (which we didn't have anyway). Last year, I was always tempted by online sales, discounts, etc. and would never skimp on my kids when they needed things. This year, I don't feel like we're skimping, but I just want to be smarter about what the kids need vs what's on sale. I think with less clothing and toys, the house will be less cluttered and laundry won't pile up constantly.
New Baby Expenses
Our baby is a boy, and we don't have any 0-12 month boy clothing. Before moving out east, we took out pieces of clothing for memories and gave the rest of it all to my friend. She was due in November with a son, and my son's December+ wardrobe was perfect for her. At that time, we assumed we were done making babies. Fast forward to now, and we have nothing. Even if I had saved his clothing, the seasons weren't appropriate. I placed an ISO online asking for cheap or free bulk clothing, and two mothers reached out to me. We were given several bags of high quality/name brand clothing for 0-6 months from a local mother. It was all free. I was blown away by her generosity, and she's going to keep giving us clothing as her son grows out of it. Another mother had two banker's boxes full of 0-9 month clothing. I paid only $25 for it, and it's all seasonally appropriate. She had two boys born in April. Of course, even with the generosity of these moms, I still want to buy things for my boy. We've bought about 5 different outfits for him including his take home outfit and his 1st year onesies for his monthly picky sticky photos. I have the picky sticky order sitting in my cart just waiting for a good week to spend money on them. My sister-in-law loaned us a snuggle nest which is normally $20 used. I sold ours when we finished using it with our daughter, and we desperately wanted it back for this baby boy. To my sister-in-law, it was a no brainer loaning it out. To us, it was a blessing.
Long Term Savings
Ultimately, I would like to save up an emergency account to cover our bills in case of job loss. We'd like to have 6 months of income sitting in an account in case something happens. This counts for both our incomes combined since we can't afford to live off only one. Once our emergency fund is squared away, I want to pay down debt. We have a car payment to make and our rental property mortgage. We are fine renting our home right now and have somewhat lost the desire to become home owners anytime soon. While I'd love to own a forever home, I just don't know what the future holds, and I don't want to be tied down to anything like an underwater mortgage. We are taking advantage of our current low rent and throwing more into savings.
No comments:
Post a Comment