A Small, Free Gift for Me
I have $20 in Amazon gift certificates thanks to Swagbucks. Tonight I used $5 of them on a little splurge for me. Through tomorrow (12/1/09) Amazon has a bunch of magazine subscriptions for $5 for a 12 month subscription. Real Simple was one of them and I've wanted that magazine for a long time. I currently don't subscribe to any magazines. So I decided it was time to splurge! I'm excited to receive my first issue!
November 2009 Month End
Time for another report. This one's not quite as rosy as the last several months have been. I'll have to get used to that I think.
Debts:
Truck Loan: $30,803.50 (- $440.05) - Two payments down, only 70 to go! With the 0% interest, we'll keep making the minimum payments due on this loan.
Savings:
Emergency Fund: $5,261.54 (-178.99) - This is the first month in a very long time that we've had to draw from our emergency fund. This was to help pay for the car maintenance bill. The rest of the almost $800 bill came from our regular budget.
Short Term Savings: $283.88 (+50.00) - Standard budget increase this month. Not much else going on. Chuck and I are going to sit down and make a list of wants and prioritize them so we can use this money to splurge every once in a while. Our new budget will make splurging a rare event.
Travel Fund: $223.76 (+50.00) - Standard budget increase this month too. This account will not see any increases for a while now. With the new budget, there's no extra for this account. I guess we won't be traveling for a while!
Christmas Savings: $766.73 (+82.84) - This would have been $100 increase but I purchased a Christmas gift for our church's adopt-a-family program. No more will be put into this account. I"ll show you our new Christmas budget in the next couple days. It's at $650 right now and we'll keep the remaining in this savings account for next year.
Basement Finishing Fund: $400.81 (+0) - I zeroed out the contribution for this month to pay for the car maintenance bill. This will stay at zero for a while too. Like the travel fund there is no room in the new budget to put money here. If we're able to save money anywhere, it will go into the emergency fund first. The goal is still to build that to $20k before anything else. It's going to be slow going for a while.
And there you have it. Our November. December will be a challenge. We'll use Chuck's last paycheck (for one week of work) to give us a little cushion until my paychecks with the 10% pay restored start arriving in January. His unemployment money will go into a newly created savings account though so we can use that for tuition, job searches or an emergency if needed.
Debts:
Truck Loan: $30,803.50 (- $440.05) - Two payments down, only 70 to go! With the 0% interest, we'll keep making the minimum payments due on this loan.
Savings:
Emergency Fund: $5,261.54 (-178.99) - This is the first month in a very long time that we've had to draw from our emergency fund. This was to help pay for the car maintenance bill. The rest of the almost $800 bill came from our regular budget.
Short Term Savings: $283.88 (+50.00) - Standard budget increase this month. Not much else going on. Chuck and I are going to sit down and make a list of wants and prioritize them so we can use this money to splurge every once in a while. Our new budget will make splurging a rare event.
Travel Fund: $223.76 (+50.00) - Standard budget increase this month too. This account will not see any increases for a while now. With the new budget, there's no extra for this account. I guess we won't be traveling for a while!
Christmas Savings: $766.73 (+82.84) - This would have been $100 increase but I purchased a Christmas gift for our church's adopt-a-family program. No more will be put into this account. I"ll show you our new Christmas budget in the next couple days. It's at $650 right now and we'll keep the remaining in this savings account for next year.
Basement Finishing Fund: $400.81 (+0) - I zeroed out the contribution for this month to pay for the car maintenance bill. This will stay at zero for a while too. Like the travel fund there is no room in the new budget to put money here. If we're able to save money anywhere, it will go into the emergency fund first. The goal is still to build that to $20k before anything else. It's going to be slow going for a while.
And there you have it. Our November. December will be a challenge. We'll use Chuck's last paycheck (for one week of work) to give us a little cushion until my paychecks with the 10% pay restored start arriving in January. His unemployment money will go into a newly created savings account though so we can use that for tuition, job searches or an emergency if needed.
Credit Scores and how they're affected
If you want to know how things like late payments and bankruptcies can affect your credit score than check out this article at Yahoo Finance today. Complete with a chart and everything! It's enough to make this geeky engineer swoon!
Big picture? Don't max out your credit cards. Don't make late payments. Don't settle debt for less than you owe. Don't foreclose on your property. Don't declare bankruptcy. These are all things we strive not to do. Now, if we do mess up we know approximately how much it will affect us.
Maybe a bit more motivation to keep our financial noses clean?
Big picture? Don't max out your credit cards. Don't make late payments. Don't settle debt for less than you owe. Don't foreclose on your property. Don't declare bankruptcy. These are all things we strive not to do. Now, if we do mess up we know approximately how much it will affect us.
Maybe a bit more motivation to keep our financial noses clean?
Christmas Budget Mini Update
Yesterday I received a $100 check for our family Christmas. This is our gift from my grandmother. I think we’ll split it $25 for Anya, $25 for Jamison and $50 for Chuck and I.
I’m still working on our revised Christmas budget. I had dropped Anya and Jamison from $100 each to $75 each. We can use this money from Grandma to pad their gifts a little bit. I had dropped Chuck and I from $75 each to $25. This would bring us back up a little bit. The rest of the budget is still up in the air.
After we talk with our families at Thanksgiving this weekend we’ll figure out if we’re exchanging gifts at all and if we are, what our limits are for each other. From there I can re-do our budget and see if we can keep it under $750 total. At the end of this month we’ll have roughly $740 in savings plus this $100 for a total of $850. Our initial budget was over $1000. It will be our goal to have it less than $750 and even less than that if we can. We don’t want to spend everything in the Christmas savings if we don’t have to. That will be our start for next year when things are going to be tight.
I’m still working on our revised Christmas budget. I had dropped Anya and Jamison from $100 each to $75 each. We can use this money from Grandma to pad their gifts a little bit. I had dropped Chuck and I from $75 each to $25. This would bring us back up a little bit. The rest of the budget is still up in the air.
After we talk with our families at Thanksgiving this weekend we’ll figure out if we’re exchanging gifts at all and if we are, what our limits are for each other. From there I can re-do our budget and see if we can keep it under $750 total. At the end of this month we’ll have roughly $740 in savings plus this $100 for a total of $850. Our initial budget was over $1000. It will be our goal to have it less than $750 and even less than that if we can. We don’t want to spend everything in the Christmas savings if we don’t have to. That will be our start for next year when things are going to be tight.
Heading West
I’m officially booked for a trip to Seattle for work in early December. Remember my need for a work issued credit card? Well, I found out last week that my company is ending its corporate card agreement with American Express. All cards will be canceled on December 15th. A new corporate agreement with Citibank Corporate MasterCard has been reached and anyone needing a corporate card will need to apply for a new one. My trip is planned from December 6th – 10th so for me it’s actually pretty good timing. I’ll let them cancel my American Express and I don’t plan on applying for the new one. This is my second business trip in the eleven years I’ve worked at this company. I don’t foresee many trips in the future. If I do have to travel in the future, then I’ll apply for the new MasterCard.
Exhale
First I want to respond to Anonymous' comment from my post about Chuck's lay off. (Side note: Please leave some sort of name when you leave a comment. It's much easier to respond to you that way! Even if you leave a completely made up name like "Cynthia's Biggest Fan" it's still easier to respond. :) ) The person was asking if we could give the truck back since we had a job loss. I think Ford had that program going where if you lost your job in the first 12 months of ownership they would take the vehicle back. We bought a GM vehicle and I think their promotion is that they'll take it back in the first 60 days if you're not satisfied for any reason. Either way, no, we will not be selling the truck or giving it back to the dealership or anything else. We're quite happy with our truck and even with the job loss we will still be able to make the payments on it.
Now for the exhale part as the title suggests. I received official word yesterday that my 10% pay cut is being reversed! This news could not have come at a better time! It's effective December 14th so paychecks shortly after that should see a bump up. For us it's about $220 per paycheck. I let out a huge sigh of relief when I heard that. I'd done some preliminary calculations and with my income alone and with the 10% pay reduction we were going to have to cut back significantly on our lifestyle (no money going to savings, no cell phones, pull Anya out of gymnastics, shut down the 529 contributions, no restaurants, etc.). With the 10% back I'll have to redo the calculations but we shouldn't have to cut back so dramatically. Our lifestyle will still be affected, obviously, but not so severely. And it is our goal to live off my income alone so that we can save Chuck's unemployment benefits. For one, we'll have to pay taxes on that income so we better save some of it. And two, I think we'll use that money for tuition money as I expect Chuck will go back to school to change careers rather than trying to find another job in the industry he was in. He wasn't too fond of the industry and this just may be the kick in the behind we needed to get him out of it. Chuck has double B.S. degrees in Biology and Chemistry and he's thinking nursing (OR maybe?) might be a good fit for him. Major life decisions ahead as Chuck figures out what he wants to be when he grows up. :)
A trade off for the 10% pay restoration? A one week U.S. wide shut down of all facilities in January. Without pay of course. While this is not ideal for anyone, it really couldn't have happened in a better month. January is a three paycheck month for us so even with missing one week of pay, we should still be fine for the month.
Anyway, I'll work on the projected new budgets tonight and get those posted for you all to see. We're going to be OK. And for that I can exhale.
Now for the exhale part as the title suggests. I received official word yesterday that my 10% pay cut is being reversed! This news could not have come at a better time! It's effective December 14th so paychecks shortly after that should see a bump up. For us it's about $220 per paycheck. I let out a huge sigh of relief when I heard that. I'd done some preliminary calculations and with my income alone and with the 10% pay reduction we were going to have to cut back significantly on our lifestyle (no money going to savings, no cell phones, pull Anya out of gymnastics, shut down the 529 contributions, no restaurants, etc.). With the 10% back I'll have to redo the calculations but we shouldn't have to cut back so dramatically. Our lifestyle will still be affected, obviously, but not so severely. And it is our goal to live off my income alone so that we can save Chuck's unemployment benefits. For one, we'll have to pay taxes on that income so we better save some of it. And two, I think we'll use that money for tuition money as I expect Chuck will go back to school to change careers rather than trying to find another job in the industry he was in. He wasn't too fond of the industry and this just may be the kick in the behind we needed to get him out of it. Chuck has double B.S. degrees in Biology and Chemistry and he's thinking nursing (OR maybe?) might be a good fit for him. Major life decisions ahead as Chuck figures out what he wants to be when he grows up. :)
A trade off for the 10% pay restoration? A one week U.S. wide shut down of all facilities in January. Without pay of course. While this is not ideal for anyone, it really couldn't have happened in a better month. January is a three paycheck month for us so even with missing one week of pay, we should still be fine for the month.
Anyway, I'll work on the projected new budgets tonight and get those posted for you all to see. We're going to be OK. And for that I can exhale.
Final Car Bill
Our bill for the car came out to be $798. A bit higher than the $766 estimate but they also balanced and rotated our tires so that's probably why. We took $200 out of savings to help pay for this and the rest is coming out of our monthly budget. I zeroed out the emergency fund and basement savings contributions this month. And I reduced a couple other categories slightly to make up for it. I hope the car is good to go for a while now as in February our budget is going to get really, really tight.
More on that in the next couples posts - how are we going to change our budget and lifestyle to account for the drop in income. I have my spreadsheets working overtime to figure out what we'll have to do to live on my income only. And I'm looking at our budget to see what fixed bills we can reduce and what other categories can be reduced. It's stressful (lots of tears) but we're not in danger of anything dire happening. We're not going to lose the house. We just may have to cut back on our lifestyle. Worse things have happened.
More on that in the next couples posts - how are we going to change our budget and lifestyle to account for the drop in income. I have my spreadsheets working overtime to figure out what we'll have to do to live on my income only. And I'm looking at our budget to see what fixed bills we can reduce and what other categories can be reduced. It's stressful (lots of tears) but we're not in danger of anything dire happening. We're not going to lose the house. We just may have to cut back on our lifestyle. Worse things have happened.
Our First Real Emergency
We've had setbacks before in our debt elimination journey and we've had setbacks in our emergency fund, not saving as quickly as we'd like to.
Tonight though we finally have our first true emergency.
Chuck was laid off from his job today. They want him to work through Thanksgiving and then he's done. He does have some PTO time that they'll pay out to him. And we'll have to figure out where to transfer his 401k.
He'll be applying for unemployment.
And now we have to figure out what our future holds. Another job? Part time? Second shift? Full time? First shift and put kids in daycare? Back to school? What field?
And while I'm trying not to panic, I'm also working on a December budget to see just how tight this is going to be.
And I'm trying to remember to breathe.
Tonight though we finally have our first true emergency.
Chuck was laid off from his job today. They want him to work through Thanksgiving and then he's done. He does have some PTO time that they'll pay out to him. And we'll have to figure out where to transfer his 401k.
He'll be applying for unemployment.
And now we have to figure out what our future holds. Another job? Part time? Second shift? Full time? First shift and put kids in daycare? Back to school? What field?
And while I'm trying not to panic, I'm also working on a December budget to see just how tight this is going to be.
And I'm trying to remember to breathe.
Health Insurance for 2010
Yesterday was the last day at my work to sign up for benefits for next year. I had three options for health insurance carriers - Patient Choice POS, Blue Cross/Blue Shield POS and United Healthcare POS. Currently we have BCBS and have been very pleased with our coverage. However, BCBS and United are also the more expensive options (equal with bi-weekly paycheck cost). So I wanted to look into the Patient Choice option this year. Patient Choice had three tiers or levels of coverage depending on which care system you were in. I checked the kids' pediatrician and saw they were a Level 1. Then I checked the clinic Chuck and I use and saw it was a Level 2. That means we'd go with the higher of the two and end up in Level 2 with Patient Choice. Time to number crunch:
Our coverage this year is costing us $176 each paycheck. The same coverage next year will cost $198 per paycheck. Ouch. That's a big increase. The Level 2 POS coverage would be $167 though. And everything else between BCBS and Patient Choice would be the same (deductibles, maximums, etc.). At this point it seemed like a no-brainer to switch and Chuck was on board with me.
Then I noticed one small detail - the hospitals in the kids' pediatricians care system did not include the hospital in our town, only one mile from our house. It included hospitals in neighboring towns, all 10 miles away or more. I checked the kids' pediatricians website and saw that they had "privileges" at the local hospital which only means if you're insurance accepts that as in-network. With Patient Choice it would not. With BCBS PPO the local clinic is in network for the kids and us. That right there made my decision.
Although we would pay $780 less in paycheck deductions by switching to the POS, it is not worth it if we can't go to the local hospital. That is especially true because that is where I'll be giving birth in May. As soon as the baby was born it would be out of network! There would go that $780 savings! Plus, I want to be able to use the local hospital with the kids and not have to drive farther away, especially if it was an emergency.
I also set up an HSA for us for next year. Jamison's birth cost us $2500 out of pocket. With the out of pocket maximums going up for next year I think it's a pretty safe bet that we could pay more than that this time. So I put $3000 in an HSA. That comes to about $115/paycheck which is something we can absorb in our monthly budget. It will be interesting to see what our January budget looks like. Wait, in January I get three paychecks. The first test will be February then. How much can we squeeze out of the budget to put in savings with this extra money coming out automatically? We'll see I guess.
Our coverage this year is costing us $176 each paycheck. The same coverage next year will cost $198 per paycheck. Ouch. That's a big increase. The Level 2 POS coverage would be $167 though. And everything else between BCBS and Patient Choice would be the same (deductibles, maximums, etc.). At this point it seemed like a no-brainer to switch and Chuck was on board with me.
Then I noticed one small detail - the hospitals in the kids' pediatricians care system did not include the hospital in our town, only one mile from our house. It included hospitals in neighboring towns, all 10 miles away or more. I checked the kids' pediatricians website and saw that they had "privileges" at the local hospital which only means if you're insurance accepts that as in-network. With Patient Choice it would not. With BCBS PPO the local clinic is in network for the kids and us. That right there made my decision.
Although we would pay $780 less in paycheck deductions by switching to the POS, it is not worth it if we can't go to the local hospital. That is especially true because that is where I'll be giving birth in May. As soon as the baby was born it would be out of network! There would go that $780 savings! Plus, I want to be able to use the local hospital with the kids and not have to drive farther away, especially if it was an emergency.
I also set up an HSA for us for next year. Jamison's birth cost us $2500 out of pocket. With the out of pocket maximums going up for next year I think it's a pretty safe bet that we could pay more than that this time. So I put $3000 in an HSA. That comes to about $115/paycheck which is something we can absorb in our monthly budget. It will be interesting to see what our January budget looks like. Wait, in January I get three paychecks. The first test will be February then. How much can we squeeze out of the budget to put in savings with this extra money coming out automatically? We'll see I guess.
Ouch! That's Big Car Bill
I just spoke with my Dad about our car that's in the shop. It needed a few things done. Number one was the clutch problem. In our car (a 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse) there is a master and a slave cylinder for the hydraulic clutch. Our mechanic was hoping it was the master because he couldn't find any used slave cylinders around our area. Uh oh! He replaced the master cylinder and that seems to have solved the problem. He's keeping the car overnight so he can test drive it one more time in the morning to ensure that is indeed the problem.
Then he also replaced our main belt for us too. In the Eclipse this unfortunately involves taking apart half the engine so while the belt itself isn't that expensive there is a fair bit of labor involved to replace it. However, since the car has 140,000 miles on it with the original belt and we want to keep the car for a few more years, he went ahead and did the work.
And the last repair done was a balancing of the front tires. Dad noticed a little quiver in the steering wheel while driving it home and while the tires look good, they could use a balancing.
All told our mechanic estimates the bill will be $766. Ouch! (Oh, and I love how that's an estimate! An estimate is round numbers like $750, not $766. Hee!) I think my Dad felt guilty for having to tell me that big number. He told me he'd pay it and we could pay him back whenever we had the money or in stages or whatever. My Dad is so sweet. I assured him we could pay it in full and told him how we saved 15% of our income last month, etc. I know my Dad worries about me and still wants to take care of his little girl but I'm certainly not going to take advantage of him. We'll take money out of savings and pay the bill in full. That's what the money is there for, right?
Then he also replaced our main belt for us too. In the Eclipse this unfortunately involves taking apart half the engine so while the belt itself isn't that expensive there is a fair bit of labor involved to replace it. However, since the car has 140,000 miles on it with the original belt and we want to keep the car for a few more years, he went ahead and did the work.
And the last repair done was a balancing of the front tires. Dad noticed a little quiver in the steering wheel while driving it home and while the tires look good, they could use a balancing.
All told our mechanic estimates the bill will be $766. Ouch! (Oh, and I love how that's an estimate! An estimate is round numbers like $750, not $766. Hee!) I think my Dad felt guilty for having to tell me that big number. He told me he'd pay it and we could pay him back whenever we had the money or in stages or whatever. My Dad is so sweet. I assured him we could pay it in full and told him how we saved 15% of our income last month, etc. I know my Dad worries about me and still wants to take care of his little girl but I'm certainly not going to take advantage of him. We'll take money out of savings and pay the bill in full. That's what the money is there for, right?
Car Maintenance - at least I hope that's all it is
Ever seen the movie “French Kiss” with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline? I was watching it on TV last week and laughed when Meg Ryan’s character yells out “Lactose Intolerance!” after eating a bunch of yummy French cheese. (BTW, Meg was still cute in that movie, before she botched her face with bad plastic surgery. Now she looks nothing like her formerly cute self.
Anyway, Monday night Chuck called me from work to tell me the car’s clutch was acting up again and this time it was serious. It had been acting up lately and Chuck had been adding fluid to the clutch reservoir for the past couple months. We figured it had a slow leak or something. Our car is 9 years old (a 2001 purchased in September 2000), has ~140,000 miles on it and has a standard transmission. It’s not unexpected that the car would need some maintenance. But all I could see was dollar signs when Chuck was talking and my internal voice was yelling “Emergency!” in much the same way Meg’s character yells.
I’ve calmed down since then though. Our car goes into the mechanic tomorrow and we’ve asked that he take a look at the car for other maintenance that should be done (belts, spark plugs, etc. that haven’t been maintained in, well, forever). I had budgeted for $475 to go into the emergency fund this month. I’m not sure what the mechanic will all find or what it will take to fix the clutch but I’m hoping we get out of there for under $475. (It’s a mechanic I trust so no worries about him “finding” things that don’t need to be worked on.) If we do, we’ll cash flow the mechanic bill this month and put less in the emergency fund. While that saddens me (more in the emergency fund, more!) it’s also exactly what that money is for so I’m deep-breathing and zen-ing and letting it go. A mechanic’s maintenance bill is much cheaper than a new car payment so we’ll do what we can to keep the car running and in good, reliable shape for the next few years.
Anyway, Monday night Chuck called me from work to tell me the car’s clutch was acting up again and this time it was serious. It had been acting up lately and Chuck had been adding fluid to the clutch reservoir for the past couple months. We figured it had a slow leak or something. Our car is 9 years old (a 2001 purchased in September 2000), has ~140,000 miles on it and has a standard transmission. It’s not unexpected that the car would need some maintenance. But all I could see was dollar signs when Chuck was talking and my internal voice was yelling “Emergency!” in much the same way Meg’s character yells.
I’ve calmed down since then though. Our car goes into the mechanic tomorrow and we’ve asked that he take a look at the car for other maintenance that should be done (belts, spark plugs, etc. that haven’t been maintained in, well, forever). I had budgeted for $475 to go into the emergency fund this month. I’m not sure what the mechanic will all find or what it will take to fix the clutch but I’m hoping we get out of there for under $475. (It’s a mechanic I trust so no worries about him “finding” things that don’t need to be worked on.) If we do, we’ll cash flow the mechanic bill this month and put less in the emergency fund. While that saddens me (more in the emergency fund, more!) it’s also exactly what that money is for so I’m deep-breathing and zen-ing and letting it go. A mechanic’s maintenance bill is much cheaper than a new car payment so we’ll do what we can to keep the car running and in good, reliable shape for the next few years.
Truck Insurance Increase
No one commented on the fact that our truck insurance went way up in the October budget. We were $40 over budget! Hello! Is this thing on? Heh.
When I was updating the budget in October and saw that the high amount (over $80!) was removed from our checking account for the truck insurance. I was so angry! I immediately went online to our insurance provider’s website and looked at our bill. This bill is set to automatically pay the minimum due three days before the due date. We never have a late fee that way. Anyway, I was non-too pleased to see the large increase. This was a Sunday night and I called the customer service number. Amazingly someone was there and was very helpful. She informed me that my insurance went up due to the new truck and that from now on my bill will be $67/month instead of the $45 I was quoted from my independent agency. And the reason why this month was higher than that is because the last bill went out before the new truck information was entered and so we’re “catching up” this month to make up for that. Yeah. Not happy. I was a little leary of that $45 number anyway because when I spoke to the agent’s receptionist she didn’t seem very confident in how she was inputting the data into the system. I think she made a mistake and gave me a mis-quote.
So, our truck insurance will be going from $43 to $67/month. I guess I’m not too surprised by this. Back when the Blazer was new in 1999 my insurance was roughly $60/month. Over the 10 ½ years we had it, it dropped down to $43/month. I expect the insurance for the new truck will drop over the years too.
I still need to see how much we could save by paying bi-annually instead of monthly. It’s still on the to-do list. I should also send out a query to other insurance agencies on what they could do for us for our home-auto insurance to make sure we’re getting the best price. I’ll put that on my to-do list also.
When I was updating the budget in October and saw that the high amount (over $80!) was removed from our checking account for the truck insurance. I was so angry! I immediately went online to our insurance provider’s website and looked at our bill. This bill is set to automatically pay the minimum due three days before the due date. We never have a late fee that way. Anyway, I was non-too pleased to see the large increase. This was a Sunday night and I called the customer service number. Amazingly someone was there and was very helpful. She informed me that my insurance went up due to the new truck and that from now on my bill will be $67/month instead of the $45 I was quoted from my independent agency. And the reason why this month was higher than that is because the last bill went out before the new truck information was entered and so we’re “catching up” this month to make up for that. Yeah. Not happy. I was a little leary of that $45 number anyway because when I spoke to the agent’s receptionist she didn’t seem very confident in how she was inputting the data into the system. I think she made a mistake and gave me a mis-quote.
So, our truck insurance will be going from $43 to $67/month. I guess I’m not too surprised by this. Back when the Blazer was new in 1999 my insurance was roughly $60/month. Over the 10 ½ years we had it, it dropped down to $43/month. I expect the insurance for the new truck will drop over the years too.
I still need to see how much we could save by paying bi-annually instead of monthly. It’s still on the to-do list. I should also send out a query to other insurance agencies on what they could do for us for our home-auto insurance to make sure we’re getting the best price. I’ll put that on my to-do list also.
Christmas Budget 2009
Oh people, this isn't good. Our Christmas budget, when tallied up this year, is higher than I anticipated it to be. Right now we have $683 in our Christmas fund with $100 more slated to go into the fund this month. I was going to put another $100 into it next month for a total of $883 thinking that should be more than enough. And then I put this budget together and briefly discussed it with Chuck:
Um, that is more money than we have in our Christmas fund. Either we can scale back or we can put more money in the Christmas fund next month and less in our emergency fund.
Chuck was generally OK with the numbers I showed him. Both sets of siblings are talking about drawing names this year but I took that to mean Chuck and I would each draw a name, with a $50 maximum, to total $100 on each side of the family. That's why you see $50 for each of our siblings. Chuck took it to mean that as couples we'd draw and have a $50 maximum so it would be $50 total, not $100. I guess we have some figuring out to do at Thanksgiving this year. So, the budget could go down by $100 if Chuck is correct. And my mom's husband's birthday is on Christmas Day so I always budget for his birthday and Christmas present in our Christmas budget, in case anyone was wondering.
So, that's where we're at. More discussing to be done obviously!
| Name | Budget | Actual | Difference |
| Chuck | $75.00 | ||
| Cynthia | $75.00 | ||
| Anya | $100.00 | ||
| Jamison | $100.00 | ||
| Cynthia's Dad & Fiancee | $100.00 | ||
| Cynthia's Sister & Husband | $50.00 | ||
| Cynthia's Brother | $50.00 | ||
| Cynthia's Mom & Husband | $100.00 | ||
| Cynthias's Mom's Husbands Birthday | $25.00 | ||
| Chuck's Parents | $100.00 | ||
| Chuck's Grandfather | $15.00 | ||
| Chuck's Brother & Wife | $50.00 | ||
| Chuck's Sister & Husband | $50.00 | ||
| Nephew | $25.00 | ||
| Cynthia's Friend | $25.00 | ||
| Godchild and siblings | $40.00 | ||
| Work Adopt A Family | $25.00 | ||
| Church Adopt a Family | $25.00 | ||
| Anya's Teachers | $20.00 | ||
| Total: | $1,050.00 | $0.00 | $1,050.00 |
Um, that is more money than we have in our Christmas fund. Either we can scale back or we can put more money in the Christmas fund next month and less in our emergency fund.
Chuck was generally OK with the numbers I showed him. Both sets of siblings are talking about drawing names this year but I took that to mean Chuck and I would each draw a name, with a $50 maximum, to total $100 on each side of the family. That's why you see $50 for each of our siblings. Chuck took it to mean that as couples we'd draw and have a $50 maximum so it would be $50 total, not $100. I guess we have some figuring out to do at Thanksgiving this year. So, the budget could go down by $100 if Chuck is correct. And my mom's husband's birthday is on Christmas Day so I always budget for his birthday and Christmas present in our Christmas budget, in case anyone was wondering.
So, that's where we're at. More discussing to be done obviously!
October Budget Recap
It's time to fess up. Come clean. Show you how we really did this month. Here is our October budget and actuals:
First - the good news. We brought in an additional $244 this month. That is all thanks to Chuck working some extra hours. And at the end of the month we had $17 left over. That's good too!
Now, the bad. Our spending was too high this month. Thank goodness Chuck brought home extra money our we would have gone red this month! Our household, restaurant and discretionary budgets were all over this month.
Why? Well, the restaurant one is our own spur-of-the-moment-let's-go-out foolishness. We didn't have to and knew we were close to our budget but went anyway. And then in the last days of the month I was craving LeeAnn Chin (like for two weeks) and finally gave in at lunch one day. Poof! Over budget.
Our household budget is over because we just bought too much miscellaneous crap at Target this month. I don't even know what it all was (besides medicines for the kids and Halloween costumes - that I remember) but I'm sure we "needed" it at the time. We did buy diapers twice this month so there went $36. (Sending subliminal messages to Jamison to potty train...)
Our discretionary is a catch all this month for things like cash from the ATM, childrens clothing (Jamison's 2T pants are all too short so he now has four new pairs of 3T pants), stamps, new rugs for the house that aren't disintegrating, outstanding checks from months past that were finally cashed, and a Christmas present for a family in need from church, etc.. That last one should technically come from the Christmas budget and not the regular monthly budget but we had room to absorb it this month so we did.
We still managed to save quite a bit this month and for that I am grateful. We'll work hard to stay under budget this month as the extra hours from Chuck's job aren't guaranteed to come through for us again!
And that $17.33 extra has already been transferred to the emergency fund. Every little bit helps!
First - the good news. We brought in an additional $244 this month. That is all thanks to Chuck working some extra hours. And at the end of the month we had $17 left over. That's good too!
Now, the bad. Our spending was too high this month. Thank goodness Chuck brought home extra money our we would have gone red this month! Our household, restaurant and discretionary budgets were all over this month.
Why? Well, the restaurant one is our own spur-of-the-moment-let's-go-out foolishness. We didn't have to and knew we were close to our budget but went anyway. And then in the last days of the month I was craving LeeAnn Chin (like for two weeks) and finally gave in at lunch one day. Poof! Over budget.
Our household budget is over because we just bought too much miscellaneous crap at Target this month. I don't even know what it all was (besides medicines for the kids and Halloween costumes - that I remember) but I'm sure we "needed" it at the time. We did buy diapers twice this month so there went $36. (Sending subliminal messages to Jamison to potty train...)
Our discretionary is a catch all this month for things like cash from the ATM, childrens clothing (Jamison's 2T pants are all too short so he now has four new pairs of 3T pants), stamps, new rugs for the house that aren't disintegrating, outstanding checks from months past that were finally cashed, and a Christmas present for a family in need from church, etc.. That last one should technically come from the Christmas budget and not the regular monthly budget but we had room to absorb it this month so we did.
We still managed to save quite a bit this month and for that I am grateful. We'll work hard to stay under budget this month as the extra hours from Chuck's job aren't guaranteed to come through for us again!
And that $17.33 extra has already been transferred to the emergency fund. Every little bit helps!
October 2009 Month End
It is time again for a month end report. I actually like doing these. I like seeing the numbers in black and white of what we've been able to save this month. And I like seeing that truck balance finally go down! Here's how our October shaped up:
Debts:
Truck Loan: $31,243.55 (- $440.05) - First payment of $440.05 is in the books. I just scheduled our next payment to go out tomorrow. The first and second of 72. Only 70 to go! We're still very happy with our vehicle and intend to keep it the next 10+ years, just like we did the Blazer we traded in. I do need to think about creating a new vehicle fund though. Our 10 year old car (a 2001 bought in September 2000) has 138,000 miles on it and most likely won't make it the next six years while we're paying off the truck. Right now I want to focus on the emergency fund but when that is fully funded Chuck and I will have to discuss saving money for the basement (a want) versus saving money for a replacement vehicle for the car (a need as it is our commuting car while the truck stays home with the children and has the car seats in it).
Savings:
Emergency Fund: $5,440.53 (+508.47) - A little more progress this month. I'm happy we could put away as much as we could. I also had to pay Chuck's $492 appendectomy bill this month. I would have rather put that money in savings but am still grateful we have good insurance and didn't have to pay the $15,000 original bill!
Short Term Savings: $233.88 (+50.00) - We're almost to our new minimum in this account ($250). After that Chuck and I will have to think about what we want to splurge on next. I have a couple of ideas but they are also Christmas gift ideas for Chuck so I can't tell you about them!
Travel Fund: $173.76 (+50.16) - I so want to add more money to this account each month! There are so many trips we want to take in the next few years and at the rate we're saving we won't have cash for them. But for now I'll keep my focus on the emergency fund, at least until my 10% pay reduction is restored (word on the street is end of November but I haven't seen an official communication yet).
Christmas Savings: $683.89 (+300.42) - I'm pretty happy I put some money in this account this month. This should be close to what we need for Christmas this year. I haven't put together the official Christmas budget yet. I'm going to put $100 in this account in November and December and then that should definitely cover us. The official Christmas budget, once created and discussed with Chuck, will be posted in the next week or so. (Secretly I wish this too could have gone in the emergency fund - just think...5440 + 492 + 300 = 6232 - such a nice big number!)
Basement Finishing Fund: $400.81 (+100.41) - Monthly contribution made here. Not much else to report. We don't plan on starting any work on the basement for probably at least 12 months so this account will be able to grow and accumulate interest in the mean time. When we are ready we'll do the work in stages and pay cash as we go. At least that's the plan right now.
And there you have it - October in a nutshell. As a side note, we saved 15.1% of our take-home income this month. That doesn't include the 8% I contribute to my 401k or the 4% Chuck contributes to his. Nor does it include the extra $226 we sent to the mortgage (3.5% of our take-home income this month (a three paycheck month for Chuck) or 4% of a "regular" month's take home pay). I'd say we're doing OK on the savings. I always wish it could be more but that's because I'm impatient and want to meet my goals and move on to the next ones!
Debts:
Truck Loan: $31,243.55 (- $440.05) - First payment of $440.05 is in the books. I just scheduled our next payment to go out tomorrow. The first and second of 72. Only 70 to go! We're still very happy with our vehicle and intend to keep it the next 10+ years, just like we did the Blazer we traded in. I do need to think about creating a new vehicle fund though. Our 10 year old car (a 2001 bought in September 2000) has 138,000 miles on it and most likely won't make it the next six years while we're paying off the truck. Right now I want to focus on the emergency fund but when that is fully funded Chuck and I will have to discuss saving money for the basement (a want) versus saving money for a replacement vehicle for the car (a need as it is our commuting car while the truck stays home with the children and has the car seats in it).
Savings:
Emergency Fund: $5,440.53 (+508.47) - A little more progress this month. I'm happy we could put away as much as we could. I also had to pay Chuck's $492 appendectomy bill this month. I would have rather put that money in savings but am still grateful we have good insurance and didn't have to pay the $15,000 original bill!
Short Term Savings: $233.88 (+50.00) - We're almost to our new minimum in this account ($250). After that Chuck and I will have to think about what we want to splurge on next. I have a couple of ideas but they are also Christmas gift ideas for Chuck so I can't tell you about them!
Travel Fund: $173.76 (+50.16) - I so want to add more money to this account each month! There are so many trips we want to take in the next few years and at the rate we're saving we won't have cash for them. But for now I'll keep my focus on the emergency fund, at least until my 10% pay reduction is restored (word on the street is end of November but I haven't seen an official communication yet).
Christmas Savings: $683.89 (+300.42) - I'm pretty happy I put some money in this account this month. This should be close to what we need for Christmas this year. I haven't put together the official Christmas budget yet. I'm going to put $100 in this account in November and December and then that should definitely cover us. The official Christmas budget, once created and discussed with Chuck, will be posted in the next week or so. (Secretly I wish this too could have gone in the emergency fund - just think...5440 + 492 + 300 = 6232 - such a nice big number!)
Basement Finishing Fund: $400.81 (+100.41) - Monthly contribution made here. Not much else to report. We don't plan on starting any work on the basement for probably at least 12 months so this account will be able to grow and accumulate interest in the mean time. When we are ready we'll do the work in stages and pay cash as we go. At least that's the plan right now.
And there you have it - October in a nutshell. As a side note, we saved 15.1% of our take-home income this month. That doesn't include the 8% I contribute to my 401k or the 4% Chuck contributes to his. Nor does it include the extra $226 we sent to the mortgage (3.5% of our take-home income this month (a three paycheck month for Chuck) or 4% of a "regular" month's take home pay). I'd say we're doing OK on the savings. I always wish it could be more but that's because I'm impatient and want to meet my goals and move on to the next ones!
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