Payoff: Month 13

December:

cc 1,2,3,4,5: 0

Loan 1: 0
Loan 2: 7311.85
Loan 3: 9071.73

Debt: 16383.58
Paid: 753.08


January:

cc 1,2,3,4,5: 0

Loan 1: 0
Loan 2: 6751.85
Loan 3: 8870.71

Debt: 15622.56
Paid: 761.02

Total Paid: 28285.32

Added to savings: 6400
Total Savings: ~15250

January Income Statement

Revenue: In addition to our income from our jobs, we also discovered we had an $1800+ balance in our bank accounts. We had gift money as well.

Fixed Expenses: Power skyrocketed to $300. Comcast raised our cable bill. We hadn't canceled the server.

Debt Repayment: I now own my computer, phone and work clothes! We paid off credit cards 1 and 2 and a huge amount of the balance on 3. The rest of the cards and loans got minimal amounts.

Variable: My husband's car is the main expense here. He had to register it, and before doing that, had $700 of work done on it. We did put that on the credit card, but I am sorry that we did. I feel we are having Karmic retribution now (see previous post). Travel is our plane tickets for the wedding in May, which we paid cash for. Bank fees include finance charges and a late fee incurred while I juggled around our new payment schedules. My "doll" budget includes the money I spent from my discretionary jar, an order made this summer that was sent off backorder, and some eyes and faceups (in cash) for my BJDs. I believe the rest of these expenses, including our sinking fund, were discussed in the Jan cash jar post.

We had a net income of almost $2500. Overall, a win. While we would not have come out positive just based on our income, I increased debt repayment and some other expenses upon learning we had more money to work with (as can be seen if you look back at the original budget). So, as the income increased, so I increased the outgo. This gave us a great starting momentum.

Is it really that hard to put a receipt in a jar?

We are entering the last day of January, and I am excited to say we made it through our first month. I will have a full income statement report later in the month, when the rest of the statements come, but I thought I would highlight what we can assess now. Overall, I am proud of our first month's effort.

We ended up with quite a bit of money left in the cash jars this month, I was surprised. The jar I was most concerned with was the gas jar, but in the end we still had $10 in there. I really thought I was going to run out of gas money. I haven't had a full tank all month, and gas prices went up a bit, but I have filled about $20 a week all month. My husband - who works from home most days - only had to fill once.

We only ordered in twice - pizza once and chinese once. We got the chinese on Thursday when we didn't feel like cooking, it was the end of the month, and we still had money. That cleaned out the takeout jar, which I also used to go on two lunch dates with friends this month - spending $6 on one and $5 on the other.

Supply money was spent on much needed furnace filters, lightbulbs, and some shipping supplies (as I have been selling some doll items). We were left with $6 and some change in that jar. Miscellaneous was spent on a birthday card for my cousin, post office, the work lunch (I opted out of a second work lunch) and my husband's emmission inspection. There was $10 and some change left in that jar. Our grocery total was $183 under the budget, which was excellent! I guess my husband had a point about the holidays hiking the amounts, plus we did not go to costco this month, which is $100-200 normally. He was very good about only going to the store once a week, which I also doubted, and did a very good job tracking our food purchase and use. I will also admit he spent the most on the trip that I accompanied him. This is why I have to stay out of the store.

Where I have run into trouble with him is in replacing the money with a receipt. I was missing a Kroger receipt (which I later found in the kitchen), the pizza AND Chinese receipt, and an indication of his emissions expense. It took a while to figure out where that money had gone. He is also griping about having to use cash instead of his debit. I like not using the debit - especially while we are getting out of debt - for two reasons. First, I think you spend less, and second, you have a visual indication of how much money there is left for the month. When I went to staples to get shipping supplies, I had $20 with me. I had to make that stretch. And there were several things there that I know would have found their way into my cart if I was using my debit or credit card.

I still have money in my discretion jar, and he does not. It is discretionary, so no receipts required, so I have no idea where he spent that money (he had some money in his wallet that he had added to the jar, so it ended up more than $13). I have $13 of my $25 left. I spent it on secondhand books - one being Financial Peace, and a couple of book club books. HOWEVER, I did paypal a few things to my bank account. So, I spent more than my limit, but I knew I had the money in my account to cover and I did not charge them. My husband also charged $700 in car repairs this month as well. A bit of a setback.

The extra amounts have been added to a "sinking fund" which is an envelope, because my husband recycled the jar I intended to use. But that is ok, because I wrote the amount for the month on the front of the envelope. We can use this money for our hotel in May, for Christmas, for surprise expenses. Its like an emergency fund for our emergency fund.

Cash Jars: Budgeted: left over:
Gas 125 10
Supplies 50 6
Miscellaneous 57 10
Grocery 500 183
Takeout 60 1

Sinking fund January total : 210

Here we go!

In the last weeks I have gathered jars for our cash budget categories. Between my job teaching, and our recycling tendencies, I had no problem finding jars around the house to repurpose. For fun, I printed out labels with the category name and the amounts. On the right you see the credit card jar, which I put all my credit cards into, but not my debit card, because it just scares me right now to have no emergency safety net. In the back you can see our super huge jelly belly jar which we dump our coins into, and have been doing that for years (I have another one upstairs for when I do laundry). The grocery and supplies jars used to be garlic jars, and I love the smell when I open them. I wonder if the money will soak that smell.

I went to the bank this morning and took out $950 in cash from my account. That was terrifying, but they didn't even blink. They gave me exactly what I wanted just how I wanted it. I don't think I have ever had that much money in my purse. I took it straight home, entered it in WG? and divvyed it up in the jars. As we spend this month, we will need to take the money out of the jar ahead of time, bring back change and receipt. Then, at the end of the month, I will use the receipts to help me track what we spend for our income statement. In our best case scenerio, we will still have money in the jars at the end of the month. We are discussing if we want to carry that money over to the next month, or transfer it to a travel jar. Coins to the coin jar.

So here we go. Wish me luck.

January's budget, and why I am already scared...

January's Budget.

Fixed: We are going to cut back on our cable, and my husband is working to set up a computer here so we can bring our server home. Those were pretty much the fixed areas I saw could get trimming. Sure, I could cut tivo and netflix and even cable... but we have to have a plan we can stick to. At this point, I do not feel our situation is that dire, and we do use all of those things. We are already going to lose a lot of favorite channels in the cable cutback, but we hope to get uverse in the future after we are out of credit debt and look forward to that (it is not currently in our area). I am also worried about our power bill. It has been shockingly low for winter here the last couple of months. I am scared it could come back with a vengance. It is a rather flexible fixed expense.

Debt: We will knock out CC1 and CC2 and about half of CC3. This is exciting. My tiny payments to CC 4 and 5 give me a stomach ache, tho. Those are the ones we are usually putting all the money to. Hopefully we will manage not to use them and all will go well. The payment to 4 includes the budgetted amount for netflix which gets charged to it, and the payment for 5 includes the budgetted amount for alarm, tivo and insurance. Plus a little extra towards the finance charge. (The top total is the actual total, the bottom total is the budgetted total. You should see what the non-print-area part of this spreadsheet looks like...)

Variable: We have set up "funds" for our lawn boy and our pets, so when those expenses do happen we have cash to cover. I would like a small travel fund as well, but it isn't in the cards this month. Instead, we have to pay my husband's car reg tax. I guess that is all I have to say about that. This section is all about willpower.

Save: :'(

Leaves us with a tiny bit left over for "just in case" and not bouncing checks.

~~~~~~~

I showed the budget to my husband, and he was mostly amenable. He did bring up a couple good points. One was his car renewal, which has made its way into the budget. If it is car renewal time, it must be birthday time. We hope to have some sort of family party, either out or at my family's which hopefully won't cost us anything. Gift? I guess that has to come from my discretionary (codenamed doll) or not at all. He also wants service done on his car. A necessary expense, but one that makes me nervous, and I know he will use the credit card for :( We also have to at least get a roof inspector out here. He wants some hardware for his bring-home-the-server project. And we have a wedding looming in the not so distant future. Plus convention tickets to buy (which I thought we had more time to save for).

We have a written plan. That doesn't mean we get stoned if something comes up. We will see how it goes.