I haven't posted our month's end update yet because our financial situation this past week has been so in flux. In a recent post I talked a bit about hoping our Xmas shortfall might "magically" fix itself. And believe it or not, we actually have had a fair bit of good fortune magic come our way recently in terms of income.
Hubby's writing/website management hobby is really taking off! He's just landed a new deal that should pay a minimum of $300/month starting next week, and possibly up to $500 or more. And that's in addition to the $220 he was already making through another deal, plus some smaller bits on the side. All together that is more than enough to make up for the back pay child support that is now ending (last check tomorrow!) and also enough to bridge the income gap we were expecting for Dec/Jan.
Additionally, I've had a little bit of work come my way as well! My worse case budget scenario was assuming I would continue to have only about $140/month of income (that used to be more like $600). For at least Dec/Jan though, I think I can count on that being around $400 instead, so that's another extra $260 that also kind of feels like it just magically appeared in time for Christmas.
Were in not for the car repair that suddenly fell into our laps as well then, we would probably feel we were raking in the dough. But alas, this was no ordinary car repair. This was a $992 doosey. I'm not even sure we've paid that much for a car repair before. Usually when the repairs start getting that expensive and close together, the car is old enough that we decide its probably not worth it and time for a newer one instead. But this is hubby's car and we are still making car payments on it as it is. It's also the newer of our two vehicles and therefore not allowed to reach the end of its life first!
Anyways, that completely cleaned out the emergency fund. All but $10.17. So that's a little scary. Cause it's a good two and a half months until tax rebate season. Additionally, our discretionary account has only $4.81 in it, while even our fixed checking, which we use for things like the mortgage, has only $728.42. Not cool. Luckily, hubby gets paid tomorrow, though there are still lots more gifts to get. I should point out here that the order these fluctuations came in as was: my income increase (Oh, good, that will help a little), then the car (Oh, fuck. We're screwed again.), then hubby's income increase (Woo hoooo!!! We're saved!). It's been a long week.
We ended last month with about $260 surplus, which we would have liked to use to pay down our credit card debts given that that is the point of this whole thing. Unfortunately, as the month ended, we were projecting a $750 shortfall for Dec./Jan., so I felt I needed to hold on to that extra to help somehow bridge the gap. When my extra income came in, we had high hopes that end of Dec or at least Jan. might afford us some surplus after all. But then the car crapped out, and Dave Ramsey says our first priority now should be going back to baby step 1 to replenish the emergency fund. I'm not quite sure yet where that puts us in terms of catching up again, but it may well be Feb still. In the meantime, we will continue making our roughly $500/month in minimum payments.
More good news; some very preliminary numbers I ran in the newly released 2012 Turbotax seem to predict that we will be getting back around $8000 this year! Holy shit! I think that's even bigger than when we got our first time home buyer's credit, though I might be wrong about that. We only claimed 4 deductions rather than 5 on hubby's W-4, so as to cancel out my estimated business taxes, but I didn't make very much so it ending up being a lot more withholdings than we really needed. Plus, we get some kind of a $2000 education credit for my daughter starting college, since she is still a dependent on our taxes for this year. Yay!! Until the car died, we were considering buying a new fridge with some of that. But at this point, we may just muddle through and try to just get done with this ASAP. Hopefully by next Xmas we'll be on baby step 3!
Showing posts with label Chirstmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chirstmas. Show all posts
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
The December Budget
I haven't posted an actual numbers budget here yet, but I figure given how careful we will need to be these next few months, December is a good time to start. Explanations to follow. Here goes:
Okay, so before my non-existent audience jumps down my neck about a few items on there, allow me to explain myself. First of all, our gym membership. A bit costly, I agree, and that is certainly one of those things they always recommend canceling at the beginning of any big get out of debt plan. But the assumption is usually that you're not using it enough for it to be worth it. And nothing could be farther from the truth in our case. You see, our gym provides 2 free hours of child care per day for stay at home mommies like me to take advantage of and not go crazy. Either my husband or I, and not uncommonly both, take a trip to the gym pretty much Every Single Day. No, I am not exaggerating, and we have both been doing this for over a year now so I'm pretty sure its not a phase. Additionally, since we started going to the gym, we have lost a combined total of over 100 pounds. This has brought both our BMIs into the healthy range and allows us to get a $1200/yr reduction in our health insurance premium costs. And guess what? That pays for the gym. So I think that's a valid expense.
The leaf removal service. Well, all I can say in defense is that my husband spent just about every moment of his weekend free time for a month last year trying to take care of this on his own, and we still did a completely half ass job. With two small boys who cannot be kept contained for any length of time without a fence, (nor kept in the cold that long), we just don't have the time for this right now. An extravagance, yes, but so, so worth it.
To be honest though, this is really an extension of the lawn mowing service we had this past summer. Also something we felt we did not have time for, though not as time consuming as the leaves I'll admit. And we had not yet started our Total Money Makeover then. Not sure what we're going to do about that next lawn season yet. If the boys are at the point where they can be outside with me while I do it, it might be possible again. I am hoping my business will pick up again by then though so that we won't need to feel bad about making that splurge again. Because we loved it and our yard looks so much better now.
One final note, while he does a great job, our lawn guy is horrible with his billing. We haven't yet actually received this leaf removal bill, and I have a feeling I am going to have to remind him he added us to his leaf list. He is a decent guy and I would not want to take advantage of him - but - if he did forget again, I may wait to remind him until late February or so. ;)
Entertainment - that's the allowance hubby and I give ourselves so that we have at least a little fun money. I've actually cut this budget category down quite a bit from what it used to be because we've both been pretty good at cutting it back and we have agreed to let go of date nights out for a year. But if I give hubby any less than what it currently is, he will not be willing to do this anymore. He's struggling as it is. So that's that.
Yes, we have expensive iPhone data plans. All I can say is that we live on them. There was a time not long ago that I felt they were completely unnecessary (hubby likes to remind me of that from time to time). But now, everything from our recipes, to workout routines, to social networking, to downtime gaming is on them and I'm not even sure what I would do without mine anymore. For better or worse, my phone is like an extension of myself at this point. So extravagant or not, we're not getting rid of that. We did cancel our home phone a while back though.
Garbage - just a note that that is for two months worth of service.
Gasoline - This one might be considerably lower. Will depend on whether I need to get my daughter from college at the end of the semester or not. Its amazing how much less we spend on gas than we used to though now that we don't go anywhere! Still figuring out what a good number for it is now.
Groceries - as I've mentioned, we're working on it. We've started shopping at a discount ware house store every couple weeks for many things, but we're still using our more expensive grocery delivery service for most perishable things, though we have almost halved our bill most weeks with the cost reducing measures we're taking. I think there's more we can do here, but Xmas and having 5 grocery days in Dec. instead of 4 is going to make this month hard. Someday the boys will be big enough to make store shopping feel more doable again too I'm sure, but by then hopefully we'll be out of this mess.
We do have some leftover buffer from this month that will help us out a little with that $773 difference, as well as some other possibilities I've discussed, but its going to be a tough month. Without Xmas in there, Jan should be a little better.
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The leaf removal service. Well, all I can say in defense is that my husband spent just about every moment of his weekend free time for a month last year trying to take care of this on his own, and we still did a completely half ass job. With two small boys who cannot be kept contained for any length of time without a fence, (nor kept in the cold that long), we just don't have the time for this right now. An extravagance, yes, but so, so worth it.
To be honest though, this is really an extension of the lawn mowing service we had this past summer. Also something we felt we did not have time for, though not as time consuming as the leaves I'll admit. And we had not yet started our Total Money Makeover then. Not sure what we're going to do about that next lawn season yet. If the boys are at the point where they can be outside with me while I do it, it might be possible again. I am hoping my business will pick up again by then though so that we won't need to feel bad about making that splurge again. Because we loved it and our yard looks so much better now.
One final note, while he does a great job, our lawn guy is horrible with his billing. We haven't yet actually received this leaf removal bill, and I have a feeling I am going to have to remind him he added us to his leaf list. He is a decent guy and I would not want to take advantage of him - but - if he did forget again, I may wait to remind him until late February or so. ;)
Entertainment - that's the allowance hubby and I give ourselves so that we have at least a little fun money. I've actually cut this budget category down quite a bit from what it used to be because we've both been pretty good at cutting it back and we have agreed to let go of date nights out for a year. But if I give hubby any less than what it currently is, he will not be willing to do this anymore. He's struggling as it is. So that's that.
Yes, we have expensive iPhone data plans. All I can say is that we live on them. There was a time not long ago that I felt they were completely unnecessary (hubby likes to remind me of that from time to time). But now, everything from our recipes, to workout routines, to social networking, to downtime gaming is on them and I'm not even sure what I would do without mine anymore. For better or worse, my phone is like an extension of myself at this point. So extravagant or not, we're not getting rid of that. We did cancel our home phone a while back though.
Garbage - just a note that that is for two months worth of service.
Gasoline - This one might be considerably lower. Will depend on whether I need to get my daughter from college at the end of the semester or not. Its amazing how much less we spend on gas than we used to though now that we don't go anywhere! Still figuring out what a good number for it is now.
Groceries - as I've mentioned, we're working on it. We've started shopping at a discount ware house store every couple weeks for many things, but we're still using our more expensive grocery delivery service for most perishable things, though we have almost halved our bill most weeks with the cost reducing measures we're taking. I think there's more we can do here, but Xmas and having 5 grocery days in Dec. instead of 4 is going to make this month hard. Someday the boys will be big enough to make store shopping feel more doable again too I'm sure, but by then hopefully we'll be out of this mess.
We do have some leftover buffer from this month that will help us out a little with that $773 difference, as well as some other possibilities I've discussed, but its going to be a tough month. Without Xmas in there, Jan should be a little better.
Cancelling Christmas (Except Not)
So bad news this week. That big job I usually get this time of year that has paid for the last couple Christmases will not be happening this year. Or anymore at all actually; it appears they have gone out of business. And given how much we were counting on it, that is quite a bummer.
The net effect of this is that Dec and Jan are not going to be just tight as I've mentioned, they are going to be negative in terms of cash flow. Even putting off getting the new tires we need, and even adding in the savings we scraped out of this month, I estimate we are still going to be about $500 short by the end of Jan. And given that bonuses and tax returns won't come in until the later half of Feb, the first half of that month is not going to be pretty either. Things have already felt so tight on this Total Money Makeover that it's hard for me to even picture how much more this is going to suck now.
Given all this, and in the spirit of maintaining gazelle intensity for our debts (I mentioned I hated that phrase, right?), it seems we probably should cancel Xmas this year. Or presents at least, that is. In fact, that would simple act alone would about take care of that $500 shortfall we have (so would winning that $500 million Powerball right now, but I digress). But we are not going to do that. Does this mean we are not really serious about our Total Money Makeover? I don't know, perhaps. But I just can't. It would be too sad for me and I think my husband would just lose it. We would lose our drive to do this because it just wouldn't feel worth it anymore. We're going to be smart about it and stick to our budget, but we're going to have Xmas, so tough.
So where is this $500 going to magically appear from then you ask? That's a good question. Cause we do have $1000 sitting in our emergency fund still, but we all know how Dave Ramsey feels about acting as if Xmas is an emergency. Well, one solution is that it might magically appear. Okay, okay, not magically. But so far hubby's side writing hobby has been bringing in a little more money than expected each month. I think its quite possible we could end up with up to $250 more from that then I currently have budgeted. Also, I could get another job through my business (hah!). I mean, probably not this month, but it could happen. At one time, I made over $20K/yr with this little side gig. (Will probably be lucky to hit even $6K this year.)
Other, less magical avenues include the possibility of me getting a very part-time job in the evenings. I'm looking into this and will in fact be putting in an application by the end of the week I hope. Not sure I will do it for any longer than necessary, but I feel I must do something. It just sucks because I will probably make only a quarter as much per hour for my efforts doing that then for my business. But a quarter as much still meets the gap my business is just not producing right now. I really hope that changes again eventually. :(
If worse comes to worse though and none of those things pan out, I guess we will be tapping into the emergency fund. All I can say in our defense is that I promise we will pay it back in February. Needless to say, there will be no extra credit card/car payments for the next 3 months. Our minimum payments total to almost $500/month though, and our credit cards are all no interest promotions, so as long as we don't use those, we'll still be chipping away at it.
The net effect of this is that Dec and Jan are not going to be just tight as I've mentioned, they are going to be negative in terms of cash flow. Even putting off getting the new tires we need, and even adding in the savings we scraped out of this month, I estimate we are still going to be about $500 short by the end of Jan. And given that bonuses and tax returns won't come in until the later half of Feb, the first half of that month is not going to be pretty either. Things have already felt so tight on this Total Money Makeover that it's hard for me to even picture how much more this is going to suck now.
Given all this, and in the spirit of maintaining gazelle intensity for our debts (I mentioned I hated that phrase, right?), it seems we probably should cancel Xmas this year. Or presents at least, that is. In fact, that would simple act alone would about take care of that $500 shortfall we have (so would winning that $500 million Powerball right now, but I digress). But we are not going to do that. Does this mean we are not really serious about our Total Money Makeover? I don't know, perhaps. But I just can't. It would be too sad for me and I think my husband would just lose it. We would lose our drive to do this because it just wouldn't feel worth it anymore. We're going to be smart about it and stick to our budget, but we're going to have Xmas, so tough.
So where is this $500 going to magically appear from then you ask? That's a good question. Cause we do have $1000 sitting in our emergency fund still, but we all know how Dave Ramsey feels about acting as if Xmas is an emergency. Well, one solution is that it might magically appear. Okay, okay, not magically. But so far hubby's side writing hobby has been bringing in a little more money than expected each month. I think its quite possible we could end up with up to $250 more from that then I currently have budgeted. Also, I could get another job through my business (hah!). I mean, probably not this month, but it could happen. At one time, I made over $20K/yr with this little side gig. (Will probably be lucky to hit even $6K this year.)
Other, less magical avenues include the possibility of me getting a very part-time job in the evenings. I'm looking into this and will in fact be putting in an application by the end of the week I hope. Not sure I will do it for any longer than necessary, but I feel I must do something. It just sucks because I will probably make only a quarter as much per hour for my efforts doing that then for my business. But a quarter as much still meets the gap my business is just not producing right now. I really hope that changes again eventually. :(
If worse comes to worse though and none of those things pan out, I guess we will be tapping into the emergency fund. All I can say in our defense is that I promise we will pay it back in February. Needless to say, there will be no extra credit card/car payments for the next 3 months. Our minimum payments total to almost $500/month though, and our credit cards are all no interest promotions, so as long as we don't use those, we'll still be chipping away at it.
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