BUDGET 2.0

In my last blog post, I explained how my major budget errors caused us to have to get a  payday loan to make it for the first part of January. We are working out the kinks and the second part of January is looking better.  We are still learning how much we realistically need to budget for each household category as well as attempting to break bad spending habits.

I predict that we will be about $100.00 over budget when our budget cycle ends on February 4th (we go off DW's pay schedule of the 5th and 20th of each month). Luckily I had put aside $150.00 to roll over to next month, to help pay off the payday loan due on 02/06/2015. So while we have the money to cover the overages, the first part of February will be tighter than predicted.

January's budget taught me that I definitely need to increase my grocery budget.  Our grocery budget covers everything from food, toiletries, dog food and cleaning supplies. I increased February's by $50.00 to help cover the basic items we run out of at the end of the pay period.  I also added a 'Other' category of $50.00 so that money is set aside for prescription co-pays,  birthday presents for birthday parties, and the occasional fast food meal.So we will see if these small changes help us stay on budget in February.

Below is an alternated, cleaner version of my budget.  The one I really use it set up like I think, so pretty much all over the place with notes, formulas, and random data spread over the place which makes perfect sense to me but looks like a bunch of gibberish to anyone else.

I will probably end up moving the water bill over to the second part of the month because the left over amount show at the top will be close to $50.00 dollars than $153.21.

The DW/Carmel $160.00 shown on the top right is a allowance that both DW and I get each pay period.  In December we were spending almost $400.00 dollars a month on cigarette. It became obvious that we can't afford that. We agreed to cut down substantially and as incentive to cut smoking all together we agreed that we can either use the $80.00 each to smoke or buy ourselves whatever we wanted.. I am hoping monthly pedicures in my future as soon as I officially kick this habit.

The Discover Card payment this month is higher than it normally will be. I missed December's payment and I am paying higher payments in January and February to get caught up.

The saving's budget isn't really an emergency savings, it is mostly putting money aside for big events coming up. This money is savings towards DS1 (Dear Son 1) and DS2 (Dear Son 2) birthday presents which are coming up end of March and beginning of April.

While we are paying off the Payday Loan and the West Loan this month I still don't feel like we are making much progress towards reducing debt since those are the two newest debts.  Luck holding, we should be able to throw almost $700.00 towards Capital one in March.  When I get our 2014 tax return later this year I am hoping to get Capital One and the Car Payment wiped out at once!! I know I shouldn't count my chicken's until they are hatched but forecasting what my money can do for me if I stay on track really gives me a boost.