Well, after having a baby and starting a new job I'm back on the wagon! I took a paycut to have a low stress job that is closer to home. The job itself is mediocre, but the family-friendliness makes up for the lack of professional stimulation.
I've already started back with couponing and last week I spent $25 on food, but saved $40! I really enjoy the challenge and I hope that I can stick with it. DH seems to be on board and I ran the new proposed budget past him. Highlights of the new budget: we each geta $50 allowance every other week. We get paid on opposite weeks, so he gets his allowance when he's paid and I get mine when I'm paid. $100/wk for groceries seems high but that includes DH's beer (that he would buy regardless of what I say) and diapers/wipes for my littlest man. I'm hoping to keep it under that though. We just have DH's student loan and our mortgage so that's good. We do have an emergency fund so that's taken care of. I have a bit of money set aside for each child (not much, around $1700 for older DS and about $1100 for baby). I need to figure out what we're going to do with this. I do worry that my car is older (1999) and we'll have to replace it at some point. I'm not sure how to save for it as we're pretty much running on a zero balance budget. That said, we each contribute 10% to our 401Ks and we do save for those bigger, less frequent bills like car insurance and xmas. But, there isn't much left over. My most difficult challenge is getting DH to 'buy in.' He's a notorious budget buster. Not on big ticket items but on little things here and there at the grocery store or buying beer. I *think* I can work on the grocery part but he's not willing to give up his beer. He's an avid fisherman and he belongs to a fishing club. He teaches an extra class a semester and uses that stipend to pay for his fishing weekends. That's why we have a 'fishing tournament' line on our budget. That's his stipend money. Before we came up with this he was spending a couple thousand a year on that stuff so I told him he had to find a way to fund it himself. So, it's working well so far. This Friday marks the beginning of our new budget. This is for the next 4 weeks, what do you think?
Net Pay 5,062
Child Care (1,064)
Food (400)
Misc (oil changes, etc.) (100)
Dining Out (100)
Gas (500)
Savings (ins, travel, etc.) (250)
Mortgage (1,450)
Student Loan (220)
Allowance (200)
Fishing Tournaments (180)
Direct TV (86)
MLGW (300)
Verizon -
Bell South (103)
American Home Shield (41)
Daniel (20)
Zackary (20)
-
Total Expenses (5,034)
Ending Balance 28
Dayum, it's been a while.
April 9th, 2008 at 06:03 pm
April 9th, 2008 at 06:52 pm 1207767126
April 9th, 2008 at 07:42 pm 1207770159
Verizon-Bell South looks pricy; any way to knock that down?
What's MLGW??
Other than that it looks pretty good. I hope your husband appreciates that you're putting fishing and beer into an otherwise pretty strict budget. :-)
April 9th, 2008 at 08:21 pm 1207772483
I'd love to figure out a way (that is agreeable to DH) to reduce our phone/internet/cell phone bills. He wants to stay with Verizon b/c that is what the rest of his family uses.
Bell South is phone/internet (DSL). We have unlimited long distance because we live away from family. I'm thinking of seeing how much it is to decrease this though. If DH talks to his family on the cell phone then maybe I can just use calling cards? I'm not sure. I think that would save around $35/month or so.
Verizon is paid up through halfway through May, that's why it shows $0. It's actually $88 for our 'family' plan. I'm also going to look into dropping HBO from our direct tv. We used to watch it all the time when there were good Sunday night shows on, but we haven't been interested lately. That is about $15/month I think.
April 9th, 2008 at 10:18 pm 1207779535
April 10th, 2008 at 07:42 pm 1207856557
April 10th, 2008 at 07:51 pm 1207857114