HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
I hope your 2018 was a good one. I know it wasn't for a lot of people, including us. But, to be honest, we haven't ended a year in a long time, and been able to say "That was a great year!" . I'm REALLY hoping 2019 changes that.
Today, I wanted to share our January 2019 budget with you all. (This ended up being much longer than expected, but I wanted to elaborate on a lot of things, and figure it will answer any questions future-me has if I look back on this post in a year or two.)
If you have been following along, you'll know we did a budget for December/January which ran from the middle of December to the middle of January. We weren't really thrilled with those dates, but it was when we were starting, so that's what we went with. We started off doing well, but then Christmas and our daughter's wedding happened, and I just could not stick to it. I had to get food for the reception I wasn't aware I needed earlier, and then decided I needed a new outfit for the wedding. Then other little bits of spending here and there happened, and by the end of it, we were over budget $226.
So, there we were at the end of December and the end of a year and in the middle of a budget that was already busted. So, we trashed the old budget and started fresh.
Due to being overdrawn from the overspending for the wedding, what's left of his paycheck in the bank isn't a lot, but we are just going with the number that's in there, and doing lowball estimates of the next few paychecks we'll get this month.
Our budget for January 2019 actually runs from December 29, 2018 - January 23, 2019. That's two of my paychecks and two of my husband's. He gets paid again on the 24th, and that will be the first checks on the February budget. It's a little wonky, but until we can get ahead on things, it's just the best way to do it right now.
(The budget sheets we used are ones I got from Stacey Flowers.)
So, in our Four Walls this month, we're doing less for groceries, - only 80 per person for the month. So, that's $240, which will be divided into $120 per shopping trip - but we've added small amounts for things like toiletries and household supplies and pet supplies, so that $120 will just be for food. I'm going to try to keep that stuff separate from my groceries when I check out. I usually use the self checkouts anyway, so it shouldn't be an issue. That way I can see exactly what I spend on actual food vs cat food vs toothpaste vs toilet paper or paper towels etc.
For the phone minutes, we've both agreed to cut down to the Straight Talk 2 GB plan. I canceled all my music streaming services anyway as well as YouTube Premium (man I MISS that!), so there's not much for me to use data for anyway. The Internet bill on here is actually December's. We're still not caught up on that bill, so it's usually 2 weeks late every month. It should be lower next month. If not, then I'll have to call and complain, because they quoted me $218 a month after fees and taxes etc.
The electric is December's which is always due on the 28th. I did get it paid on time, so I didn't have a late fee. It's also the lowest December bill I think we've ever had. I've had the thermostat set at 69 and rarely turn it up at all. We've gotten used to it and wear long sleeves and socks etc. It's comfy. People who visit us are usually shivering though LOL. Whatever it takes to keep that electric bill low though! I know January's will be higher because we've had Faelyn and Austin here on Christmas break, and every night all the lights in the house seem to be on. That drives me nuts.
Rent is $181 instead of $160 because property taxes were $21 more than they charged us for over the last year. It's the first time the property value has gone up like that. I did set up auto drafts for rent though, so I'll never be charged a late fee of it again due to forgetting or not getting around to it. We had to get money orders, then mail it, and it was just a PITA, so this is so much easier. And we got entered into a drawing for a $100 Walmart gift card! So, here's hoping!
For gas for the car, we decided to leave it at $40 for the month. We have over half a tank already, and we're hoping that gets us through several days. My husband's commute is like 2 miles now, and he only works 3-4 days a week - and I only leave home to go grocery shopping or pay bills like once every two weeks. However, we have to take our daughter Faelyn, back to college in Berea, Kentucky, which is 4 hours away, and takes 1 full tank of gas. We noted where the gas gauge was last time when we started, and where it was when we got back home, with a fill-up in between, and it was the exact same place. Gas is currently only $1.85/gallon here, so if it stays that low, we can probably fill up for about $15.00.
Entertainment is $12.00 because that's how much it would cost for all 3 of us to go see Fantastic Beasts 2 at the second run theater. It would also use a bit of gas to get there, since it's in the bigger city 45 minutes away, but we want to see the movie, and missed it before it left the first run theaters. So far, it's not showing there, but hopefully it will after the 10th. As I mentioned earlier, I canceled all the subscriptions. No more Netflix or Apple Music or YouTube premium or Spotify etc. I did however, reach out to my adult children who have been using my Netflix account and sharing it with their friends and dorm mates and random people for years, and told them, if they felt like actually getting their own Netflix account, we'd be happy to know the login and password and same goes for Amazon Music Family Plan... and my daughter Rhiannon and her husband Joe came through with the Netflix account, and said they'll be switching to an Apple Music Family plan and sharing that with us soon as well. So, yay!
So, there we have the Four Walls, or the basics. The next two sheets are where we tell the money *Where* to go (including the Four Walls).
So, this is the meat of the budget. At the top of the first page is our estimated income for the paychecks included in this budget: $2425.00. This accounts for every single dollar we have and expect to get as income between when we did the budget and January 23rd. I used to always put money on debts first, and then we never had anything left over, and never stuck to it. This budget is much easier to stick to, however, there are a lot of creditors who are just not getting paid in January. Notice all those credit cards with no money going to them. And we actually owe like $200 on the Walmart card, but that $42.56 was what we were left with after paying the others, and we decided to put in on the Walmart card. Since we refinanced One Main and Lendmark in November, we knew we needed to honor our agreement with them and make those payments, even though one was pretty high. But in February and going forward, both of them will be lower. These payments were just covering fees etc. The AF247 is a cash advance place online that I only turned to in desperation, and wish I hadn't, but truly I was glad to be able to borrow the money at all. Our credit is destroyed, and when I got the advance, my husband was still out of work, and stuff was seriously getting bad. But now, we have a $123 bill on the 15th and 30th of every month and it has a really high interest rate, and it's set up on auto drafts, so it has to be paid, regardless.
My husband still wanted to have money for vending machines, so we put $10 in the restaurant category, but that's all he gets and he knows it and is determined to make this work too, so he has to watch his spending and only get a drink from the machine if he really needs to. He'll have to learn to refill his tumbler in the water fountain or something. Maybe he can get a water from the McDonalds nearby for free or something.
Since I wanted to make sure I budgeted $80 per person for the month for food, I made separate categories for household supplies, toiletries, and pet supplies. The little numbers out next to those is from when I was doing the Allocation sheets. I'd budget $8 for one week and $7 or $12 the next week etc. When a category was allocated, I'd put a dot next to the amount to make sure I didn't miss anything. The ones without dots were allocated on the last paycheck.
So, once we knew where our money was going, we had to figure out *when* it was going. That's what the Allocated Spending sheets are for.
So, in this sheet, you can finally see our paychecks. The dates listed, are the dates between paychecks, so basically the days that paycheck covers. So, like the 3rd one is from 1/10-1/14 That paycheck comes in on the 10th, and the next one comes in on the 15th, so the dates this checks covers are the 10th-14th.
So, when doing these pages, you start at the top of page 1 and keep a running balance as you list things to be paid, and stop when you get to 0.00. The first one ran out pretty fast obviously. Fortunately, the next check was coming up soon (today in fact).
At the top of each column, I'd write the forwarding balance (not sure why there's not a spot for that on the sheet, but I guess it's common sense).
And as I mentioned before, when we got to the end of paying everything we HAD to pay per agreements and auto drafts, we had enough left to pay one other loan, which we decided would be my Credit Central one. It got paid on time too, so that was nice. Then that left $42.56, which wasn't enough for a loan minimum, so we decided on the Walmart card. We don't want to use credit anymore, but if we were to try to keep one just in case, it would likely be the Walmart one.
We also reset the Every Dollar app, and have been very good about entering everything so far. Today (12/31/18) was errand/bank day, so I went to the bank and got out the cash for the Credit Central payment, groceries, household, toiletries, and pet supplies. Everything else on the first two paychecks would be auto-drafted or paid online or with a debit card. Then I divvied the cash into the envelopes.
This is the cash envelope wallet I use (you can barely see mine at the bottom of some of the photos since it was propping up the clip board so I could take the photos.) I bought mine years ago, and it's held up wonderfully. I even bought one for my mother in law after she saw mine and said she wanted one. They come in lots of patterns and colors. This is an affiliate link by the way:
Every little bit helps!(Also, y'all clicking on the ads on my blog help me out a lot as well!)
My husband and I are really gung-ho about this time. We both agreed to the numbers, since we sat down and did it together. We discussed meals and the menu plan and grocery list. We ended up agreeing to do Hello Fresh for one week. We'd gotten a coupon for $60 off for Christmas, but it was still going to be too much for our budget, but then I noticed they sent me an email and gave me 60% off. So the meals came out to $3 a person when we did the family plan of 3 meals for 4 people. That way we can each get a portion and then there'll be one portion left over for my husband's lunch at work the next day. So, then we had to decide what meals to have the other nights, and what could we make that would stretch and give us leftovers for a couple of nights as well. I think the plan we have it pretty solid. It'll be a challenge to get everything with only the cash in that envelope. (When we signed up for the Hello Fresh, that did come off our debit card, so tomorrow morning, we'll go deposit $36 out of the grocery envelope, to cover that.) Also, we had to decide what to do about Sunday the 6th when we take Faelyn back to Berea. I don't know if she'll have her own money to buy her own dinner (they did just get wedding money but I dunno), so we agreed we need to be able to buy dinner for all 3 of us during the trip. So, we looked at where we could save. I noticed the car payment was actually $5 less than I'd budgeted, so we have that, plus $3 I found in a pocket, and I have about $7 in a TARDIS bank on my shelf. I'm pretty sure I won't have anything left out of the other envelopes. So hopefully, we can find a place that has cheap combos or something, so we can all get food for $15. We do have codes on receipts for free Rt 44 drinks at Sonic, so we can use those before we leave town, so we'll have drinks for the trip at least. It will certainly be a challenge, but I think it'll be fine, and I get the feeling Faelyn will be paying for her own, though I wish she didn't have to. We just have to remember, we have to live like this now, so one day we can live a whole different way.
Well, if you've read this all the way to here, THANK YOU! I appreciate you coming along this journey with us. I have high hopes that it will work this time. We are both very clear on it. There's no confusion about any numbers like there was before.
I also have put in my planner specific blog post topics and the dates I want to get them posted. I'm hoping to post a blog at least twice a week. Maybe more often, if I'm doing a recipe review or meal prepping etc. Thanks again y'all! Until next time. Have a wonderful New Year!
Patty
I hope your 2018 was a good one. I know it wasn't for a lot of people, including us. But, to be honest, we haven't ended a year in a long time, and been able to say "That was a great year!" . I'm REALLY hoping 2019 changes that.
Today, I wanted to share our January 2019 budget with you all. (This ended up being much longer than expected, but I wanted to elaborate on a lot of things, and figure it will answer any questions future-me has if I look back on this post in a year or two.)
If you have been following along, you'll know we did a budget for December/January which ran from the middle of December to the middle of January. We weren't really thrilled with those dates, but it was when we were starting, so that's what we went with. We started off doing well, but then Christmas and our daughter's wedding happened, and I just could not stick to it. I had to get food for the reception I wasn't aware I needed earlier, and then decided I needed a new outfit for the wedding. Then other little bits of spending here and there happened, and by the end of it, we were over budget $226.
So, there we were at the end of December and the end of a year and in the middle of a budget that was already busted. So, we trashed the old budget and started fresh.
Due to being overdrawn from the overspending for the wedding, what's left of his paycheck in the bank isn't a lot, but we are just going with the number that's in there, and doing lowball estimates of the next few paychecks we'll get this month.
Our budget for January 2019 actually runs from December 29, 2018 - January 23, 2019. That's two of my paychecks and two of my husband's. He gets paid again on the 24th, and that will be the first checks on the February budget. It's a little wonky, but until we can get ahead on things, it's just the best way to do it right now.
(The budget sheets we used are ones I got from Stacey Flowers.)
So, in our Four Walls this month, we're doing less for groceries, - only 80 per person for the month. So, that's $240, which will be divided into $120 per shopping trip - but we've added small amounts for things like toiletries and household supplies and pet supplies, so that $120 will just be for food. I'm going to try to keep that stuff separate from my groceries when I check out. I usually use the self checkouts anyway, so it shouldn't be an issue. That way I can see exactly what I spend on actual food vs cat food vs toothpaste vs toilet paper or paper towels etc.
For the phone minutes, we've both agreed to cut down to the Straight Talk 2 GB plan. I canceled all my music streaming services anyway as well as YouTube Premium (man I MISS that!), so there's not much for me to use data for anyway. The Internet bill on here is actually December's. We're still not caught up on that bill, so it's usually 2 weeks late every month. It should be lower next month. If not, then I'll have to call and complain, because they quoted me $218 a month after fees and taxes etc.
The electric is December's which is always due on the 28th. I did get it paid on time, so I didn't have a late fee. It's also the lowest December bill I think we've ever had. I've had the thermostat set at 69 and rarely turn it up at all. We've gotten used to it and wear long sleeves and socks etc. It's comfy. People who visit us are usually shivering though LOL. Whatever it takes to keep that electric bill low though! I know January's will be higher because we've had Faelyn and Austin here on Christmas break, and every night all the lights in the house seem to be on. That drives me nuts.
Rent is $181 instead of $160 because property taxes were $21 more than they charged us for over the last year. It's the first time the property value has gone up like that. I did set up auto drafts for rent though, so I'll never be charged a late fee of it again due to forgetting or not getting around to it. We had to get money orders, then mail it, and it was just a PITA, so this is so much easier. And we got entered into a drawing for a $100 Walmart gift card! So, here's hoping!
For gas for the car, we decided to leave it at $40 for the month. We have over half a tank already, and we're hoping that gets us through several days. My husband's commute is like 2 miles now, and he only works 3-4 days a week - and I only leave home to go grocery shopping or pay bills like once every two weeks. However, we have to take our daughter Faelyn, back to college in Berea, Kentucky, which is 4 hours away, and takes 1 full tank of gas. We noted where the gas gauge was last time when we started, and where it was when we got back home, with a fill-up in between, and it was the exact same place. Gas is currently only $1.85/gallon here, so if it stays that low, we can probably fill up for about $15.00.
Entertainment is $12.00 because that's how much it would cost for all 3 of us to go see Fantastic Beasts 2 at the second run theater. It would also use a bit of gas to get there, since it's in the bigger city 45 minutes away, but we want to see the movie, and missed it before it left the first run theaters. So far, it's not showing there, but hopefully it will after the 10th. As I mentioned earlier, I canceled all the subscriptions. No more Netflix or Apple Music or YouTube premium or Spotify etc. I did however, reach out to my adult children who have been using my Netflix account and sharing it with their friends and dorm mates and random people for years, and told them, if they felt like actually getting their own Netflix account, we'd be happy to know the login and password and same goes for Amazon Music Family Plan... and my daughter Rhiannon and her husband Joe came through with the Netflix account, and said they'll be switching to an Apple Music Family plan and sharing that with us soon as well. So, yay!
So, there we have the Four Walls, or the basics. The next two sheets are where we tell the money *Where* to go (including the Four Walls).
 |
| The dots next to the numbers are from when we did the Allocated sheets I'll talk about next. |
So, this is the meat of the budget. At the top of the first page is our estimated income for the paychecks included in this budget: $2425.00. This accounts for every single dollar we have and expect to get as income between when we did the budget and January 23rd. I used to always put money on debts first, and then we never had anything left over, and never stuck to it. This budget is much easier to stick to, however, there are a lot of creditors who are just not getting paid in January. Notice all those credit cards with no money going to them. And we actually owe like $200 on the Walmart card, but that $42.56 was what we were left with after paying the others, and we decided to put in on the Walmart card. Since we refinanced One Main and Lendmark in November, we knew we needed to honor our agreement with them and make those payments, even though one was pretty high. But in February and going forward, both of them will be lower. These payments were just covering fees etc. The AF247 is a cash advance place online that I only turned to in desperation, and wish I hadn't, but truly I was glad to be able to borrow the money at all. Our credit is destroyed, and when I got the advance, my husband was still out of work, and stuff was seriously getting bad. But now, we have a $123 bill on the 15th and 30th of every month and it has a really high interest rate, and it's set up on auto drafts, so it has to be paid, regardless.
My husband still wanted to have money for vending machines, so we put $10 in the restaurant category, but that's all he gets and he knows it and is determined to make this work too, so he has to watch his spending and only get a drink from the machine if he really needs to. He'll have to learn to refill his tumbler in the water fountain or something. Maybe he can get a water from the McDonalds nearby for free or something.
Since I wanted to make sure I budgeted $80 per person for the month for food, I made separate categories for household supplies, toiletries, and pet supplies. The little numbers out next to those is from when I was doing the Allocation sheets. I'd budget $8 for one week and $7 or $12 the next week etc. When a category was allocated, I'd put a dot next to the amount to make sure I didn't miss anything. The ones without dots were allocated on the last paycheck.
So, once we knew where our money was going, we had to figure out *when* it was going. That's what the Allocated Spending sheets are for.
So, when doing these pages, you start at the top of page 1 and keep a running balance as you list things to be paid, and stop when you get to 0.00. The first one ran out pretty fast obviously. Fortunately, the next check was coming up soon (today in fact).
At the top of each column, I'd write the forwarding balance (not sure why there's not a spot for that on the sheet, but I guess it's common sense).
And as I mentioned before, when we got to the end of paying everything we HAD to pay per agreements and auto drafts, we had enough left to pay one other loan, which we decided would be my Credit Central one. It got paid on time too, so that was nice. Then that left $42.56, which wasn't enough for a loan minimum, so we decided on the Walmart card. We don't want to use credit anymore, but if we were to try to keep one just in case, it would likely be the Walmart one.
We also reset the Every Dollar app, and have been very good about entering everything so far. Today (12/31/18) was errand/bank day, so I went to the bank and got out the cash for the Credit Central payment, groceries, household, toiletries, and pet supplies. Everything else on the first two paychecks would be auto-drafted or paid online or with a debit card. Then I divvied the cash into the envelopes.
This is the cash envelope wallet I use (you can barely see mine at the bottom of some of the photos since it was propping up the clip board so I could take the photos.) I bought mine years ago, and it's held up wonderfully. I even bought one for my mother in law after she saw mine and said she wanted one. They come in lots of patterns and colors. This is an affiliate link by the way:
Every little bit helps!(Also, y'all clicking on the ads on my blog help me out a lot as well!)
My husband and I are really gung-ho about this time. We both agreed to the numbers, since we sat down and did it together. We discussed meals and the menu plan and grocery list. We ended up agreeing to do Hello Fresh for one week. We'd gotten a coupon for $60 off for Christmas, but it was still going to be too much for our budget, but then I noticed they sent me an email and gave me 60% off. So the meals came out to $3 a person when we did the family plan of 3 meals for 4 people. That way we can each get a portion and then there'll be one portion left over for my husband's lunch at work the next day. So, then we had to decide what meals to have the other nights, and what could we make that would stretch and give us leftovers for a couple of nights as well. I think the plan we have it pretty solid. It'll be a challenge to get everything with only the cash in that envelope. (When we signed up for the Hello Fresh, that did come off our debit card, so tomorrow morning, we'll go deposit $36 out of the grocery envelope, to cover that.) Also, we had to decide what to do about Sunday the 6th when we take Faelyn back to Berea. I don't know if she'll have her own money to buy her own dinner (they did just get wedding money but I dunno), so we agreed we need to be able to buy dinner for all 3 of us during the trip. So, we looked at where we could save. I noticed the car payment was actually $5 less than I'd budgeted, so we have that, plus $3 I found in a pocket, and I have about $7 in a TARDIS bank on my shelf. I'm pretty sure I won't have anything left out of the other envelopes. So hopefully, we can find a place that has cheap combos or something, so we can all get food for $15. We do have codes on receipts for free Rt 44 drinks at Sonic, so we can use those before we leave town, so we'll have drinks for the trip at least. It will certainly be a challenge, but I think it'll be fine, and I get the feeling Faelyn will be paying for her own, though I wish she didn't have to. We just have to remember, we have to live like this now, so one day we can live a whole different way.
Well, if you've read this all the way to here, THANK YOU! I appreciate you coming along this journey with us. I have high hopes that it will work this time. We are both very clear on it. There's no confusion about any numbers like there was before.
I also have put in my planner specific blog post topics and the dates I want to get them posted. I'm hoping to post a blog at least twice a week. Maybe more often, if I'm doing a recipe review or meal prepping etc. Thanks again y'all! Until next time. Have a wonderful New Year!
Patty
Comments
Post a Comment
I love getting comments, and I read every one. Thanks for coming by my site and reading my ramblings. I hope you have a wonderful day! -Patty