---Totals---
|Budgeted| 4133
|Income| 4133
---Incomes---
GIBill 1581
J Disability 123
A Disability 123
Omega 1153
Omega 1153
---Charity---
Church (147*2) 294 (2 * 10% of pretax earnings)
AXiD 10 (Donation to AXiD Foundation)
---Saving---
Sinking Funds 300 (Car, Life, Rent Ins, Car Tags)
Savings 443 (Vacations, Clothes, Car repairs)
---Housing---
Rent/Water 795
---Utilities---
Storage 40
Electricity 130
Mobile Phone 142
Cable 110
---Food---
Food & Household 400 (Groceries, household)
---Transportation---
Gas & Oil 125
---Medical/Health---
Medical 45 (Copay and prescription)
---Personal---
J Blow 100
A Blow 100
---Debts---
Student Loan 126 (interest only, for now).
Corolla Loan 278
NFCU Loan 325
NFCU Visa 100
CUGA Visa 270 (Next in the debt snowball)
Those of you who are familiar with $0 based budgeting will understand that every dollar must have a name to it. It took us about 3-4 months to lock in a good budget. Sometimes some numbers need to be shifted, or altered slightly. For example, phone is usually $141.23, which leaves me with an extra $0.77 but I prefer to round up rather than rounding down.
I'm trying to find a way to trim the fat on my budget some more. Downgrading our phones are not an option, we use them both too much, and it's not something we are willing to cut corners on at this time. I would love to find a way to save on cable, but I need high speed internet due to my online classes. I think I can cut the food and household budget, but I need to get better about finding coupons and deals for things we actually use and need. If I could cut $50 or $100 from there, I would put it toward our debt snowball to pay it off quicker....
I think one way I could do this would be by tracking how often we're purchasing certain household items - Prilosec, razor blades, stuff we buy in Bulk at Sams that last "a while" but I dont really know how long "a while" is, I just buy it when we run out...
Hmmm...Just thinking out loud at this point...
*edit* I forgot to mention, and felt I should clarify...the reason our savings is so much is because we REALLY do not use credit cards anymore, and over the last year, I've learned that my "security gland" that Dave talks about in his book, is pretty big. We have this money going to our ING savings account, in which we have multiple savings accounts bookmarked for certain things - summer vacation, graduation cruise, AXiD Conventions, hair appointments, major car services, etc etc. Daves book will tell you you aren't supposed to save in baby step two, you're supposed to be knocking out debt. That's correct...but his plan is also about changing your lifestyle. If you go SO gazelle intense that you don't leave yourself wiggle room for fun, you could fall off the waggon and revert back to bad spending habits. As you can see from my previous posts, I KNOW that I am prone to this, and so in order to avoid it, rather than paying that extra $400 a month to debt, like someone hard core would probably say you should do, I put it to savings so that we can have fun and not feel so deprived. Some folks may disagree with this and say I'm not intense enough, but I look at it as no different than an additional sinking fund. We have cut back on so much already that I am not ready to cut back further, and feel so restricted that I can't be successful. We're successful right now, doing it this way, and I want to keep it like that.
okay, off my soap box now... :)
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