August Budget & July Net Worth +$1244

I know it's a bit late, but here is August's budget:

$1074 September Budget
$200 Food
$26 Replacement Plates
$220 Car Gas
$53 House Phone
$43 Natural Gas
$11 Cable
$100 Mrs Fun Money
$40 Daughters Health Ins
$203 Mrs Student Loans
$10 Glasses
$100 Mr Fun Money
$250 Car Brakes & Oil Change
$20 Doctor Visits
$75 Porch Railing
$1383 Bathtub Replace & Front Door Replacement
$40 Water
$70 Electric
$15 Mr. Life Insurance
$69 Mr. Student Loans
$300 Savings
$48 Security System

Unique Items:

- My rear plate fell off recently, so we had to replace the plates. The cost was/is $26.
- I have needed replacement glasses, buying them this month
- Car brakes & oil change, my car needed the hydraulic pump for the brakes replaced as well as an oil change.
- The doctor visits are for my wife's thyroid that has been a problem during this pregnancy
- Porch railing is the remaining part to be built on the new back porch.
- One of our bathtubs is losing it's enamel, so we are going to replace it.
- Our front door needs to get replaced as well, it does not seal well.

July Net Worth: +$1244

Most of the growth was due to an increase of our emergency fund and our retirement/education accounts.

July Budget

I know we're a few days already into July, but we went on vacation this past weekend and just got back.

$1074 July Mortgage
$200 Food
$210 Car Gas
$216 Utilities
$60 Camping
$11 Cable
$9 Netflix
$48 Home Security System
$40 Maternity Dr. Co-pays
$22 Dentist Bill
$40 Daughter's Health Insurance
$203 Mrs. Student Loans
$20 Mystery Shopping
$15 Mr. Life Insurance
$69 Mr. Student Loans
$1074 August Mortgage
$300 Savings
$200 Chainsaw

This month has a few changes than our normal month. We have $60 for camping ($30 for 2 nights, plus the $30 for incidentials). We purchased a home security system last month and the monthly rate is $48 (and we're signed up for 39 months). I know the price is quite high for a monthly rate, but that's the way that company spreads out the equipment costs. I did a fair amount of calculations and I wouldn't have saved much more DIY. The $22 dentist bill is for my daughter, which should have been covered but our dentist did not know that the state only covers 1 visit/year. We will be changing dentist as that is something they should have known. The $20 for mystery shopping is for 3 different shops I'm doing this month for fun, we should be getting around $60 at the end of the month for previous shops we have done. We're looking at getting ahead in our mortgage payments this month as well. We're going to put some to savings and the chainsaw is so that I can start splitting and preparing wood for the upcoming winter(s).

On the income front, things have been pretty slow. We finally have a second roommate moving in today and have 1 bedroom still available. My day job has pay raise freezes in effect, so I'm not expecting my salary to change.

June Budget & April/May Net Worth +$2891

June Budget:

$1074 Mortgage
$200 Food
$200 Car Gas
$43 Natural Gas
$53 House Phone
$40 Dr Visits
$50 Dining Out
$79 Car Registration
$2192 WaMu HELOC
$40 Water
$70 Electric
$40 Daughter's Health Ins
$203 Mrs Student Loans
$69 Mr Student Loans
$15 Mr Life Insurance
$45 Mrs Life

We finally got my life insurance plan changed to a cheaper policy. We were unable to get my wife's changed due to her being pregnant. At the end of the year we can reapply and get her brought down to $15-20/month.

We also are making the final payment on the HELOC from our previous home. Once that is done, the only items we have left for this year are some misc medical bills from 3+ years ago. We'll be taking a short break from tackling debts in July so that we can get a couple important items done (eg: dress pants & glasses for me, some house repairs).

The other items in the budget include $50 dining out, which we will be reimbursed for since they are mystery shops we are doing. We currently have 2 dinner shops setup and 1 movie theater shop scheduled and am trying for a third dinner shop. My wife's car is needing new stickers, so we're taking care of that this month.

April/May Net Worth: +$2891

I did not do an update on our April net worth, so this month is a mix of the 2 months. It has been a bit slow increasing since we only have 1 roommate currently, as well as the drama we had in March with a roommate taking both of our cars. Our bay window is damaged right now and we believe it is causing people to not be interested in moving in, so we are holding off renting the rooms until that is resolved. June we should see a better increase if we can get at least 1 more room filled.

March Budget & February Net Worth +$2,240

We're FREE from Credit Card Debt!!!

Just had to start off this status update post with that. We still have a few more debts and months to go before we'll be consumer debt free (everything but student loans and mortgage). Onto the details:

March Expenses:

200 Food
200 Car Gas
214 Car Insurance (6 month premimum)
275 HELOC
55 Cell Phone (LAST ONE!)
95 Life Insurance (story in itself, will discuss more soon)
50 Water (estimate)
120 Electric (estimate)
69 My Student Loan
380 Train Ride

March Paid Items:

1073 Mortgage
203 Mrs Student Loans
40 Natural Gas
51 House Phone
11 Cable
40 Daughter's Health Insurance

We have removed Netflix from the monthly budget, as we have been using the cable more than Netflix and have run out of stuff on DVD we want to watch. We no longer have a cell phone and are awaiting the final bill in the mail to pay it off. Our car insurance for 2 cars is due this month (though they haven't sent us a letter, so we'll be calling them this week). The train ride is a 2 week visit to my in-laws in Colorado with my wife and daughter. I'll be working part-time remotely when I'm out there. The March paid items list are items we already paid that were due in March. My father has given/lent us $2K to keep safe for him until the end of the year, which we used to prepay items (I know, not the best thing to do).

February Net Worth:

Did I let you know we paid off our last credit card? That was a large chunk of our net worth increase this month. We also paid down on our mortgage, student loans, and HELOC. We're continuing to put $128/mo into a SIMPLE IRA at my work. Next month's net worth increase will not be much unless we get 2 rooms filled with renters.

February Budget & January Net Worth +$1,159

I know it's a bit late in the month to put up, but I've not been in the best of moods.

February Budget:

1073 Mortgage
200 Car Gas
200 Food
234 Natural Gas
51 House Phone
265 Electric
50 Water
37 Cable
9 Netflix
10 Garden Supplies
100 Mrs. going on women's retreat in March
55 Cell Phone
20 Oil Change
95 Life Insurance
40 Daughter's Health Insurance
20 Dr. Co-pays for pregnancy
1585 Last Capital One Payment
275 Home Equity Line Credit
203 Mrs. Student Loans
69 Mr. Student Loans

It's another very tight budget, March should be a lot better. Part of the problem is that I committed to making the large payments to Capital One, which blocked off a large portion of our income. The other part is that we are down to 1 paying roommate at this time. God has blessed us with some help from my father in the form of money to buy a dryer this month and money so we can help him file for bankruptcy.

The cable bill is new this month, it will be going down to $12 next month. We also brought Netflix down to the 1 at a time plan and I'm considering letting that go in a couple of months. The problem we've had is the new releases end up having a long wait time and with cable available, there is less of a need for Netflix. My wife has been planning a women's retreat at our church the past couple of months and it is coming up next month, so we're taking care of the payment for it this month. Next month will be our last monthly cell phone bill!

January Net Worth:

We made a large payment on our Capital One CC bill and a small payment on the home equity line of credit. 1 of the roommates has been paying us back, which has helped in that area. We also have been building up our daughter's education fund which included some Christmas gifts. We plan on adding more once we are out of debt, as well as my dad has offered to start putting some away for her.

December Budget & November Net Worth +$1,801

Budget:

For December, we are going on a shoe-string budget. The main reason is the court case on Friday with Capital One. We will be paying all essentials except for the mortgage, which will be paid in January. The natural gas bill was paid early in November, so it is not on this list.

-$150 Food
-$50 Car Gas (we have some cash leftover from November)
-$95 Life Insurance
-$40 Daughters Health Insurance
-$40 Weight Watchers (Been coming out of my wife's fun money, still keeping it)
-$30 Dr. Visits
-203 Mrs Student Loans
-69 Mr Student Loans
-50 House Phone
-55 Cell Phone
-50 Water
-110 Electric

Net Worth:

It went up quite a bit, mainly due to 2 of our roommates starting to catch up on paying us back as well as settling on 2 mid-sized debts (which I wish I hadn't done, so that I would have had the money to settle on Capital One). It had been months since we had settled on a debt and I was getting itchy for not doing so.

We also opened up a "Bright Start" account for our daughter with change that we were collecting for a while. We figure if anyone asks us what to get our daughter for Christmas, we'll tell them to give to her college fund. She's at 18 months old right now and a scrap of material works as a fun toy to play hide & seek for her.

November Budget & October Net Worth

Here is our budget for November:

Expenses:
$1065 Mortgage
$50 House Phone
$55 Cell Phone
$28 Natural Gas
$108 Electric
$40 Water
$250 Food
$200 Car Gas
$140 Dental
$200 Fun Money
$220 Mrs. Student Loans
$70 Mr. Student Loans
$40 Daughter's Health Insurance
$95 Life Insurance

Base Expenses: $2,561

Income:

$3580 Salary Take Home
$1000 Rental Income

Total: $4580

The difference between our expenses and our income will be going into savings to pay off debt. I suspect some of our creditors are getting hungry with the economy not doing so well, since the number of calls this past week has picked up.

Our phone bill went up due to the price of our Internet plan went up and someone had used 411 at the house twice. We have changed our Internet plan as well to the next higher plan to help with me working from home more and watching Netflix (which comes out of my fun money).

Net Worth:

This is the first time in over a year it has gone down. I decided to write off the bad debt owed by someone I had done programming work for. I know I am in the right for the balance, but the fight to get the money is not worth the stress and morally I should not have been working for them while at my full-time job. In addition, I did an accurate check of our mortgage and student loan balances.

We're planning in the coming month to build up the cash position of our net worth, so that we can get back on track paying off debts.

What I've Learned From PF Blogging

I'm being interviewed tomorrow for the Chicago Tribune, so I figured I would write up what I've learned from PF blogging and reading other's PF blogs.

Increase my income

In the past 8 months alone my salary has increased by 43%. This took planning on my part (focusing on an area of expertise that pays well) and being willing to ask for more (told my current employer the amount I wanted to make when I started and negotiated a 6 month review for more money). I don't think I would have gotten where I am career wise without PF blogs causing me to think about these things.

Besides my salary, we increased our income by taking in roommates. A little over a year ago we had 4 rooms rented out, bringing in $1,400/month. That's like working a full-time job making $8/hr. We're down to 3 roommates at $1,000/month, but even that is $5.80/hr full-time.

Decrease my spending

We still need to do some work on this, but have streamlined our budget quite a bit. For a while our entertainment budget was down to $30/month. If we lived in a smaller place that we couldn't rent out rooms, I would have had us move closer to my job(s) to cut down our gas costs and housing costs.

We've been learning how to garden in order to reduce our grocery bills. We also started canning big-time in order to do the same. This year it was a bit expensive due to needing to get equipment, but next year our costs should be minimal.

The wood stove, insulation, and storm doors were also done to reduce our heating bills. We will see this winter if we were successful and if we need to make more changes to cut our costs.

Learn from my mistakes

I've made quite a few mistakes over the years (hence the reason we're working our way out of debt). Those lessons though have helped me make less damaging mistakes. For example:

• I looked at where our debts came from and what can prevent them from occurring again. That taught me to pursue health insurance options, use cash when we notice our spending getting excessive, and not buy on credit.
• When I shop for something that is going to be in our house for a while, I study it to see how durable it is. When picking out tools for our wood stove, I picked the ones that were single pieces of metal since those with joints can break easily. We started our research on the wood stove 6 months back.
• I review how close we were to the previous month's budget and make a new budget based on that.

What have you learned from my PF blog or other PF blogs?

October Budget

We drafted our budget a bit late this month due to the wood stove project consuming our time (and money). Here's where we are sitting:

Expenses:

$1130 Mortgage
$125 Car Gas
$125 Food
$240 Utilities
$220 Mrs. Student Loans
$70 Mr. Student Loans
$95 Life Insurance
$40 Daughter's Health Insurance
$250 Dentist Visits
$60 Fun Money (remaining of mine, my wife used hers up and I used part of mine)
Total: $2355

Income:
$1650 Day Job
$750 Rental Income
Total: $2400

Our dentist amount is an estimate, we have not been taking care of ourselves properly and have needed some deep cleanings and cavities taken care of. The rest of the expenses are pretty self-explanatory.

Regarding the rental income, that number is very up in the air. Currently every roommate is behind on their rent almost 2 months each. One started a new job today getting paid better than before (and more hours), so she will be able to get caught up by the end of the month. One quit her job last week and does not have anything currently in sight (we're concerned that we may have to ask her to leave). The last one didn't budget his money well over the summer prior to moving in with us and is struggling, but is working hard to catch up.

July Net Worth +$1239 & August Budget

July Net Worth +$1,239

It was a slow month on the net-worth front. We took care of 1 small debt outstanding. We built up our cash reserves so that we can tackle 1 last credit card remaining (I can't wait for the day, it seems like it's dragging on forever). We consolidated my student loans down to 4.375% as well, which will help in the coming years. It is now lower than our mortgage, meaning we'll pay down our mortage before it. The unplanned expenses this past month includes some co-pays, oil change, and some maintenance supplies for the house.

August Budget

We're trying to go bare-bone this month so we can take care of 2 items soon (if the court case goes quickly). We're itching for a fireplace insert in the living room and getting rid of the last credit card.

$1130 Mortgage
$250 Car Gas
$250 Groceries
$232 Utilities
$200 Fun Money
$55 Cell-Phone
$40 Health Insurance (Daughter)
$220 Student Loans
$95 Life Insurance
$20 Oil Change
$75 Anniversary

May Budget & April Net Worth +$1,827

April:

The one budget-buster this past month was the car. We ended up not settling on Capital One and put the money towards the car. In the end, it was an ok month with us having a few NSF fees as well (bad communication).

May:

Income:

1330 IRS
1000 Rent
3434 Weekday Job
3000 Weekend Job

Total: $8764

Expenses:

200 Mrs. Student Loans
110 Mr. Student Loans
1130 Mortgage
77 Natural Gas
50 Water
41 AT&T
120 Electric
200 Car Gas
200 Toiletries & Groceries
55 Cell Phone
95 Life Insurance
200 Our Fun Money
130 House Cleaning
860 Menards (1st payment, two more to go of $760 each on June 3rd & July 3rd)
5100 Capital One
146 Savings

Total: $8764

The items that are different this month are the last 4 items. We decided to go with a once a month cleaning for the harder stuff (vacuum/mop/etc) so that I can work on the weekends. Menards we have made payment arrangements for a settlement. Capital One we made a starter $100 payment yesterday and the rest will be on the 20th. Cash-flow wise, everything is looking good, we're just going to have to focus on communicating.

First Draft May Budget

I need your help on my May budget. It is looking like such a crazy month (on the income side), I'm going to put up a draft here for you to look at and then I'll post another on Wednesday at the end of the month. Here we go:

Income:

1330 IRS
1000 Rent
3434 Weekday Job
3000 Weekend Job

Total: $8764

Expenses:

200 Mrs. Student Loans
110 Mr. Student Loans
1130 Mortgage
161 Natural Gas
50 Water
41 AT&T
120 Electric
200 Car Gas
200 Toiletries & Groceries
55 Cell Phone
95 Life Insurance
200 Our Fun Money

Total: $2562

Debt Snowball: $6202

Menards: Start settlement of $640 per month for 3 months.

Capital One: I would have started this one this month, but $1500 was delayed coming from my weekend job, so it's coming in May instead. I'm going to see about settling with them for $1000/week for 4 weeks.

Padding: $1562 as padding into savings.

In June we'll be starting to tackle our smaller debts (those under $1K). Those are the debts listed as Other on our NetworthIQ profile. What do you think?

Bank Fees This Month

These past 2 weeks have not been good on the amount of money we have in the bank. With problems at the post office of returning checks and miscommunication between my wife and I, we have had a NSF charge on 2 bank accounts. We're going to have to probably increase our cushion (this month there was almost none) to prevent problems like this. We also resolved the communication problems, I had been keeping a fair amount in our primary account, so my wife assumed it was OK for her to charge the things in our budget on the debit card.

April Budget & March Net Worth +$6

We are just squeaking by with $6 positive growth. There are several reasons to that...The tree removal ended up being higher than budget for 1 ($1500 total after including $200 to have someone else cut up the wood to smaller pieces). My wife's sewing machine needed some long-needed repair, so we got that taken care of this month as well. I also have only been working 1 (one) job. You heard that right folks, I brought myself down to 1 job.

April Income:

$2150 Bank Accounts
$1000 Rent (2 roommates at $350/month, 1 at $300/month)
$3434 Day Job

April Expenses:

Mrs. Student Loans 200
Car Gas 200
Mrs. Fun Money 100
Mr. Fun Money 100
Toiletries & Groceries 190
Natural Gas 77
Cell Phone 55
Mortgage 1130
Water 60
Home Depot 1180
Capital One 2500
Mr. Student Loans 110
Electric 105
Life Ins 95
Wood Chipper 200
Vet Visit 150

This month will be the last payment for Home Depot. Woohoo!

We'll be starting on making a major payment to Capital One as well this month. I'm going to call them on Monday to negotiate a settlement probably around $5K, where we'll do half in April and half in May. It's pretty nice to be able to live off our savings and rental income, therefore send all my paychecks towards the debt.

I'm bouncing around regarding chipping the brush from the trees taken down last month. The tree folks of course were willing to cut all the brush up and haul it away, but I was wanting to keep it so I could have chips/mulch for my garden this year. I'm going to go look at a used chipper this weekend as well as price around renting one.

The vet visit is new this month as well. For a couple of weeks we had a cat hanging around our house because the kids in the neighborhood were feeding him. It was snowing last Saturday morning and I couldn't leave him out there in the cold. He was someone's pet at one time I suspect. We decided to keep him (even though I'm allergic), so we need to take him to the vet to get checked out.

March Budget & February Net Worth +$2,465

February's net worth was lower than I anticipated. The item that reduced it was I worked less for a client than anticipated. In the coming months though it will grow even better with the new job I start on Monday.

March Budget:

I'm not going to list income here, because a problem we've got is that it is pretty unknown what it's going to be. we've got the last check with vacation time coming from my current job, we've got my next check from my new employer but don't know when that's coming, we've got 2 roommates moving out next month (we've got one possible replacement coming tonight to check out the place). All of those variables make the income situation uncertain. I know enough will come in the month to cover the expenses with enough time for them to cover it, so I'm not concerned.

Expenses:

Mrs. Student Loans 200
Car Gas 200
Mrs. Fun Money 100
Mr. Fun Money 100
Toiletries & Groceries 190
Natural Gas 77
Tree Removal 1300
Cell Phone 55
Mortgage 1130
Car Insurance 200
Water 60
Home Depot 1180
Capital One 100
Mr. Student Loans 110
Electric 150
Life Ins 95

The tree removal is new this month, we have 3 trees in our back yard that are a danger to our house and our neighbor's house. With spring coming, I'm wanting to do some more planting out back, but the trees need to go in order for us to do that.

Our fun money has been bumped up to $100/person, due to me spending more for garden-related items and my wife is wanting to purchase tickets for her parents to come visit at Mother's Day. We are very close to the prize of getting rid of this credit card debt and it's been hard on $30/month for entertainment. We did get rid of the dining out, which is now included in our fun money.

Our car insurance comes due this month, so it is included as well. It was $200 before, I suspect it will be either that much or lower. That is for 2 cars for 6 months, the best I have been able to find.

My student loans are going into repayment now, so they are included as well. I'm planning in July to lock their rate to a lower rate, saving us some on the interest.

My Ideal Budget

This past week I've been thinking that I've become too much like my blog, all about saying goodbye to debt. Here is my ideal budget for the coming September when we only have student loans and the mortgage:

Percentage of Income:
Tithe 10%
Retirement 15%
Debt/Retirement 25%
House 28% (Mortgage & Utilities)
Needs 15% (Food, Car, Insurance)
Wants 7%

Looking at the House/Needs, this is where we are approximately already. The rest of the categories have been all about debt (and will be for a few more months), but I want to be able to enjoy a bit of life. I know 7% doesn't seem like enjoying life much, but at $5K/month income, that will be around $400/month. We're planning on $100/month for each of us and then $200/month for projects around the house (eg: fireplace, removing trees, basement windows & door, driveway repair, fence repair, flooring repair).

To reach our retirement goal of 42 (14 years from now), we'll need to increase our income by $5K/yr. That will give us enough in retirement to live comfortably for us, even adjusting for inflation.

February Budget & January Net Worth +$2,996

January Net Worth:

We had another great month on the net-worth side. We negotiated a reduction on one of our credit cards, started paying on my wife's student loans and cash kept rolling in this month. Our other assets went down due to using part of the natural gas deposit as well as them sending us some of it back since we had such a large deposit. The one item this past month that busted our budget was a car repair that went $100 over what we budgeted. Otherwise, our cash would have gone up more.

February Budget:

February is looking like will be our best month on the cash coming in side. Here's the low-down:

Income:

Mystery Shopping: $25
Rent: $1300
Day Job: $2916
Computer Repair Job: $100
Programming Job: $1600

Expenses:

$200 Student Loans
$200 Car Gas
$30 Mrs. Fun Money
$30 Mr. Fun Money
$30 Dining Out
$190 Groceries & Toiletries
$10 Babysitting
$300 Mrs. Car Repair
$77 Natural Gas
$48 Cell Phone
$1130 Mortgage
$65 Water
$100 Capital One
$1180 Home Depot
$95 Life Insurance
$105 ComEd
$2821 Savings for settlement

Some changes have happened from last month. We brought down the car gas since I'm not driving for the computer repair job this coming month. Our dining out is back to the normal $30. Groceries & toiletries is now 1 line item. Water has gone up, I suspect due to humidifiers running full blast 24/7. Electric went up as well due to roommates running space heater 24/7. We're rounding the mortgage up a few bucks as well.

The Home Depot amount is $1180 a month for 3 months. We could have done it as one lump sum of $1180 x 3, but I figured I'd stretch it out and tackle other creditors at the same time.

The savings for settlement is for us to take care of our Capital One bill hopefully in March. They are tossing around $5K as a settlement amount, I'm going to see if I can get them a bit lower in March. We'll have around $4600 in the bank by the end of February.

January Budget & December Net Worth +$6,097

December Net Worth:

It didn't feel like it at times with some frivolous spending this past month, but financially it was a great month. We were able to take care of the Discover card balance and still come out of the month with cash in the bank. I added deposits we have with 2 of the utilities since they are pretty large. February will be the next time we'll have our net worth go up as much.

January Budget:

This one was hard to do a bit on the income side, since it was a moving target. I've also decided to count the bank carry-over from the previous month into the budget since we are planning on building a reserve in the housing bank account.

Inflow:

Bank Account $470
Rent Income $1300
Day Job $2916
Computer Repair Job $150
Programming Job $350
Mystery Shopping $125

Total Inflow: $5,241

Outflow:

Mortgage 1127
Natural Gas 77
Electricity 89
House Phone 30
Water 45
Car Gas 240
Groceries 160
Cell Phone 50
Life Ins 95
Mrs. Fun $ 30
Mr. Fun $ 30
Toiletries 30
Dining Out 60
Babysitting 10
Scheduled Debts 400
Bible Study Books 15
Housing Acct. 575
Car Repair 400
Entertainment Books 30
Debt Acct. 1748

The dining out doubled since we have been doing a fair amount of restaurant mystery shopping the past month and we're trying to schedule one for this week coming up as well. The scheduled debts are $300 to Home Depot (settling in February) and $100 to Capital One. My wife has a bible study starting up soon, so the money is for her books.

The Housing Account money will be the carry-over into January. The plan is that 2 of our roommates pay near the beginning of the month consistently, so we take their checks and the carry-over to cover the mortgage at the beginning of the month and most of the utilities. The other 2 roommates then pay out on a weekly basis, which we'll put most of it in the bank account for carry-over to the following month.

The $400 car repair is for both of our cars to have service on. The entertainment books are a gift for a high-school friend of mine as well as one for us (we gave ours as a gift to one of the roommates that was wooing over ours). The rest goes into our debt snowball savings account to settle with Home Depot in February with.

December Budget & November Net Worth (+$3,034)

November Net Worth:

This month was a good month, we had a full house of roommates and no new expenses. We were able to take care of an old cell phone bill that was $1592 as well as start the settlement for our Discover card. The net worth went up by over $3,000. Next month will be even bigger!

December Budget:

Here it is and then I'll discuss the details:

$1127 Mortgage
$240 Car Gas
$30 House Phone
$89 Electricity
$45 Water
$77 Natural Gas
$160 Groceries
$95 Life Insurance
$30 Mrs' Fun Money
$30 Mr's Fun Money
$30 Dining Out
$30 Toiletries
$150 Christmas
$50 Cell Phone
$10 Babysitting Fund
$300 Home Depot CC
$100 Capital One CC
$1233 Discover CC
$690 Debt Snowball

One item people missing out of this budget is the tithe. I know in the past I had written about my feelings on the tithe, but with creditors threatening taking us to court, etc, I'm not cheerful about giving our $. We've been working at serving more at our church, providing to those in need in other ways (eg: In November, we put our tithe to the cell phone bill of all the other people on our plan in October since one of them is in jail, the other 2 are not responding to our calls.) Once we get the CC folks off our back, I'll be feeling much more willing to give.

Cell phone should now be just $50/month and we're going to work at using less minutes before we move to a pay-as-you. Hopefully in January we'll move to the pay-as-you-go. The Discover CC payment is the final part of the settlement for the $5333 balance we had with them. The debt snowball will be for us to do a large settlement in February on the Home Depot or Menards.

November Budget & October Net Worth

Here's our budget for the coming month:

$1127 Mortgage
$240 Car Gas
$30 House Phone
$89 Electricity
$45 Water
$77 Home Gas
$160 Groceries
$450 Tithe
$95 Life Insurance
$30 Mrs' Fun Money
$30 Mr' Fun Money
$30 Dining Out
$30 Toiletries
$25 Mrs' Chiropractic
$150 Christmas
$300 Insulation
$235 Oil Change & Repairs
$50 Cell Phone
$1323 Debt Snowball

Our mortgage lender messed up on the escrow calculations, so we'll be back down a bit to $1127. Our groceries are going up due to Thanksgiving coming around (as well as we totally bombed this past month's goal of cash-only for groceries, made several bad purchases). My wife is starting chiropractic treatment, so we set aside some for her. Our Christmas budget is $300 total ($100 for each of us and $100 for family), so we'll do $150 this month and $150 next month. I really need to finish up the insulation project, it keeps getting delayed due to money problems, about half done. The $300 is an estimate, I suspect it will be lower. My wife's car needs some repairs, which we are having a friend that works for a parts supplier repair for us. Cell phone came down a bit as discussed before.

Debt Snowball:

Here's the fun part! Where it is all going:

$300 Home Depot - Minimum
$100 Capital One - Minimum
$100 Menards - Minimum
$200 Discover - Minimum
$623 Cell phone Debt - Old plan we cancelled a long time ago (long story, not the brightest point of our lives) and other debt on our existing plan (my wife is going to look into our current phone plan, they sent us a bill with too high of an amount due).

October Net Worth:

It was a catch-up month for us after we recently settled on our Chase account. My wife had some chiropractor expenses this month too that wiped away our emergency fund. The coming month will be better!