Budgeting & System

AprilZ81 · June 2015

Here is our budget, I'm currently out of work (layoff) and the below numbers are based off of DH's take home salary and my after tax unemployment benefits.

Monthly Income: $5542 (two paychecks per month + 4 weeks unemployment)

Expense:

Mortgage/Escrow/Utilities/Cell Phones: $2335

Gas (Cars): $150

Groceries/Supplies: $425

My Fun Money: $50

DH Fun Money: $50

Entertainment: $200

Car Insurance/Car Repair Savings: $125

Church Giving: $200

HELOC: $250

Savings:

ROTH IRA: $875

Vacation Savings: $250

Christmas/Other Gifts: $250

General Savings: $375

Our mortgage and HELOC are our only debts. We put everything on our credit cards and pay them off each month in full. We are not opposed to leveraging debt when it makes sense (low interest, low payments in order to keep more money in savings).

We finance cars (with a down payment), and are open to using our HELOC for large home remodeling projects/repairs and using zero percent financing for large purchases. We always make sure to calculate the payment to pay 0% debt at least two months early if not longer.

simplyelise · June 2015

This is our general June budget. We're cashing in a bunch of savings bonds this month, so I took out those to make it closer to a typical month.

Current efund: 3000

Current car replacement fund: $500

Current debt: 37,086 in federal student loans at 6.8%, if we continue with the schedule we've done since October, we'll be done July '16.

Current retirement: H has to contributed 4%, I'm 2 years in to 5 year vest with employer funded local government pension (98% prefunded ftw!). Nothing else until we pay off SLs

Monthly Take-Home: $5112

Tithe: 512

Car Sinking Fund: 100

Gym Sinking Fund: 20

Rent: 690

Utilities: 120

Cellphones: 121

Netflix: 8

Cable/Internet: free

Life Insurance: 16

Car/Renter's Insurance: 140

Health Insurance: free

Fuel: 220

Car Maintenance: 100 (I've got to get car rotation and some filter replacements)

Groceries: 340

Medical: 30 (two co-pays)

Blow $: 120 (half each)

Date Night: 50

Toiletries: 20

Haricuts: 12

Gifts: 30 (my bday is mid july)

MISC: 35 (weekend trip to STL)

Debt payment: $2463

We are not opposed to mortgage debt and I have one credit card that I use for gas and pay immediately. We did use a points travel card for the honeymoon and got a free flight to Atlanta to visit DH's bro last year. But after we buy a house (hopefully in 2018) we will probably cut the one remaining card up. People on here who utilize points are fantastically careful about it. Most people are not the same.

eta: forgot groceries. Dave Ramsey does let us eat, I promise.

blondie42107 · June 2015

brij2006 said:
I use a spreadsheet, and just used one of the templates from Excel. It's called "personal monthly budget." That's what we use to categorize our budget. It has a "projected" and "actual" category. So you can plan your budget in one cell, then put in what you actually spent in the other.

Just this month though, I started using everydollar.com. So far so good.

We use a very similar excel spreadsheet too.

als1982 · June 2015

Poof!!

JoanE2012 · June 2015

BUTTERFLY254638 said:

can you all post your budgets so i can get some ideas!

I'm not quite sure how posting my budget is going to help you. Everyone's priorities, cost of living, salaries, etc can be different from yours. It seems like you have a good handle on where your money is going. Are you looking for areas to save?

ETA - If you're looking for a budgeting system, Excel is great as others mentioned! Still no need for me to post my budget.

vlagrl29 · June 2015

ugh, not gonna lie but I'm kinda jealous of your take home pay. maybe one day for us but probably not, but that's ok because we have hardly any debt. I'm not comfortable posting my budget, but wanted to say I'm not totally debt adverse. we do put money in savings and retirement every month, but won't ever be able to do the 529 thing - instead we have a separate savings for DD. We finance cars, currently both of ours are paid off. The only debt we have are my student loans at 2.85% interest so again in no hurry to pay it off. I do account for every dime spent in our monthly budgets - speaking of I'm behind on my tally of May receipts. Gonna get on that soon!

abrewer5 · June 2015

H and I don't combine finances, so this is my porition of the budget.

Take home pay: $2778 (after taxes and 10% retirement contribution w/ 5% employer match)

Mortgage: $630 (extra $100 towards principle)

Utilities/Cable/Phone/Water/HOA: $550 (about $100 buffer added into this for autopayments)

Gas: $130

Car Insurance: $80

Allowance: $300

School: $300

Vacation Savings/Cash Flow: $780 (once summer is over $550 will go towards school and $200 will go into savings)

formerlyGDaisy09 · June 2015

We're not debt averse for low-interest debt; mortgages, student loans, and low interest car loans. however, like @hoffse I really don't understand expensive car purchases.

Here's our current budget, not sure how it helps you, but it's always helpfult to do a budget check on this board every now and then. we are in the process of working out our baby budget...the nanny and health insurance approximation currently go into savings, I'm using a small portion of the baby item for maternity wear and to start a cloth diaper stash.

Income: $5,600 (after taxes and retirement contributions)

Housing

Mortgage/Taxes: $1,571

Homeowner's Insurance: $105

Internet/basic cable: $88

Trash and recycling: $39

Netflix: $7.99

Electric: $150

Propane: $130

Water/sewer: $45

Cell Phones: $155

Transportation

Car payment: $346

Car Insurance: $175

Gas: $130

Car maintenence: $75

Living

Grocery $450

Household: $100

Vet/care credit: $200

Haircuts: $45

Me Fun: $25

H Fun $25

Dog Training Classes: $100

Nanny: $400

Baby: $150

Insurance change: $120

Student Loans

$810 -several of H's are currently in deferment and not collecting interest while he's in school so we're saving that money...current SL payments total $660

Total expenses: $5,292

Edit: with all our upcoming life changes my mom is considering selling us her 2003 chrystler Town and Country...she'll sell it to us for $1. that will increase car insurance slightly and we'll up our maintenence fund to $100, but I think we'll probably stop paying for trash and recycling pick-up, since we'll have a vehicle that will be easy to make dump-trips with. the car has about 120K miles on it, with 2 dogs and a baby we'd plan to use it for travel and home-depot/dump runs.

I know our Car insurance is high...H has an at-fault accident that should drop off our insurance this year. I have an at fault accident that will take another year or two to disappear.

simplyelise · June 2015

formerlyGDaisy09 said:

We're not debt averse for low-interest debt; mortgages, student loans, and low interest car loans. however, like @hoffse I really don't understand expensive car purchases.

Here's our current budget, not sure how it helps you, but it's always helpfult to do a budget check on this board every now and then. we are in the process of working out our baby budget...the nanny and health insurance approximation currently go into savings, I'm using a small portion of the baby item for maternity wear and to start a cloth diaper stash.

Income: $5,600 (after taxes and retirement contributions)

Housing
Mortgage/Taxes: $1,571
Homeowner's Insurance: $105
Internet/basic cable: $88
Trash and recycling: $39
Netflix: $7.99
Electric: $150
Propane: $130
Water/sewer: $45
Cell Phones: $155

Transportation
Car payment: $346
Car Insurance: $175
Gas: $130
Car maintenence: $75

Living
Grocery $450
Household: $100
Vet/care credit: $200
Haircuts: $45
Me Fun: $25
H Fun $25
Dog Training Classes: $100
Nanny: $400
Baby: $150
Insurance change: $120

Student Loans
$810 -several of H's are currently in deferment and not collecting interest while he's in school so we're saving that money...current SL payments total $660

Total expenses: $5,292

Edit: with all our upcoming life changes my mom is considering selling us her 2003 chrystler Town and Country...she'll sell it to us for $1. that will increase car insurance slightly and we'll up our maintenence fund to $100, but I think we'll probably stop paying for trash and recycling pick-up, since we'll have a vehicle that will be easy to make dump-trips with. the car has about 120K miles on it, with 2 dogs and a baby we'd plan to use it for travel and home-depot/dump runs.

I know our Car insurance is high...H has an at-fault accident that should drop off our insurance this year. I have an at fault accident that will take another year or two to disappear.

In my state, the method for this is now to do a deed transfer, otherwise you face a penalty for trying to avoid taxes. I'd check with your DMV/DOR to see if they just want you to do a deed transfer instead of a pretend sale.

formerlyGDaisy09 · June 2015

simplyelise said:

formerlyGDaisy09 said:

We're not debt averse for low-interest debt; mortgages, student loans, and low interest car loans. however, like @hoffse I really don't understand expensive car purchases.

Here's our current budget, not sure how it helps you, but it's always helpfult to do a budget check on this board every now and then. we are in the process of working out our baby budget...the nanny and health insurance approximation currently go into savings, I'm using a small portion of the baby item for maternity wear and to start a cloth diaper stash.

Income: $5,600 (after taxes and retirement contributions)

Housing
Mortgage/Taxes: $1,571
Homeowner's Insurance: $105
Internet/basic cable: $88
Trash and recycling: $39
Netflix: $7.99
Electric: $150
Propane: $130
Water/sewer: $45
Cell Phones: $155

Transportation
Car payment: $346
Car Insurance: $175
Gas: $130
Car maintenence: $75

Living
Grocery $450
Household: $100
Vet/care credit: $200
Haircuts: $45
Me Fun: $25
H Fun $25
Dog Training Classes: $100
Nanny: $400
Baby: $150
Insurance change: $120

Student Loans
$810 -several of H's are currently in deferment and not collecting interest while he's in school so we're saving that money...current SL payments total $660

Total expenses: $5,292

Edit: with all our upcoming life changes my mom is considering selling us her 2003 chrystler Town and Country...she'll sell it to us for $1. that will increase car insurance slightly and we'll up our maintenence fund to $100, but I think we'll probably stop paying for trash and recycling pick-up, since we'll have a vehicle that will be easy to make dump-trips with. the car has about 120K miles on it, with 2 dogs and a baby we'd plan to use it for travel and home-depot/dump runs.

I know our Car insurance is high...H has an at-fault accident that should drop off our insurance this year. I have an at fault accident that will take another year or two to disappear.

In my state, the method for this is now to do a deed transfer, otherwise you face a penalty for trying to avoid taxes. I'd check with your DMV/DOR to see if they just want you to do a deed transfer instead of a pretend sale.

Thanks

my mom is actually looking into all the legal specifics, she also is extremely attached to the license plate number on the car (in an extreme case of coincidence 25 years ago she got a plate number that was my dad's initials and birthdate) she's trying to figure out if she can transfer that plate to her car. I live in a sales-tax free state, so I would guess it wouldn't be an issue. I think the $1 was more of a joke.

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