January Budget

Well, I have closed up this months expenses.  Overall, I am pleased with how we did but before I give you the results I thought I would explain how I have everything divided up.

I have been tracking every penny spent using Excel.  I have divided up our expenses into 5 different categories....

 1) Fixed expenses:  

This takes up a large portion of our income.  In this column I include...
- WI mortgage (this is covered by our renter - plus it covers most of the WI property tax)
- MD mortgage
 -WI/MD property taxes
-life/car/home insurance
-electric
-gas
-water
-church/missionaries/Compassion kids
-phone
-gym
-internet
-Erik's preschool
-401K loan repayment (we took an interest free loan out against ourselves to use as part of the down payment on house #2 which we are now repaying)

The only things that vary in this column are gas, electric, and water.  So I have this column set at a specific "expected" expense.  I won't tell you what that is but I will tell you how far above or below we are that each month.

2) Groceries:  

I set this budget at $500 a month.  This is pretty reasonable but still challenging as I like to buy as much organic, grass-fed, cage-free, etc. food as possible.  We also eat a TON of fresh fruits and veggies which can be costly.  Milk alone costs close to $50 a month as a gallon of Organic Milk is $6 here and Lainey's Rice Milk is $6/gallon.

3) Household Expenses:  

$500 a month in this column too.  This includes most daily expenses such as gas, soap, shampoo, paper products, cleaning products, anything from target, haircuts,  medicine, etc.  Gas takes up a large portion of this column.

4) Entertainment:  

$150 a month.  This includes eating out, kids activities, date nights (including the sitter), girls nights, movies, etc.


5)  "Unexpected" Expenses:

$500 a month.  This includes things that don't happen on a monthly schedule but aren't truly unexpected.  This might include medical bills, car repair, park and rec class tuition, clothes shopping, etc.

6)  Savings:

Goal:  $500 a month.

I hope that by tracking everything very closely and sticking to the above budget we will be able to save $500 a month from Victor's monthly income.  (We can go over the set parameters a bit and still do this but I set the parameters low as I know we will likely spend whatever the parameters are set at.)

In addition to the $500 a month we also hope to be able to save the 2 additional paychecks unaccounted for (I based his monthly income on 24 paychecks, not 26), any tax returns (in the past this has been around $5000), and any Navy pay.  He has 2.5 years of Navy reserve duty left before he can "retire."  This requires him to work one weekend a month plus 2 weeks a year.  The income from this is quite modest but will still help.

What are our financial goals??

YEARLY:
Fund my IRA
Continue adding to the kids college funds
Set aside for a family vacation, trip back to the Midwest, and a weekend away for Victor and I

CURRENT:
Save for a minivan
Beef up our "emergency" savings account by 1 months salary


HOW DID WE DO???

1) Fixed Column:  +184 (over)
2) Food: +49
3) Household: +20
4) Entertainment: -32
5) Unexpected: +30

Total Saved: $518

The fixed column was over significantly mainly due to the way we pay for house/car insurance.  The biggest bills are at the beginning of the year.  Gas/Electric are also probably as high as they will get.

Goals for February:
Stay under $500 for groceries.

Anticipated unexpected expenses:
Extra $200 security deposit for Erik's preschool.
Medical bill related to Erik's bout of pneumonia in December.
Possible Tubes for Lainey this month.
Highlights in my hair?!

If you made it to the end of this LOOONG post - thanks!  I am curious if anyone else wants to join the budgeting world with me?!  It is kind of fun and I feel good knowing we are being responsible with our dollars!

For those of you already budgeting and using mint.com I am wondering if that program lets you manually enter things or is it all pulled in automatically from your checking/savings/credit card accounts?  I am a slight control freak and like be able to enter things manually.  Thanks!