January Budget

How did we do??

Total Saved (of V's federal paycheck):  $45

What were the big expenses??

Food:  I spent $748 on groceries this month which is the highest our food bill has been during the 14 months I have been tracking.  Eating "real food" isn't cheap but we do feel better since eliminating most processed food from our diets.

Medical: $105 -- Most of this is due to the fact we switched pediatricians.  All 3 kids and myself had "meet and greet" doctor's appointments which we had to pay a co-pay for ($80).  Expensive switch but I do really like her so I think it is worth it.

Gas: $215

Kid stuff:  This month we spent $900 dollars on kid activities. This included preschool for Erik, 3 mornings a month for Lainey at "mothers day out", tae kwon do, gymnastics, preschool registration for next year, and a babsitter for one date night.  $900!!!  I know all these activities are optional but I want my kids to be well rounded and active.  This month was worse than normal but it still seems somewhat unbelievable how much kid stuff costs and none of my kids are in daycare or school age yet.  Yikes!

Next month we don't have nearly as many kid costs but I am going to San Francisco so that will certainly up our expenses a bit - well worth it of course!

September Budget

Total Saved: $50

What did we spent it on??

1) Food:  Over by $180
2) Household/extra: Over by $290
3) Entertainment: Over by $135
4) Fixed: Over by $70

I think this is the first month we actually were over in every column!  Great!

What were we up to?

1- Great girls night and date night (new favorite restaurant)!
2- A few new pieces of clothes for me
3-Medical - $160 ($60 from this week with poor baby Carson)
4-Victor travel - $100
5- Gas! -$300 (ouch)
6-Preschool-$275 a month from now thru April (painful but would be much worse if we still lived in the DC area)

Victor did about 10-14 days worth of Navy work which will be very helpful.  Thank you Victor for your hard work!

March Budget

Not real pretty but about the best we could possibly do I think....

Goal:  Save $500 every month from Victor's main salary

Categories:

Food: $37 over
Fixed:  $48 under
Entertainment: $4 under
Household Costs/Extra expenses: $ 580 over!!  YIKES!!

What was so expensive?

1) Healthcare!

We spent $550 on medical bills, prescriptions, doctor visits, etc. this month.  $300 was from Lainey's ENT procedure but the rest was secondary to kid sick visits and allergy medicines from Erik, Elaina, and Victor.    We have fairly good insurance too!  Yikes!

2) We had multiple other "one time" purchases that all ranged in price from $100-$150 including...

gymnastics registration for Erik and Elaina, purchased my blog book, outfitted the kids closets for spring/summer, gift for my aunt who came to help, and building a garden bed

We usually have 2-3 extra "purchases" that fall in this catergory on a monthly basis.  This month there were 5.

How much did we save?

$260 


What expenses/savings do we anticipate next month?

1- We have to buy a lawn mower!
2- Healthcare costs -- allergy expenses will be high through June or so; we have to pay for Victor's new CPAP machine
3- Yearly car maintenance on the RAV (may wait until May)
4- My birthday :)

We will be able to save our tax returns, the 3rd paycheck you get in April, and 2 months of Navy pay in April.  This will be divided amongst the kids college funds, an IRA, and the mini-van fund.

Budget 101

When Victor took his new position we knew his salary would drop.  It was somewhat inevitable as the past 3.5 years his salary has been inflated due to a generous salary "match" from GE.  By salary match I mean that GE paid us the difference between his Navy base pay and his old GE salary which amounted to 2000 a month.  GE did not take into consideration the fact that as active duty Navy you are also paid a housing allowance which was really part of his income, just lumped in a different category (plus a lot of your income is tax-free).  We informed them of this but they didn't care and paid us anyway. 

Because of this I have been able to be home with the kids with little to no financial concerns.  The first year we were out here the GE match portion of his salary went to cover our WI home which was vacant (we thought we would be back) but the last 2.5 years it has truly just been extra income. 

What did we do with that money? 

Thankfully, Victor and I have very similar financial ideas.... Save first and always spend less than you make. 

So, we invested some of the extra income.  Some went towards nice vacations, buying a new vehicle, etc.  The rest was really used on things that are not at all necessary.  I am kicking myself that we weren't MORE careful with the GE portion or better yet - wish we had just saved all of it (at least during the time that we had renters in our WI house).  But we didn't and there is nothing we can do about it now. 

Anyway, back to today...

As I mentioned before, we anticipated that Victor's salary would drop when he changed jobs unless he took some terrible job that meant he was traveling constantly.  Thankfully, Victor found a great job.  The hours are nice -- way way less than he has ever worked since we got married (still gone 11 hours a day but he is off every other Friday).  The salary is great, I would never complain about it as I KNOW most people in the US are living on less, but the drop in his take home was significant.  HUGE really! 

How much???

38.6%

SCARY!!!

Not to mention we are carrying an extra $450-500 of costs each month related to not selling the house in WI and our family is about to expand. 

So, what does this mean?  Well, in order to make sure we are still living by the ever so important principal of "Save first then spend less than you make" budgeting has become a requirement! 

I have truly never lived on a budget for more than a month or two at a time.  I like tracking our expenses and setting monthly goals though so I really don't mind.  My plan at this time is to live by a budget for the next 12 months.  Assuming we are sticking fairly close to it we will reevaluate whether or not every dollar needs tracked but I know for sure we need to be tracking now as our spending habits are going to have to shift a lot. 

I am curious how many of you are actively budgeting?

Do you have a set budget or do you just track your spending?

Any good tips on saving money?  I am already a fairly good coupon user.

I will do a monthly budget update -- letting you know how good/bad we were at saving each month.  With the next budget update I will lay out our specific monthly saving goals and how I have the budget divided.