Sick Day

Lainey is not feeling great.  She was extra fussy this morning but I took her temperature and it was normal so we went about life as normal.

Since noon she has refused to eat and has a fever of 101.  She took a three hour nap and has been "lethargic" ever since.  Basically laying in my arms - cries if you put her down.  She hasn't puked at all but she sure looks like she might - hence the bowl. 

One of her ears still seems to be infected despite 10 days of Augment.  I am guessing these new symptoms are due to a virus though.  We'll see.  She has an appointment with an ENT on Friday but if not better by Wednesday she will likely need to see her pediatrician before that.  Errr!  Poor kid.

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!

Church #5

We tried out a 5th church today.  It was a non-demoninational church which is what we have gone to in the past.  We liked it quite a bit and will go back again next week.  This is only the 2nd church we felt worthy of more than one visit.

Pros:

1- Type of church we are more familiar with and comfortable attending.
2-  Tons of families with young kids.
3- Lots of activities available -- game nights, movie nights, bible studies (with childcare), volleyball team, etc.
4- Very close to our house.  We walked there today.  The church just relocated- it had been meeting 30 minutes from our house which seemed a little to far for me.
5- Really friendly people.  The pastor made sure to greet us.  I saw him in the gym this afternoon and he recognized me first.  The woman in charge of the woman's ministry came up and said hi to me as well, making sure I felt welcome. Really nice!

Cons:

1- It's a young church (a church plant from a larger church) due to this they meet in an elementary school.  This isn't a big deal but for some reason it bothers me a little.  I like the comfort an actual church building provides I guess?

2-  The pastor, while kind and inviting, didn't capture our attention as well as some of the other speakers we have heard.  Hard to really evaluate this after one service though so we'll see what we think next week.


It's a pretty small church - probably 100 people in attendance (not including kids) today.  Only one service. 

Anyway, I am hoping we will like it again next week.  We'll see!