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Friday, January 8, 2010

That time of year!

You know what I mean! The time of year I wait for, the time I yearn for! That time when I get to sit down and look at how we've done, where we're going and set goals! Yes you guessed it FINANCIAL PLANNING TIME! YEAH!!! I am that nerd. I love financial planning. It makes me perfect for my job since my job is to look at other peoples finances, tweak what I can and help them dig out! *sigh* my dream job! Anyways! This is about MY finances and this year I will be more open and honest than ever. I will trust you with my actual numbers. So here it goes. Be nice but I am wide open to any CONSTRUCTIVE criticism and any suggestions:

Income:
$827 monthly
$834
$834 (my check)
$906 (Todd's check)
$3401 TOTAL

Bills:
$725 house
$426 truck
$176 ATV
$200 credit cards (don't judge)
$130 Verizon cell phones (2 lines)
$70 cable/Internet
$200 electric
$110 heat
$170 insurance
$2207 TOTAL

Leaving a difference of $1194. I obviously had to do some rounding and estimating as our electric and phone are never the same month to month and I pay a little extra on the house, truck, ATV and credit cards. I this year will change that strategy...instead of paying a little extra to each of these, I will pay more towards the credit cards and no extra to the house, truck and ATV. Also with our tax return we will pay off one credit card, leaving us with just one credit card to concentrate on. The balance on the larger credit card is $3200 and the other is $2900. I will pay off the larger first (these credit cards didn't used to have a balance but we had to pay for Todd's truck driving school immediately or face large penalties and credit score problems - -this schooling did profit us more than cost us, even on the credit cards - my credit card will then be used for my travel with work but will be paid off immediately as I am reimbursed for travel). So that leaves $1194 for food, gas and medications (Lane's cost about $150 and mine about $25 each month). Groceries are probably $600/month (this used to be less but we pay for formula)and gas is about $200. Which leaves a gap of $300 to "play with". I will start putting this toward more savings and the credit card bill probably $100 to savings and $200 to credit cards in hopes of paying off the second credit card this year....The $200 payment I have listed is the minimum payment for both credit cards, when one is payed off, I will roll that payment over to the next one...at that rate I stand a fairly good shot at paying off the $2900 by next January and next tax season I can roll that return into my ATV payment and hopefully pay it off (we owe about $5000 on it and with paying another year on it, the pay off maybe low enough by then *cross fingers*). Ok, bring it on, what can we change or rearrange!? I'm always up for suggestions!

1 comments:

Mama_x3 said...

Just some suggestions at first glance:
- you *might* qualify for WIC just looking at your income and knowing the amt of ppl in your family- that would help w/ formula
-$130 for 2 cells seems high-- do you have a landline? We pay $90 for 2 cell phones w/ 750 minutes to share and just use our landline more often-- we pay $50/month for landline and internet (both through our cable company), and we cancelled our cable b/c it was just a time suck.
A lot of times, if you call your cable company and tell them you can't afford your bill, they'll let you in on some "specials" that are for a limited time only (like a 6 or 12 month deal) and then when they are up, you just call in for another deal. That's why our landline and internet are so low. Our landline has caller id, voicemail, callwaiting, and unlimited long distance...
good luck! And thanks for the reminder that I have to go through our budget again!