February Budget Review & March Goals

Wow, February sure went fast! You can read over my goals for February here.

So here's the overview:
Goal #1 - I paid all but 2 mortgages on time. Didn't quite make the goal, but I got close. When you have 12+ to pay, it can be hard to keep on top of it. I used to have them all on auto pay, but with the economy the way it is, I had to take them off because we didn't always have enough at the 1st of each month.

Goal #2 - I did pay $1000 to the MasterCard. Only $1500 left to pay it off all personal debt! Goal #3 - I didn't start working on the taxes. I really hate this task every year. It stresses me out. Maybe next month?

Goal #4 - we have decided to send Aspen to a local public school at least for now so we don't need to save for tuition right now. And drum roll please.......

Goal#5 - was the best goal of all, planning a mini-vacation! We called our mileage cards and to our shock, found out that we have enough points to go to Hawaii, not only that, we had enough left over to pay for our entire hotel stay! So far we are going to Hawaii for 5 nights, 6 days for $60 booking fee. Sweet!

I spent $262.05 on groceries, $12.05 over my $250 budget with an average savings of 60%. We stayed within our $250 eating out budget, but just barely, and spent $60 over on household items (we had to buy a new DVD player unexpectedly). I never got around to opening a separate checking account for my husband to have access to by debit card, so he did end up spending a little on credit cards for some fishing gear and a guy's night out. Not terrible, but I hope to open the account next month for him. I also received a rebate check for $25.42 from ebates.com that I put into savings. Not bad for Christmas shopping I would have done anyway!

March Goals

1. Send $1500 to Citi MasterCard - That will pay it off the balance of personal charges on the card, and we will be free from personal credit card debt! Our business still owes money to two credit cards so that will be the next challenge for us to tackle.

2. Pay all mortgages on time. See #6

3. Get tax and account info to our accountant. I really (really, really) hate this task and put it off every year. Maybe if it's in one of my goals, it will actually get done :)

4. Put $500 into savings for new-to-us car.

5. Pay off all current business charges on credit cards and send an extra $500 to the card with the lowest balance.

6. Enter mortgages and other monthly payments into online banking system to simplify the bill payment system. I'm hoping that if I do that, it will help me to pay the bills on time and not forget some of them. Since I now work the one day I used to do all the finances for the business, I have had trouble fitting that into everything else that is going on. I have been forgetting which bills I paid when, writing checks but then forgetting to send them out, forgetting to write down who's paid rent, there's weeks and weeks of unopened mail, and on and on it goes. You should see our office. It looks like a bomb has exploded in there! My next goal should be to organize the office, but I don't want to completely set myself up for failure. Baby steps, shall we?


I will be filling our cash envelops with $250 for groceries, $250 for eating out (this will be tight because I already have a girl's night plus two birthday parties on the calendar for the month), and $200 for household items.

Erika

January Budget Review & February Goals

You can see my goals for January here. We met our savings and credit card payment goals, but unfortunately, I didn't do so well with paying the mortgages. I even wrote out some of the payments (we have rental houses), but forgot to send them out before the 15th! So annoying! I am still working on retraining my husband to not use the credit card. I didn't use any credit cards for the whole month, but he doesn't pre-plan things quite as well as I do. We have decided to remedy this by opening a separate checking account that we will put part of our cash budget into for him to use a debit card to access (I don't trust him with cash!).

I stayed within budget on my household and eating out budgets. I did go over the grocery budget, but just used extra money in the eating out budget to cover that. Now that my husband is on the Atkins diet, we are not eating out very much. I have $50 left overall that I will put in our savings account. Oh, and we did pay off the Christmas credit card charges.


February Goals

1. Pay ALL mortgages on time!
2. Pay $1000 to Citi credit card
3. Start working with accountant on 2008 taxes
4. Figure out where we will send Aspen to Kindergarten - we are deciding between a local public school or a private one, and if we decide on the private one, we need to start saving for tuition.
5. Plan mini-vacation (kid free) before new baby comes (hopefully we can find a way to do this without spending too much out of pocket. We will be checking our milage credit cards to see if we have any free tickets.)

I will be giving ourselves $250 for groceries, $200 for household (includes clothes) and $250 for eating out for the month in our cash envelopes. I am finding the Atkins diet to be much more expensive than our normal diet. We are just transferring some of our eating out budget to the grocery one to balance it all out. Our eating out budget is rather large (also includes babysitting $), but spending time alone together on a regular basis is something that is every important to us. The nice thing about using a budget is that you can save in other areas so that you can spend more in the ones that are more important to you :)

January Budget Check-up

Well, it's half way through the month already. It's gone fast! I haven't been posting as much lately because I have been working a little more, and I've been a little more sick and much more tired the last couple weeks. I am nine weeks pregnant so hopefully in another month I will be feeling more like myself. You know I'm not feeling too good when I didn't even hit Albertsons last week for their get $15 when you spend $30 deal (except to get some diapers) or double any coupons with their once in a lifetime coupon doubles!

Anyways, I have $105 left in my grocery budget, $20 in my household budget and $132 in eating out. I will probably have to wait on a few things I want to get (new clothes for my daughter), but this is a want and not a need. I just love shopping for her! Also, my husband just decided that he is starting a diet. Normally this would be fine, but he is doing the Atkins diet meaning lots of meat, cheese, etc. Not the kind of stuff that has a lot of coupons associated with it. With the meat we already have in the freezer, I think we should make our budget, at least this month!

Erika

December Budget Review & January Goals

It's the end of the month, and time to see how I did with my goals and budget for the month of December. You can go here to see my goals for the month.

Food Budget: $200
Actually spent : $238.05!! and saved $290.38 for a 55% savings for the month.

Yikes, I was off by a lot, but I do have a few reasons for this. First, I had a girl's night in party at my house. Second, the snow. If you live in the Portland area you know what I'm talking about. When we were able to get out and get food, it was never when I actually had coupons with me. I am going to put my 12/31 grocery purchase toward the January budget since most if it is stock up items for the month. Third, I'm pregnant! There were a few items I had to have that were definitely not on sale.

Eating out: $300
I think we met that one, and may have a few bucks left over. It's harder to track because most places don't give you a receipt for cash purchases.

Household: $200
We met this one too. Most of this went toward Christmas gifts that were not purchased online.

So over all, I feel like we did pretty good. We paid off the credit card on our goal list, paid all mortgages before the 15th, and do have all the money saved to pay off our car. My husband wants to wait a few more weeks to pay off our car. He is waiting on a construction loan to come through, and there is a possibility that he will have to pay 6 months of interest and loan points at closing. This will be around 25k. If he has to do that, we will have to use our savings on that.
I am really bummed about that, but future household income has to come before financial goals. Especially being self-employed in this economy.


January Goals


1. Use credit cards on business expenses only
2. Pay $1000 to Citi Mastercard
3. Put $1000 into savings (this should be easy as I am working 3 extra days this month to make up for the snow and days off around Christmas and New Years)
4. Pay all mortgages by 15th of the month
5. Pay off all Christmas credit card charges



I am putting $220 into my Food envelope, $300 into my Eating Out envelope, and $200 into my Household envelope. I decided to raise my Food category a little as I am pregnant and need to give myself a little wiggle room for food aversions/cravings and the fatigue I am dealing with. Hopefully I can meet these goals!



Erika

December Budget Check-up

It's a little over half way through the month now, and I like to reevaluate how I am doing with my budget for the month at about this time. You can go here to see my goals for the month of December.


I started with $200 in my grocery budget, and at this point, I have $25 left. Yes, it will be tight! I actually had $76 up until Friday, but the snowy weather has thrown things off a bit. We were able to get out to go to coffee on Saturday morning, and on the way home my husband decided that we should get stuff to make home-made pizzas for dinner and a few other essentials if we weren't able to get out for the next few days. Of course, I didn't have any coupons with me! So hopefully I can make the rest of the money work until the end of the month.

As far as other goals, our credit card is paid off, and we have the rest of the money we needed to pay off our car. My husband wants to wait on actually paying off the car for a few more weeks. This is due to some business stuff that he is waiting to come through. So we'll see if we are able to make this goal.

Erika